Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: How do you define faith? Is it simply blind belief or taking a leap into the unknown? Some people think of faith as embracing the power of positive thinking. But today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg helps us think through the biblical meaning of the one true faith and how it is discovered.

Alistair Begg: I invite you to turn to Ephesians and to chapter four. Here we are again in verse five: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And our focus this morning simply on two words, "one faith." So, we need to pause for a moment and ask God's help.

Father, we always need the help of the Holy Spirit when we turn to the Bible so that beyond the voice of a mere man, we might not simply understand things intellectually, but that we might have a divine and meaningful encounter with you, the living God, through your word. And so, then come and meet with us we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen.

Well, it's important as we move through this in an atomized way that we remember that what Paul has begun to do here at the beginning of chapter four is urge the believers in Ephesus to maintain the unity which is theirs in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a unity that they are to create; they couldn't create it. But it is a unity which arises from the unity that exists within the Godhead himself. So that there is one Lord, there is one Spirit, there is one God and Father of all.

And we have been looking at this sevenfold foundation, as we've put it, of Christian unity. We've said there is one body because there is only one Spirit that indwells each of us and together. We've been called to one hope that is part of the birthright of our call to salvation. There is one Lord; we're not free to believe anything other than he has taught. We're not free to believe except in the way that he demands. We're not free to live in isolation because in being united to Christ, we are united to one another in Christ. And this one Lord is the foundation of this one faith.

So, what I'd like to do is think about faith. In fact, I woke up early this morning with a thought in mind. I thought I have a title for this morning: "What a Difference a Faith Makes." And then I thought, no, that's not very good at all. So I dispensed with it. But we're dealing with it in a way that is almost immediately accessible, and then it is very possible for us to go immediately wrong. So let's just think in terms of faith as it is presented to us in scripture and defined, discovered, and then a moment or two on how we see faith worked out and displayed. And then in conclusion, just say something about the implications of life lived where biblical Christian faith is denied.

All right. So then first of all, we're thinking about defining this faith. All of us live in the realm of faith to one degree or another, don't we? There is a faith that we all exercise. I didn't come in to check to see if you all checked the seats before you sat in them. I would imagine that you didn't; you just sat down. That was an exercise of some kind of faith. Some of you have had your hair cut recently; that is an expression of faith—in some cases greater faith than is customary. You deposit money in the bank in the awareness that apparently they're going to look after it. You take medication that some lady in a white coat or gentleman in a white coat rustles around with, and you take it home and you swallow it. You ever think about that?

You're exercising a measure of faith that the pharmacist is actually reliable. We understand that kind of thing; it's straightforward. But that is not what Paul is referencing here when he says that there is this one faith. Because remember, each of these characteristics are expressions of the nature of unity which is enjoyed in the body of Christ. So, that helps us from going off at a tangent. Everything that he's referencing here, including baptism, which may become an expression of division, actually is a foundation of unity.

The faith to which Paul is referring takes place in the realm of that natural capacity, but it differs in this vital dimension. That natural faith, what I've just been describing—the kind that drinks from the water faucet without a doing research project—natural faith is not spiritual faith because spiritual faith is not natural faith. We say, well what is this faith? Well, if you just look in your Bible, he's mentioned it, Ephesians 2 verse 8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."

Natural faith comes by natural birth and spiritual faith comes from God. It is actually the gift of God. The Westminster Divines gave their attention to this and provide us with a very helpful statement in Section 14 of the Westminster Confession and Part 1. It reads as follows: "The grace of faith, by which we are enabled to believe to the saving of our souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in our hearts, and is ordinarily produced through the ministry of the Word, and by the same means, faith is strengthened and increased."

I plan on memorizing that for myself. I find it profoundly helpful. Let me read it to you again: "The grace of faith by which we are enabled to believe to the saving of our souls is the work of the Spirit of Christ in our hearts and is ordinarily produced through the ministry of the Word and by that same means, i.e., the ministry of the Word, faith is strengthened and increased."

In other words, it is ordinarily the case that since God has ordained preaching, even though men and women regard it as foolishness and say nobody wants to listen to it, nobody can hear it, nobody can understand it, in the Twitter age unless you're a Twitterer, you will just be irrelevant if you go and try and talk for a long time and ask people to think. God knew all of that when he said, "I want you to actually stand up in a monologued form and preach the Word of God." Why? Because ordinarily it is the means whereby the grace of saving faith is imparted to those who believe to the saving of their souls.

Now, when the Westminster Divines wrote this in the 17th century, they were not launching off; they were simply substantiating what the Bible itself says. If you want, you just look at Romans chapter 10 where Paul makes the very same point. Romans 10, he says, "How will they call on him," that's Jesus, "in whom they've not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" So faith comes from hearing, verse 17 of that same section: "faith through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." Through the word of Christ.

How about in Ephesus? Well, Ephesians chapter two and Paul has been reminding the Ephesian believers of the amazing dimension that has taken place amongst them where Jew and Gentile, who have been separated from one another not only ethnically but philosophically and in so many different ways, they've been separated from one another quite literally by a physical barrier, a barrier that represented hostility. As significant a barrier as the Berlin Wall in many ways. That existed; that has been broken down. They have now been united in Christ.

How did that happen? Ephesians 2:17: "And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near." To whom does the "he" refer? Jesus. So what is Paul saying? Paul says that Jesus came and preached to the Gentiles who were far away and to the Jews who were near by virtue of their privileged background in the Old Testament. But of course, we know that Jesus never physically came to Ephesus to preach.

So why would Paul say, "and he came and preached"? Because he did come and preach. How did Jesus preach to Ephesus? He preached to Ephesus through Paul and Paul's companions so that actually when the word is truly preached, the preacher is entirely subservient, maybe significantly lost sight of in the awareness of the fact that it is ordinarily the work of the Spirit of God to take the Word of God whereby Jesus preaches it by the Holy Spirit in and through the voice of a mere man, in and through personality.

But when anything of significance happens, it is because Jesus came and preached. Now you go and research this on your own. You go and read, for example, Psalm 22, the great Messianic Psalm which is Jesus' words from the cross. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That's Psalm 22. Read down in Psalm 22 and the Psalmist says, "And I will proclaim your name in the assembly, in the congregation of the righteous. I will sing your praise amongst your people."

You go to the book of Hebrews, and the writer to the Hebrews puts those words in Jesus' lips. He says, "this is Jesus." So we don't actually have a worship leader. We have someone who helps in leading us in our praise. But the *leitourgos*, the minister of Hebrews chapter eight verse two, is Jesus. *Leitourgos*, which should make you think of liturgy. The liturgist is Jesus. Jesus leads the singing. Jesus does the preaching, ultimately.

It is by the Word of Christ. Where is the Word of Christ? Inscripturated for us here. How is it to be proclaimed? Through flawed human beings doing their best to study the Bible and say this is what it says, but you're sensible people, see if you can get a hold of it for yourselves. And mysteriously in and through and beyond and under all of that, God is at work ordinarily bringing men and women to faith in Jesus Christ. That's why I love it in the baptisms when I'm standing or sitting somewhere and someone stands up out of the blue and says, "on the 22nd of May seven years ago at a morning service, I believed in Jesus Christ as my savior." I never knew a thing about it; I never had any idea about it. I apparently had no part in it at all save being simply a trumpet on which the Lord Jesus Christ chose to blow for half an hour or so.

See how it sets us down and sets Christ up. See how it says it's abhorrent when people who fulfill this role are preoccupied with themselves and fascinated by their abilities or bemoaning this or that. No, it's a wonderful thing. Lastly, he says, was revealed to me as one untimely born, the mystery of it all. Faith.

1649, one of those Westminster Divines, a fellow by the name of William Greenhill, he said this: "Where the Word of God is not expounded, preached, and applied, the people perish." Drive around the United States. Drive past churches where there is virtually not a soul in there, and I can guarantee you that it is because the Bible is not expounded, preached, and applied. Where you find the Bible being expounded, preached, and applied, whether the company is small or large, you will find life, you will find vibrancy, you will find truth, you will find evangelism.

Come back to my own country in Scotland, and I can take you down the streets. I can guarantee you this place will be darker than a cave. This one will be filled with light. This one will have three old ladies in it and an old man with a stick. This will be bursting with university students. And the person on the outside says, "What is the difference?" I'll tell you what the difference is. This is the difference. This is the difference.

Now, when people like me say this, it sounds as if we're just trying to create job security for ourselves. But no, because how can you preach unless you're sent? It's wonderful, isn't it? Now, that's enough concerning this by way of introduction. Turn back to 1 Corinthians 15, and let's ask the question: well how then, give us an illustration of what it means for the Word of God then to take root in lives and in a congregation? So, we could stay in Ephesians, but just for a change, let's go to these familiar words in 1 Corinthians 15.

What he's doing in this chapter on the resurrection is he's reminding his readers at the head of it that they have a shared faith. And that this faith, this gospel as he refers to it, is understandable and is definable and is there to be considered. And I want you just simply to notice the progression. I want to remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you. That's the first and straightforward. He says, "I came and I preached this to you."

Now, if you go back to the beginning of 1 Corinthians, you'll remember he says, "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I didn't come with wise words and impressing everybody by these things. I didn't employ high-sounding arguments. I didn't try to be wiser than I am. I didn't try to do signs so that you would think it was spectacular." No, he says, "I actually determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." And he said, "The reason I did this is because I wanted to make sure that your faith would rest in the power of God and not in the wisdom of man." He says, "because if you think about it, God's apparent foolishness in the cross is actually wiser than man's wisdom. And in the wisdom of God, he has determined that it wouldn't be through human wisdom that a man or a woman would come to know God, but rather through the foolishness of what we preach."

It all ties in. And so he says, "I came and I preached to you. I preached this gospel to you." And in verse three he says, "And I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins." This is so vitally important. He says, "I made sure that I explained to you that at the cross of Jesus Christ, the justice of God and the love of God were made clear."

He writes to the Roman church and he says, "You know, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified, declared right in God's sight, by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." So the very heart of the gospel, the very heart of the gospel, is what in theological terms we refer to as the substitutionary atonement. That God has placed upon Jesus our sins and the punishment that attaches to them. He has done so, says Paul, in accordance with the scriptures. In other words, he says, "If you read the rest of the Bible, you will find that it points in this direction and underpins it."

So you go back into the Isaiah the prophet, who stands on his tiptoes writing Isaiah 53, "Surely he has borne our griefs, he's carried our sorrows, we esteemed him smitten by God and afflicted, yet he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his stripes, wounds, we are healed." This is the gospel, you see. This is the fact. This is the faith.

So, when you have a congregation that is grounded in the faith, in the nature of redemption and justification, it's not that you've put together a group of people who are interested in faith, faith in faith. You hear it all the time at the end of news broadcasts: "well we're sending our thoughts out." Well, that's nice. Or, "I'm sure our faith is whatever." What does that mean? When you come to the Bible, there's nothing vague about it. When you listen to Paul, he says, "This is what I preached to you. I preached the gospel to you. And of first importance, right in the cornerstone of it all, I said to you the issue is this great exchange."

That God has made us for himself. He's created us for his glory and his purpose. He has given us gifts and abilities and intellect and everything in order that we might acknowledge him. But, we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. We have worshipped the creature rather than the Creator, and the implications of that have followed us. That's exchange number one. Exchange number two: we have exchanged his glory for things that crawl. He has exchanged the glory of heaven in order to take our place in punishment in order that we might enter into his glory. This is at the heart of the Christian faith.

They were brought to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus died for their sins, that Jesus was raised on the third day, that Jesus appeared. So he says, "We preached and you believed." You believed. "I remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached, which you yourselves received." Thirdly, and in it you have taken your stand. And you have taken your stand. "Here I stand," said Luther, "I can do no other." Not a standing in social status or intellectual capacity or moral philosophy or religious zeal or legal rectitude or good deeds. No. They have taken their stand on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Only a perfect man could die for the sinner. An imperfect man could not die for the sinner; he would need someone to die for him. Christ kept the law in all of its perfection. This is our stand. Is this where you stand? Someone asks you about your faith. They say, "are you a person of faith?" You say, "oh yes." They say, "well what is your thing?" Then you'll tell them the whole story of the Bible is about sacrifice, about substitution. You can tell them about the skins of the animals clothing the nakedness of Adam and Eve. You can work your way through all the stories that you learned at Sunday School pointing to the one who was to come, who would take the place of sinners.

And then you can tell them, "My faith is resting in the Word, the living Word of Christ." Many people say, "well that's fascinating. So that's what you mean about being saved, is it?" You tell them yes. "Do you even use that terminology?" You say, "well the Bible uses it. I preached, you received, you took your stand, and by this you are being saved." You're being saved. On what basis are you being saved? On the basis of what Jesus has done. Not the basis of what we're doing. And certainly not on the basis of how we're doing. If any man is in Christ, he's made new. The old is gone; the new has come. If, *if* you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain.

Unless you've believed in vain. That means you can believe in vain. That means you can think you believe and you don't believe. If anyone hears my words and does not actually put them into practice, believe them, receive them, take their stand on them, that man, that woman will be like somebody who built a house on sand. And as soon as the implications of life and the realities of eternity hit them, they will collapse. The distinction, you see, is not in the hearing of it, but it is in the believing of it. Anyone who hears my word and does not put it into practice, sand. Anyone who hears my word and puts it into practice, believes it, rests in it, rock.

Bob Lepine: You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. We'll hear more about the Christian faith tomorrow. Have you ever wondered, "does God have a plan for me?" The answer is yes. He has a plan that applies to every believer, and that plan is spelled out in a book we're recommending today. It's a brand-new release titled *A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation*. As we're learning in our study in the book of Ephesians, God's goal is to transform us into the image of his son.

And while there are many popular theories about how this transformation happens, the book *A Heart Aflame for God* zeroes in on the Bible's teaching concerning what God desires for those he has called to himself. And importantly, when you read the book, you'll learn what your role is in this process. It's not intended to be an overwhelming task, but rather a freeing one. The specific actions we're to take aren't new; these are foundational disciplines that have been practiced for centuries, but sadly many of these practices today have been neglected.

The book *A Heart Aflame for God* will help you get restarted in the right direction, helping you get on track with renewed zeal. Ask for your copy of the book today when you donate to Truth For Life online at truthforlife.org/donate. Or if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth For Life at Post Office Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio, the zip code is 44139. I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for studying the Bible with us today. Tomorrow, we'll learn about the change that changes everything. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.