Blessed Lord, we thank You Father once again; thank you Lord, for giving us the opportunity to worship in your presence. You know Father, all about our internal makeup Lord, things we go through during the day Father, during the week Lord; and You are gracious to allow us sufficient time, time to get ourselves together so that we can focus on You Lord. Thank You, Lord, for Your mercy and Your kindness. Thank You, Lord, for the different words You have given us and the music so that we can worship You in spirit and in truth. Thank You, Lord, for giving us the opportunity to reflect on the very words that we sing unto You. Lord, help us always to make it personal so that we can be genuine in our worship before You. Help us to have penitent hearts always that we may walk worthy of Your awesome name. We thank You, Father God. Open the ears of our understanding, I pray, of all of us Lord, that we can gain something even now Lord that will benefit us for all eternity. In Jesus' name we ask You, thank you, Father. Amen!
The Topic is, The Faith That Saves, and the definition of faith, many people say, it's a belief. And it is a belief and it is a conviction, it is a walk, it is a life, and faith is defined in Hebrews Chapter 11. Many Christians will go and point right there to Hebrews 11 verse 1 which says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” [King James Version] That is true. But if it is something that is tangible as a substance and it’s our belief that Jesus Christ is our Savior and based on our weight on that profound truth we get salvation, what more is involved? That is the question.
What is the faith that actually saves? Ephesians 2:8 says this, " For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” [New King James Version] And many many people take that verse and they praise God for the grace that is given, that grace he gave us, the grace to begin with. He imparted that faith to us and we are thankful for that. We will be eternally grateful for that. It is a gift; but what about obedience? This question has been controversial to many many groups all over the world who are in churches, who do bible studies, and who are teaching the Word of God. And the Word of God is very clear but sometimes we complicate it and we take the meaning from God's Word and compromise it.
So Ephesians says it is by grace but it goes on to say in Chapter 5, Paul says this by the Holy Spirit, Chapter 5 beginning Verse 1, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” We have to follow Him. But lest someone says, “Of course, I should follow Him but that doesn’t determine my eternal destiny. It’s just a plus point as it were.”
He goes on to say this [King James Version]
"And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, (these are talking about sexually immoral) nor covetous man, (those who want the things of this world. They are in love with this world and the things they can get in this world and they have a greed for that. They want more and more what others have also.) nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”
That verse right there, the last verse leaves no question, no doubt that when the Apostle says by the Holy Spirit "Follow God as dear children"; he is saying the consequence of not following God which is the same as saying obeying Him or truly and genuinely believing in him. The consequence of not having a faith that works, a faith that obeys is being outside of the kingdom of God, not being able to enter into the kingdom of God. So faith is not just one-time obedience even. It is the continuance of a lifestyle of obedience.
Way back in Exodus 19:5-6 it says this in Old Testament, the Lord Says inExodus 19:5-6, [King James Version]
5. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant (my agreement, my commandments), then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
6. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
The same verses are carried over to the New Testament, with Apostle Peter writing the very same thing. So no one can say that the demand of God on Mount Sinai for obedience is restricted to Old Covenant because Peter brings the same thing to the New Testament. He says, “You want to be a peculiar treasure, specially chosen of God, a kingdom of priests?” then Peter himself says, “You have to purify yourselves by obedience.”
Romans 2:8, says this, [King James Version] “But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath.”
He is talking of the Jews and the Old Covenant but He says even the gentiles which include most of us, if not all. And the gentiles also through their works show whether they have genuine faith or genuine belief. So here's a faith that saves only because it has works. So it is not the works that saves a man by itself as some people do charity work and other deeds that they feel good about; the works are good, they could be good however they cannot save the man. But when the faith comes in by believing in Jesus, the Spirit of God begins that workmanship working out of obedience to God's law automatically.
And a few weeks ago or a couple of months ago, we dealt with spiritual progress and the two commandments - Loving God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength; and Loving the neighbor as you love yourself. We went to that because that is the foundation of obedience in general. “Out of the love for the neighbor,” it says in Romans clearly, “We don't take advantage of the neighbor, we don't do ill to the neighbor.” So all of the law is summed up compactly in the commandment to love God and love the neighbor. So the faith that works is going to obey God's commandments in love, and He says in Hebrews 5:9 speaking of Jesus and then bringing us into that picture at the same time, he says, “And being made perfect, he (Jesus) became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that, "believe in him?" - it doesn't say that, it says, obey him.”
Now it is implied that whenever the Lord uses the word, "Believe in Me; have faith in Me" obedience is, you can say, organically in a living way connected to that belief. Without obedience there is no faith, it’s a dead faith. We will see that later on in the book of James. This is important because we have to keep reminding ourselves against teachings that are not actually strictly the Word of God, and they bring in other things that make us lax and relax our guard in obeying God's Truth.
God is very particular about obedience in our lives. And it is not just a bunch of commandments but within our conscience, the Holy Spirit will bring certain things up, that is why you see people who are having certain hobbies, let's say and there is no such law written in the Bible against those hobbies, they may even seem neutral to some, but when the Spirit of the Lord comes in, He may say, "I don't want this in your life because it is becoming a distraction, it is becoming an idol.” Now that is obedience to the Spirit of God, to God Himself. So obedience continually shows God that we love Him, that we belong to Him and we are led by His Spirit.
Jesus’ verdict about the disobedience of so-called Christians who say they believe in Christ, they may go to Church, they may even preach the gospel such as I am doing now, but nonetheless in their conscience, in their hearts, they compromise and disobey God in many different issues. Others cannot see it but they know what they are doing inside and God knows. But because God is so gentle and patient and because He doesn't come immediately and punish, people take advantage of God and it is sad to say, we may be doing the same thing. We have to examine ourselves. We have to say "God, You are a holy and awesome God. I don't want to leave anything undone that You say to do and I don't want to do anything that You don't want me to do.” That awesome respect of the worship of Jesus Christ, the One Who sits on the throne and the One Who in Revelation, Who has the flaming eyes, the flames of fire, the One before Whose face the islands flee, it says the wrath of the Lamb in Revelation.
If God didn't want us to hear those words and all He said was "I just love you, I don't want you to worry about punishment at all. Let me just give you certain words in the bible to help you, my children, to just enjoy my love until I come for you, then He would never have the warnings. He would never have the awesome display of His power, of His wrath against ungodliness. He would never have that. But He put all these things together just like at Sinai so that He can know whether we will fear Him or not. God still wants us to obey Him, we have to obey Him. So Jesus' verdict about so-called Christians who disobey Him, it's startling but this is what He says "They are good for nothing". That's a very striking statement from the Son of God. But it's in the scriptures.
The Lord never says things to hurt us, He never says things without having a purpose. And because He is love, He wants to jolt us into repentance after we see our true state before Him. Jesus is all Love, but He is also the Truth. So, He will always give an honest appraisal of our true condition to help us to become righteous and stay righteous so that we can make it to heaven.
We trust that the Lord has blessed you with this message and that you would examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith, the genuine faith as it is revealed by the Holy Scriptures. May the Holy Spirit take the message and work it out for your good, both now and forever. May God richly bless you, dear friends, until next time. Please join us for Part 2 of The Faith That Saves.
