Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Thomas Watson on How Faith is Wrought

How is faith wrought?

By the blessed Spirit; who is called the "Spirit of grace," because he is the spring of all grace (Zech 12:10). Faith is the chief work which the Spirit of God works in a man's heart. In making the world God did but speak a word—but in working faith he puts forth his arm (Luke 1:51). The Spirit's working faith is called, "The exceeding greatness of God's power" (Eph 1:19). What a power was put forth in raising Christ from the grave when such a tombstone lay upon him as the sins of all the world—yet he was raised up by the Spirit. The same power is put forth by the Spirit of God, in working faith. The Spirit irradiates the mind, and subdues the will. The will is like a garrison, which holds out against God: the Spirit with sweet violence conquers, or rather changes it; making the sinner willing to have Christ upon any terms; to be ruled by him as well as saved by him.

Making Sure Christ is the Object of Our Faith

Some folks tend to reduce the Christian faith to nothing more than a way of life. They contend it doesn't really matter what exactly you believe, so long as you live a Christian lifestyle. Still others seem to suggest that what you do doesn't really matter, it's just acknowledging the right set of facts (i.e., that Jesus died for my sins) that counts.

In response to both ends of this spectrum, Michael Horton posted a good article yesterday at The White Horse Inn's blog, Out of the Horse's Mouth. In it he makes the point,

According to Scripture, the object of our faith is neither our actions or our knowledge, but the person of Jesus Christ. Of course, trusting a person involves knowledge and assent, but we’re saved by Christ, not by doctrines. The purpose of the doctrine is to direct us to the right person and to keep us looking to him until that day when faith yields to sight.

 He continues:

Faith is not mere assent to truths, much less blind submission. It’s trust in Christ. To trust in someone, you have to know something about them and have some confidence that they can do what they promise. However, faith is not saving as a virtue in itself, but because it embraces Christ who is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. A weak faith clings to a strong Savior. 

 Click here to read the rest of the article.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Iain Campbell on Faith

"Faith is the work of the Spirit of Christ, illuminating our minds as he unites us to our Lord. Such work is deep: it is of the heart in order that it might be in the mind, worked in the subconscious before it can become a genuine matter of the intellect. Such faith may often be assailed by doubt, but believers cannot finally be shaken out of their confidence in Christ."

Iain Campbell
Zeal for Godliness: Devotional Meditations on Calvin's Institutes

Receiving the Kingdom Like a Child

Last night at dinner I was sharing with my family an idea I had for a sermon from Joshua 2 and the story of Rahab and the spies. I know, don't you wish you could have dinner at our house?

Anyway, I was making the point that in order to believe what God has done, we must first hear about it. But simply hearing about it is not enough; many hear the message of God's mighty works and still refuse to believe. This calls into question why some believe and others do not.

I went on to share with my family my thoughts on the matter. It seems to me that if some hearers believe, while there are others who do not, there are really only three explanations. I put the three options in the first person for purposes of illustration:

1. I am smarter than all those non-believers, and as a result was able to figure out what they had not figured out.
2. I am better than all those non-believers, and therefore did not have my judgment clouded by sin the way they did.
3. By his grace and for his own purposes, God chose to work savingly in me in a way that he did not work in non-believers.

As the third option was still rolling off my tongue, my seven year old daughter blurted out, "I'll take the last one!" Yes, indeed, my daughter knows me well: I am neither smarter nor better than most people. But more importantly than knowing the nature of her earthly father, I am thankful that she also knows the nature of her heavenly one!

"Get Behind Me, Satan!"

Wednesday night I had the opportunity to preach from Mark 8:31-38, the passage where Peter rebukes Jesus for his talk of suffering and dying, and Jesus, in turn, rebukes Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Though we have, by the grace of God, been given eyes to see, our vision is often blurred. That is what happened with Peter and that is the message that stands behind Jesus’ healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26) just before this passage.

The reason we often suffer from this condition is quite simply, we fail to focus on God. Jesus puts it this way in verse 33, "You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

The Things of God are Counter-intuitive (vv. 31-33)
In all fairness to Peter (and at the risk of making excuses for ourselves), it is somewhat understandable (though not acceptable) that we would fail to focus on the things of God. After all, the things of God are counter-intuitive.

Jesus was the Messiah, the One who (in the expectations of the disciples) was supposed to come in power and glory, defeating Israel’s enemies and providing true freedom and lasting peace. Yet here was Jesus talking instead about how he was going to suffer and be rejected and die.
This made no sense to the disciples who had a plan that was altogether different.  But having heard Peter’s accurate confession of him as the Christ (Mark 8:29), Jesus is now going to correct the inaccuracies of Peter’s expectations and plans for the Messiah.

This prompts me to consider this: How often do I need to have my expectations adjusted by God and how often do I insist on my plan instead of trusting in his plans? I saw the movie Adjustment Bureau last night, and at the heart of the plot is a couple who are trying to change the destiny that has been assigned to them by God, referred to in the movie as a mysterious character called “The Chairman.”

It occurred to me that I understand (and all too often share) their desire to want what they want and to think they know better than God what’s best for them. But the Christian’s view of God ought to be so much different.

Whereas in the movie, God was mysterious and unknowable, our God has made himself (and his love) known in the person of Jesus Christ. And unlike the characters in the movie, not only can we know God, we can also know, “that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28), even when our finite minds can’t understand what that purpose might be.

The Things of God are Costly (vv. 34-37)
Jesus not only was altering their expectations of what would happen to him, he was also re-shaping their expectations of what would happen to them. In an interesting and creative use of wordplay, having told Satan through Peter to “get behind me,” in verse 33, he goes on in verse 34 to set the terms for anyone who would “come after me,” the language in the original Greek being identical.

Christ’s prescription for his followers is that they must deny themselves and take up their cross. I fear that we miss the weight of what Christ is saying here. We speak of slight inconveniences as “our cross to bear,” missing the reality that the cross was not an inconvenience, but rather an instrument of torture and death.
Similarly, when we think of “denying ourselves,” what usually comes to mind is refraining from some pleasure we enjoy. But as R.T. France points out, this is to fall terribly short of what Jesus is saying.

“What Jesus calls for here is a radical abandonement of one’s own identity and self-determination, and a call to join the march to the place of execution follows appropriately from this. Such ‘self-denial’ is on a different level altogether from giving up chocolates for Lent. It is not the denial of something to the self, but the denial of the self itself."

It is only when we deny ourselves in this way that we will truly be able to take up our cross and follow Jesus, willing to live, or die, for him and him alone. This is counter-intuitive and it is costly. Why then would anyone choose this life as opposed to some other?

The Things of God are Compulsory (v. 38)
It is because the things of God are compulsory. The Scriptures tell us in Acts 4:12 “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." And Jesus himself says in John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This is quite exclusive language. And such exclusion might seem offesive to our "enlightened" ears. But Jesus is coming again. John speaks of a vision of such in Revelation 19:11-12 where he says, “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems…”

And Jesus it very clear in verse 38 how he feels about those who are ashamed of or offended by his words: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Let us not exhibit such shame by our failure to accept and to live according to his word. Let us find shame only in our sin, and let us then turn to the grace and mercy and steadfast love of Christ!  Let us proclaim with Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16), and therefore, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us," (Hebrews 12:1) and when we fail, let us look to the cleansing and atoning work of "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

"The man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself, and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and he rests on that alone.

"He has ceased to say, 'Yes, I have committed terrible sins but I have done this and that.' He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith.

"Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, 'Yes, I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ, and God has put that to my account.'"

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Faith Like a Child (Part 2)

It truly is amazing the way that children can see past many of the distractions that we get caught up in and focus simply on what really matters. Last month I posted on a conversation that I had with my six-year-old daughter to that effect. I was reminded of that post today when informed of a conversation that my sister had with her daughter, who, like mine, is in kindergarten.

As she was driving home from scouts the other night, her daughter matter-of-factly declares, "I think I am going to like going to heaven. Did you know you don't have to pack to go there? You already have everything you need to see Jesus. Plus, you're dead so you really don't need anything."

Indeed.

Your Faith Has Made You Well

I recently finished going through Luke (which I’ve done many times before) and I noticed something that I’d never really seen before. In Luke, there is a certain phrase which Jesus says four times.

In chapter eight we read of the woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for 12 years. She touches Jesus’ garment and immediately the discharge ceased. In 8:48 we read the words of Jesus: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

In chapter 17 we find the story of the ten lepers who Jesus cleansed, having sent them to the priests to be declared ceremonially clean. When only one returns to thank Jesus, he tells the former leper in 17:19, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

A chapter later we come across the story of the blind beggar who pleaded with Jesus to restore his sight. In 18:42 we read that Jesus healed him with the words, “Recover your sight, your faith has made you well.”

The one other place where we find the exact same words come out of Jesus’ mouth (other than three parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark) is in chapter seven of Luke. Jesus is a guest at the house of a pharisee named Simon. While he is there, “a woman of the city, who was a sinner,” came with a flask of expensive ointment. She wet the feet of Jesus with her tears, wiped his feet with her hair, and annointed them with the ointment.

Simon thought that Jesus should rebuke her, sinful woman as she was. But Jesus’ response was quite different. He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” When those at the table questioned “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman in 7:50, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

We miss it in the English, but in Luke’s original Greek, the wording is the exact same. In fact, “saved” is a more literal translation of the word that is translated elsewhere “made… well.” For all four of them, perhaps it would be better to understand Jesus’ words as meaning, “Your faith has saved you.”

This realization of the Greek behind the English helps us to see a wonderful truth. The miracles of Christ are not to be seen merely as benevolent demonstrations of His awesome power. They always point to a greater truth. In the case of the blind man, he was given physical sight, but more importantly, by faith, he had received spiritual sight as well.

Both the leper and the woman with the discharge had conditions that made them ceremonially unclean. Jesus’ healing of them meant that they indeed were no longer sick nor unclean. It also pointed to the greater truth though, that by faith, they were no longer stained by the filth of sin. Now they were clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

May we all know today the joy that they knew, the joy of being made well, truly well. And may the words of the Apostle Paul ever resound in our hearts: “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith…” (Ephesians 2:8a).