Introduction
As you can see, repentance towards God requires a significant humbling of ourselves before Him. It requires a change of mind from our own ideas to agreeing with God’s appraisal of sin — and of me as I live in sin. The next part of the equation — faith in the Lord Jesus Christ — is a matter of changing our mind to agreeing with God’s appraisal of Jesus His Son.
Up to now, it may be that our attitude towards Jesus is that He was a great man, a good teacher, a wonderful role-model, perhaps the best man that ever lived. He is that. But do you know how God sees Him? He says: “This is My beloved Son. He is the one sacrifice to take away the sins of the world.”
A working definition of faith is: Man’s awareness of and glad acceptance of his complete dependence for today and tomorrow upon a God whose care is absolute.
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| Faith that is trust |
Some people will eagerly say, “Yes! I believe in Jesus, but it doesn't make any difference to my life.” If that is your response, then you don’t believe in Jesus — not really! What you believe in is your idea of Jesus! And it is probably wrong.
Like repentance, the faith of which we speak also has three essential elements: knowledge of God, trust in God; and actual obedience to God. Faith then is, in its essence, intelligent, obedient trust. And in Acts 20:21, the other half of repentance towards God is intelligent, obedient trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Knowledge / Revelation
First, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ means knowledge – something about God and His salvation is made known (revealed) and it is
knowable:
·
Knowledge of God’s purposes and
intention for man
God’s will, God’s agenda, God’s goal, God’s aim as
well as God’s gifts
·
Knowledge of His claims upon His
creatures and the world He created
For example, Psalm 24:1; Acts 17:30; Acts 2:36; Romans
11:32
·
Knowledge of the operation of His
grace
For example, Romans 5:6-8
·
Knowledge of the life and
ministry of Jesus
For example, Ephesians 2:14-16; Romans 4 and 5:1-2;
Rev 5:1-10; Galatians 4:4-5
As a minimum, you must know that Jesus is “the sacrifice
of God who bears away the sins of the world”; you must know that God
allowed His Son to be murdered because of you and your sin; you must know that
God’s kindness is so great that He has let you live long enough to hear the
world’s best news.
Trust
Second, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ means trust –
we make a heart and soul commitment to what is known about God and His
salvation:
·
Trust that God wants to do what
He has purposed to do.
He wants to live up to his word and his promises to
rescue us from our dire situation
·
Trust that He is well able to do
it.
He is capable; he is powerful
·
Trust that Jesus, in his life and
ministry, is perpetually acceptable to God on our behalf.
Hebrews 9:27-28: “Just as man is destined to die
once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take
away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear
sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
·
Trust that that which Jesus has
secured is wholly sufficient to present a sinner before God and set him totally
free to serve God gladly.
2 Timothy 1:12: “That is why I am suffering as I
am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced
that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.”
Obedience
Third, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ means obedience
– action that befits the truth believed in and committed to about God and His
salvation:
·
The bible call this “the
obedience of faith”
It means (on the basis of the knowledge we have),
trusting in God to the extent that we actually
and unreservedly cast ourselves upon Him. In other words: if He doesn’t come through,
then there is no hope.
By ‘obedience’ is not meant simply doing what God says
as in laws and precepts only, but rather active expression of the trust we have
just referred to.
Trust becomes faith, for example, when a child leaps
from a tree to the waiting arms of his father.
The trust may well have been there without the leap, but it was faith
when he leapt, knowing full well his father’s sufficiency for the job of
catching him. In this way, true faith is
never “a leap in the dark".
The Example of Abraham (Genesis
15 & 22):
Abraham
believed God and trusted God, but his belief and trust became faith when he
obeyed. The obedience of faith was
operating.
He obeyed
God when God told him to sacrifice his son on the altar because he knew God was capable of raising
his son from the dead; and he trusted
that God could and would do it, so he acted in obedience.
The
result?
·
God’s
appraisal of Abraham was that his combined knowledge, trust and obedience was faith and
·
God
counted Abraham as justified.
The Teaching of James (the brother of Jesus):
In his letter to Christians written in the first
century, James’ strong word was “faith without works is dead”. Much argument has erupted from this statement
and even in the days of the first apostles, the question was asked, “Was
Abraham justified by his faith or by his deeds?”
James said he was justified by his actions; Paul said
he was justified by faith. What is the
answer? Concerning James we need to
understand that actions demonstrate faith.
You can tell faith is present because actions are present. Concerning Paul we need to understand the
Jewish concept that faith includes action. You cannot claim to be living in faith if
your so-called faith does not include appropriate action.
In other words, for us, there has to be a complete
switch from trusting in our own ideas or our own goodness in order to be
acceptable to God and trust completely and only in Jesus. Paul and James are actually in agreement.
How Faith Works
In the light of what we’ve seen so far, faith
for salvation is knowledge of the truth, trust in the truth
and obedience (fitting/appropriate action) to the truth.
The scriptures, in the first instance, teach us that Jesus himself is the truth. He is the one to know, trust and obey — and
the scriptures are given so that we might know him.
Second,
it refers to the truth related to Jesus forgiving sin, making righteous,
satisfying God’s demands on our behalf and imparting the life of God, the Holy
Spirit. We need to know, trust and obey
that too.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-15: How is one saved?
“But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers
loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through
the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.
He called you to this through our gospel, that you
might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the
teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”
Only sons of the Father get to share in the glory and
the inheritance of the Father. It stands
to reason that we must become sons and, as we have seen earlier, that’s what
salvation is all about. And it is the
work of the Spirit in us. So it is
indeed true that we are saved:
- by the work of the Spirit making us like Jesus (sanctifying us) and
- by faith in the truth
In the last section, we saw that repentance amounts to
our death. In the same way, faith
amounts to our life. It’s like a
resurrection for us, only this time it is not my old life revived, it is the
installation of the life of Christ in me.
That’s why Paul could say in Galatians 2:20:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer
live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Faith then is to agree with God’s assessment of Jesus:
- to believe the truth about him
- to trust that what he said he will do
- to stake your life on it (which is faith) And so we will live!
Cheers,
Kevin.
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