Saving Faith

Last week I started a short, two-sermon series. It had occurred to me that it would be good to talk about a phrase that shows up in many of my sermons: repent and believe. That simple phrase summarizes what it means to be a Christian. The ongoing practice of repenting and believing is the key to how you are to live. Last week I spoke to you about repentance. This week, as promised, the sermon will be about faith. What are you to do when I call you to believe? What is faith supposed to look like? I won’t be dealing primarily with one passage of Scripture. Instead, I will point to several different places in Scripture that will help to explain what it means to believe.

I’m going to begin this week in the same place that I began last week. I’m going to talk about counterfeits. You need to remember that not every kind of faith will save. Some kinds of faith are counterfeits. So, there is the true faith that saves, and then there are all the other kinds of faith that don’t.

Let me give you some examples. First, there is the parable of the four soils. Jesus pictured the Gospel as seed that was planted on four kinds of soil. He taught that each of these soils represent a different kind of response to the Gospel. The first soil’s response was no response. But the three other soils did respond. In each of these three soils the seed sprouted. The Gospel took root. There was faith. In fact, Jesus tells us that the second soil received the Gospel ‘with joy’. There wasn’t just some response. There was an emotional response, a very positive response. But even though the second and third soils responded in faith, they ultimately came to nothing. Their response of faith was not a response of saving faith. These were counterfeit faiths. It was only the fourth soil that responded with a true faith. And so, it is only those who respond with that kind of faith that are saved.

Another example comes from the Gospel of John. This is what John wrote, ‘So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him…’ Jesus is having a conversation with people who believe in Him. Please note that it is John who labels them as believers. But as we read further into this conversation we find this from Jesus’ lips. ‘You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.’ Whatever else might be said of these men, it is clear that they are not followers of Jesus. They are not among the saved. Clearly, these people had a kind of faith that did not save. Their believing was counterfeit.

And then, as one last example, there were those who had faith enough to do miracles in Jesus’ name. And yet, they were denied entrance into heaven by Jesus Himself. Do you remember what He said? ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Their faith was a powerful faith, but it was not saving faith. There are more examples, but these make the point. Not every faith is saving faith. Not every faith saves. There are counterfeits.

Now, why do I stress this kind of thing? One advantage of getting older is that there is the opportunity to see some things more clearly. And one thing that I see more clearly is that there are many who respond to the preaching of the Gospel, sometimes with great joy, but not with a saving faith. There are many who assert that they believe in Jesus but actually have Satan as their father. Some of them have powerful things happen in their lives, but their faith is counterfeit. I don’t lay claim to any special knowledge or insight. Sometimes, all you need do is wait. After the excitement of conversion calms down and the reality of life in a fallen world confronts, the true colors of some are revealed. It may take five years or ten or even twenty or thirty, but the truth often shows. Emotional conversions, moral reformation, a bold witness for Jesus and lots of other changes do not prove that there is saving faith. There are counterfeits. And many are fooled.

There are reasons why these things happen. For one thing, few today understand what saving faith is. Just as true repentance is more than saying, ‘I’m sorry’, saving faith is more than saying, ‘I believe’. Jesus requires more. And sad to say, there are many who have never been taught this. Another reason why people don’t take the danger of counterfeits to heart is that most folk today have been taught to be active and doing. And while that is all well and good, we also need to stop and assess. There need to be times when we consider the health of our souls. It is commonly assumed that if we are busy doing religious sorts of things then it must mean that all is well with our souls. It must mean that the faith that we have is the real thing, saving faith. But the Bible is the story of lots of people who were busy doing religious things and still ended up in hell. They were fooled by counterfeits. One of the goals of my ministry among you is to do all that I can so that none of you are fooled.

I cannot make you stop and take these things seriously. That’s a fact that I need to accept. But I can warn you about them. At least then I can stand before Jesus on the Last Day and tell Him, ‘Lord, you told me to warn them, and I did.’ I would love to be able to add to that, ‘And they listened, and they are all here.’ That would be a great joy for me.

Let’s move on to another thought. Just like repentance, saving faith is a matter of the heart. The key is not what someone says, though that is important. And the key is not what that person does though that is also important. The key is what is going on in the heart. So, we have this from Romans 10. ‘… if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.’ To confess your faith is clearly important. But it is worthless if the heart is not also engaged. The heart must believe.

And that, of course, leads to this. What is the heart to do? What does a heart that truly believes look like? Listen to this from the Gospel of John. ‘But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…’ John is writing about believing in Jesus. But notice how he repeats that idea. He uses the language of belief, to believe in Jesus’ name, but He also writes about receiving Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to receive Him. Saving faith is more than interacting with some facts. It’s interacting with Jesus Himself.

Consider this. Saving faith has three parts to it. The first is knowledge. You cannot believe the Gospel without knowing the Gospel. So, there are things to know. Secondly, you need to give your assent to these things that you know about the Gospel. You need to agree that what you know of the Gospel is true. There are plenty of people who have read the Bible, know something of what it says and don’t think any of it is true. So, one needs to agree that the Gospel is true. But even that isn’t enough. There is the third part, trust. Someone with saving faith also entrusts himself to Jesus. The devil knows the Gospel better than any of us, and he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it’s all true. But he obviously does not have saving faith. He does not entrust himself to Jesus. So, are there things for you to know? Absolutely! Faith without knowledge is mysticism. Do you need to consider these things to see that they really are true? To be sure. But knowledge and assent to the truthfulness of that knowledge do not add up to saving faith. Because of what you know and because you know it to be true, you must then have dealings with Jesus. You must receive Him. You must entrust yourself to Him. Saving faith includes heart-to-heart dealings with Jesus. And that means honest conversations with Him. It means telling Him that you need Him since you cannot save yourself. It means talking to Him about the state of your soul and how your only hope is if He acts. The Psalmists do this all the time. They are your model. Knowledge does not save, even knowledge of the truth. Only Jesus can save. So, saving faith includes dealings with Jesus. We tell Him our need and entrust ourselves to Him to save.

Let me develop that by asking a question: Why should we entrust ourselves to Jesus? What is to motivate us? This ties in because motivation is a matter of the heart. Here, let me read something from Paul. ‘… the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. … [But] God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ The key issue here is about ‘seeing’. Paul isn’t writing about seeing with the eyes. This more like David’s cry, ‘Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.’ Paul is talking about what he refers to elsewhere as seeing with the eyes of the heart. People who see in this sense are those who really do get the Gospel. They understand it, not just with the mind but also with the heart. They see. And what they see is, ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’. I’m not going to take that apart to show the details. The idea of ‘glory’ is at the core of what I’m after here. And I’m going to translate the church word ‘glory’ into something more familiar. A person’s glory is what stands out about him. It is this glory that draws people to him. It’s what makes him attractive. It might be his gentleness, or his good sense of humor and hearty laugh, or his compassion. These kinds of things are attractive. They reveal the beauty of this person. So, I’m going to translate ‘glory’ by the word ‘beauty’. Paul is writing about the beauty of God. This is what people see when they have saving faith. In this he agrees with David who wrote, ‘One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.’ Paul’s ministry was all about the beauty of God. And where is the beauty of God seen? ‘In the face of Jesus Christ.’ There are things about Jesus that make Him so attractive to sinners like us. We see His beauty.

So, back to our question. Why should we entrust ourselves to Jesus? And the answer is clear; because we see in Him the beauty of God. In Jesus we see God’s goodness, gentleness, abundant mercy, amazing patience. We see His justice and grace. We see His holiness and love. We see in Jesus the beauty of God. When we are confronted by our sin and its ugliness and death and sorrow, what a comfort it is to look to, to receive again, to believe in, Jesus, our beautiful Savior who rescues from all of that. Our heart reaches out and responds to His heart. Knowledge. Assent. Trust.

So, have I reached my goal for this sermon? Do you see a little more clearly what saving faith is? Do you see in more personal terms what it means to believe in Jesus with a true faith, a faith that saves? Because of what you know to be true about the Gospel you are drawn to Jesus as the beautiful Savior that He is. You entrust yourself, body and soul, into His gentle yet powerful hands. And you grow in your assurance that this is a true faith and not some counterfeit because as you come to Him time and again you see His beauty more and more clearly, and your love for Him, your attachment to Him, grows. He becomes for you ‘the chief among ten thousand’ and more precious than anyone else. And you resolve, with more and more passion, to follow Him anywhere.

Now, the point of all of this is to help you see that phrase, repentance and faith, more clearly. So, what is it that I am calling you to when I tell you to repent and believe? You see your sin as the sin that it is. You see it as offensive to your God and ugly to you. You see it as something you yearn to be free of. Then, you see Jesus in His beauty as the Savior who can deal with your sin, free you from its hold and make you beautiful, too. As you see these things you are drawn to Jesus. You turn away from your sin and you turn toward Him. You have dealings with Jesus, heart to heart. And you ask Him for forgiveness and change. And you do this assured that He will grant it. Having interacted with Jesus in this way, you return to life, full of joy, ready to obey. You have tasted and seen, once again, that the Lord is good. This is repentance and faith. And it is the key to living life well.