Word of Salvation – October 2018
B.C.22 – What Is This Thing Called Faith?
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Reading: Romans 4:1-8 & Ephesians 2:1-10
Text: Ephesians 2:8,9 & B.C. art 22 –
Introd: When it comes to faith there are some problems Christians often struggle with.
Let me mention two specific problems.
1) I have often spoken to people who are concerned about the quality of their faith.
They are always wondering whether their faith is strong enough and real enough.
The upshot of it is that they are never really sure about their salvation.
Maybe their faith just isn’t good enough.
2) There are some contemporary songs that misunderstand faith and add to the previous problem.
Songs that put the emphasis on our faith.
“Put your hope in the faith God has put in your heart…!”
Is it right for us to do that – to put our hope in the faith God has put in our heart…?
To help us work through those issues we need to understand what faith is.
That’s especially important because faith is the link between the gospel and my daily life.
Let me put it this way: The gospel is about OBJECTIVE (out there) realities.
The gospel concerns the doing, the dying and the victory of Jesus Christ.
But how does that objective (out there) reality impact me subjectively (in here)?
Or to put it another way:
How can the saving work of Jesus – accomplished 2000 years ago help me today?
How can it actually save me and help me to live the Christian life?
The answer given by Scriptures and echoed by our Confession is: faith!
There is no other way than by faith only.
So let’s consider what this thing called faith really is.
A] THE SOURCE OF THIS FAITH.
1. The first thing we see about this faith is that it has its source in God!
In a way – that is surprising.
There are many calls in Scripture for us to believe.
In John’s gospel Jesus constantly rebukes the Jews for not believing in Him.
In other words Scripture constantly reminds us of our responsibility.
Your obligation is to trust in Jesus and in His saving work.
So preachers and evangelists have emphasised that for centuries.
They say: Okay! Jesus died for you 2000 years ago… that is an historical fact.
But whether or not that now actually helps you, depends on your faith.
Repent and believe the gospel.
But I read a tract by one evangelist that put the whole matter much more strongly.
He said: God did all that He could possibly do for us on Calvary when Jesus died.
And now God’s hands are tied. He waits to see now how you will respond.
He calls you to place your trust in Jesus so that He can then save you.
But God can do nothing more until you believe.
Many today are teaching precisely this.
God provided for our salvation…. gratis… freely… out of grace.
You cannot work for it or earn it… only Jesus could do it.
God made it available… but now it is up to you what you do with that salvation.
God calls on you to repent and believe the gospel.
2. So there are these two Biblical teachings:
OTOH the Bible calls us to faith.
It faces us squarely with our responsibility to ACCEPT the gospel.
OTOH it also tells us that FAITH is a GIFT FROM GOD.
In Eph. 2:8 Paul says: “…it is by grace you have been saved through faith.”
But then – significantly – he adds: “And this is not from yourselves, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD.
IOW God not only provided for our salvation 2000 years ago OBJECTIVELY (out there).
But God also provides for my salvation SUBJECTIVELY (here and now in my own life).
God PROVIDES salvation.
But God also APPLIES salvation to His children.
How? By giving faith as a gift to us.
That is a mysterious work of God the Holy Spirit.
It is the mystery of the new birth.
We could look at several examples of that.
Turn with me to Acts 16 – where Paul preaches the gospel but God gives the faith.
(Could also examine John 3 and what Jesus says to Nicodemus.)
<<< Read Acts 16:14 >>>
So when you suddenly found that all the bits of the puzzle of life…
….all the various strands of the truth of the gospel…
…when it all fell into place and you embraced Jesus Christ with a believing heart…
…then that was NOT your doing, but it was God’s doing.
The source of your faith is God and God alone.
It is not something you worked up at all.
The Holy Spirit kindled it in your heart.
And suddenly you saw the truth of the great mystery of the gospel.
Faith was God’s gift to you.
3. Now you may say:
Okay, but how do we reconcile that with the Bible’s call to faith?
Why then does the Bible even bother facing us repeatedly with the call to faith?
Why does it command us to repent and believe…. why does it call us to live by faith?
OTOH we see that faith is a gift of God the Holy Spirit… only He can give us faith.
OTOH God tells me that I am fully responsible for whether or not I believe.
We could put it this way:
The unbeliever is called to believe the gospel (like the Philippian jailer in Acts 16).
The non-Christian receives a clear command to accept Jesus by faith.
Therefore it is right that preachers call for decisions.
(It is another matter HOW that is done.)
It is right because God Himself constantly calls us thru the gospel.
And yet when a person actually becomes a Christian… finally believes in Jesus…
then he or she suddenly realises, “Hey, that really wasn’t my doing.”
Even that faith that I thought was mine was something God gave me.
Of myself I would never have believed it.
` That a man dying 2000 years ago could actually pay for my sins.
There is a story that comes out of the Welsh Revivals.
An evangelist had been holding meetings for a whole week in a village.
And every evening of the mission Bill, the town’s derelict was there right in the front row.
Often visibly moved by the preacher – but never coming forward to make his peace with God.
On the final night the evangelist met him on the way to the meeting.
He said: Bill, you come from a Christian home and you’ve been here every evening.
Why don’t you accept Jesus in faith?
Bill replied: If God wants to give me faith He will and if not then there’s nothing I can do about it.
Maybe it isn’t even His will for me to have faith… maybe I don’t belong to the elect.
The evangelist asked: Bill, where do you read about election and about faith as a gift?
Bill knew enough of his Bible to say: In the epistles, the letters.
The evangelist said,
Bill, those letters were written to Christians. You read your own mail.
Read the gospels where you are called to repent and believe.
IOW – Scripture calls YOU to face YOUR responsibility to believe in Jesus.
And when you do that you also realise:
That God the Holy Spirit kindled faith in your heart in the first place.
B] THE FUNCTION OF FAITH.
1. There is another strong point that Paul makes in Ephesians 2.
He tells us that this is NOT BY WORKS.
We know that very well – it has been drummed into us from the pulpit.
We are not saved by our law-keeping… nor by our good deeds of kindness.
But the problem is that we can fall back into good works in a very subtle way.
That happens when we see faith as a good work that God rewards.
It goes like this: The Lord looks down out of heaven and sees that John Westendorp believes.
And that the Lord says,
“Well, that’s good that he believes the gospel of the death and the victory of Jesus.
Now I’ll reward him for that by saving him from sin and damnation.”
No! Faith is NOT a good work that God rewards.
And yet sometimes we still try to sneak good works in…. often in an even more subtle way.
Let me illustrate.
Imagine you come home from work and sit down to the evening meal.
But during the day something really incredible and quite extraordinary happened.
And so you start telling your family about it.
But you can tell by the looks on their faces that they don’t believe you.
The kids interrupt: “Come on dad, stop pulling our leg.”
And your wife says: “That didn’t really happen, did it, honey?”
Nobody believes you.
That doesn’t make you feel good towards your family.
But then your youngest one pipes up and says, “Daddy, I believe you.”
That really deserves an extra kiss and a cuddle.
When people believe us that makes us feel good towards them.
Let me stress that this is not the way it is with God.
It is not so – that He feels very positive about some people
who against all odds believe the great mystery of the gospel.
And that now for that reason He saves them.
2. We should not think that there is something magical about faith either.
As though there were some mysterious power inherent in faith itself.
Faith is simply a mental attitude of trust in God.
It is confidence and assurance in God’s promises…. it is resting in Him.
So when we talk about being right with God by faith
we do NOT mean that there is something in faith that makes us right with God.
It is not your trust… your belief that saves you.
Neither is it the source or the ground of our salvation.
The only ground or source of salvation is Jesus and Him crucified.
Nothing more than that and nothing less than that.
Our Reformed confessions speak of faith as an INSTRUMENT.
It is the means by which we embrace Christ who alone is our righteousness.
It is the channel thru which the benefits of what Jesus did 2000 years ago, flow to us here and now.
That is the Biblical way of speaking.
The N.T. constantly uses a small word in front of faith… the word THRU… or BY…
It is not faith that saves us… but we are saved THRU faith.
3. I like to think of it in terms of receiving a birthday present (I’m sure you’ll see the comparison)
Next time it’s your birthday and someone offers you a gift put your hands behind your back.
And keep them there… firmly!
While your hands are behind your back thank your friend… or your wife or child for the gift.
Be very profuse in your thanks: “How lovely that you thought of me!”
What a wonderful way of helping me celebrate my birthday!.
But don’t take your hands away from behind your back.
That’s absurd… you’ll never appreciate or enjoy a gift that way.
It is only as you stretch out your hands and receive it that you actually benefit from that gift.
And it is absurd for us not to do that.
That is the kind of relationship that exists between our faith and our salvation.
Calvin said: Faith is the empty hand stretched out to receive God’s gifts.
But… the gifts do not come to you BECAUSE you stretch out your hands.
When it’s your birthday you can walk around all day with your hands stretched out
but that doesn’t mean someone is going to drop something into them.
You didn’t get your birthday gift because you walked up to the giver with your hands outstretched.
You received it only because of the love of the giver.
And your hands outstretched was only the means whereby you took that gift to yourself.
Or let’s look at it another way.
The fact that you stretched out your hands to take hold of your gift
can never – in our wildest imagination – be interpreted as meaning
that we thereby EARNED what we received.
You cannot say: Well, I deserve it because I held my hands out for it.
Neither can we ever say: I deserve God’s forgiveness because I believe!
No! God’s offer of forgiveness is free and undeserved – totally and absolutely.
But I reach out to receive that as a gift with the empty, outstretched hand of faith.
Faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ.
It is the means whereby we keep in constant communion with Him.
Faith is what binds us to our Saviour.
C] THE OBJECT OF FAITH.
1. That leads us to yet one other thing that we need to say about faith.
And that is to talk about the OBJECT of our faith. If faith is an instrument then it has to have an object.
So what is it that our faith focuses upon? What does faith trust in… or rest on?
At the risk of becoming absurd let’s return once more to the analogy of the birthday present.
And now I’m going to take it to a ridiculous extreme.
My wife stands there with this beautiful gift all nicely wrapped.
And as I reach out to receive that gift I say to myself:
Westendorp, what nice hands you have…!
And the way you reached out… such a fine manoeuvre…!
Let’s just do it again..! Such a fine gesture, excellently performed.
Meanwhile my wife is standing there holding out the gift…
She thinks I’ve gone crazy.
Only an ego-maniac would act like that.
2. In reality it isn’t like that at all.
What really happens is that all my attention is focused on that gift and the one who gives it to me.
And if my hands are a little grubby… who cares?
And if the finger nails are dirty and need clipping, why worry?
And if my actions are a little clumsy… what does it matter?
All that matters is the gift… the gift I am about to receive.
And the only thing more important than that is the love of the giver.
It is not my hands where my attention is focused.
My attention is focused on that present and on the one who gave it.
In the same was we as Christians should stop looking at our own faith.
That is egotistical and it is introverted!
And yet we Christians constantly slip into the trap of doing just that.
We wonder whether our faith is good enough… or strong enough… or genuine enough.
And when we do that it is like focusing on our hands instead of on the gift.
3. The focus of our faith is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.
And we are to look to Him and not to our faith.
Our hope is in Him… and not on the faith God has put in our hearts.
The whole object of your faith and mine is Jesus Christ and His saving work.
That is spelled out in the context of Ephesians 2 – in the verses 1 to 6.
All my attention is to be riveted on the all-sufficient work of Christ on Calvary.
Jesus is the gift who is more than sufficient for all my needs.
And as I look to that wonderful gift that by faith I receive
then it is fully able to make me right with God… now and forever.
Christ crucified is the gift sufficient to acquit me of all my sins.
It is as you focus on that gift… that God’s justifying grace in Christ becomes yours
and all the riches of Jesus Christ flow into your life now and for all eternity.
Today the Lord calls us once again to live by faith.
To come to God and to keep on coming to Him with our empty, outstretched hands of faith.
And He has promised that when we do that He will fill us with all the fullness of Christ.
Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.