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Review from last week

The Doctrine of Salvation

The DOCTRINE OF FAITH

The five things we need to learn about "FAITH."

1. Why is it important to understand faith? (mans perspective)

2. What is faith?

3. What does savingfaith look like from the Bible?

4. How does this faith work?5. Why is it important to understand faith (Gods perspective)

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2 Corinthians 13:5

"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!

Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is inyou unless indeed you fail the test?

Some working definitions for saving faith:

Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest

upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.

In other words, saving faith is to be satisfied with all that God is for

you in Jesus.

The principle acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, being

satisfied and resting upon Christ alone for justification,

sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

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What does saving faith look like from the Bible?

John 6:35

Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me

will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

Breakdown of this sentence:

I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE

He who comes to Me

will not hunger

He who believes in Me

will never thirst

Coming to Jesus andBelieving in Jesus are synonymous in this

verse

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John 6:36 - is a picture of those that just saw Him but didn't see Him.

They did not come to Him for their spiritual satisfaction as One who

could feed their souls. Instead they were looking to Him as the One

who could feed their growling stomachs.

At the end of verse 36 there is failure and that is always the case when

you have man involved.

Remember last week we talked about the word believe.

It is the same word as faith

The word faith and believe together appear over 450 times in NT

The word faith is used most in the book of Romans

The word believe is used most (98 times) in the book of John

Conclusion:

To understand the doctrine of faith we must study Romans and John

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Now the transition to John 6:37-40

5 key spiritual truths we learn from this section of Scripture

Spiritual Truth #1

God gives those who are His own to Jesus

Scriptural proof in John 6:37All that the Father gives Me will come to Me

John 6:39

all thatH

e has given MeI

lose nothing, but raise it up on thelast day

There is a group of people that God gives Jesus

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Spiritual Truth #2

Because God gives them to Jesus they come

Scriptural proof - verse 37 "all that the Father gives Me will

come"

Remember to keep the words come and believe as the same as used

in this context.

If you are a Christian then this verse explains "HOW" you came to

be a Christian.

God the Father gave you to God the Son.

You may have been a Christian for years and never understood howyou got this way

It is so important to know who you are in Christ and to know HOW

you got that way.

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Spiritual Truth #3

Those who are given to Jesus are those that come to Jesus and they

are also eternally kept by Jesus.

Scriptural proof - John 6 verse 37 and 39 and 40

The giving and the coming is the work of God the Father and the

keeping is the work of God the Son.

You wake up every morning and it is not because you decide for

Jesus that you stay a Christian. It is because He has you and will

never let you go.

Turn to John 10:29

My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no

one is able to snatch them out of the Fathers hand.

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Spiritual Truth #4

Jesus will raise us up from the dead on the last day

Scriptural proof verse 39 and 40

Why is there a focus now on Christ raising us up on the last day

afterHe tells us we come because He gives and when the Father

gives us to Christ He then keeps us forever. But now He moves totell those who are in Him and He will raise them up on the last day.

But even though we are living on planet earth and watching people

die all around us and even us on that day He wants us to know that

He is not going to lose our bodies either. He is going to raise them

up.

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Observation #5

This unshakeable work of the Father in us coming and in Him giving

us to the Son and the Son keeping us and raising us up on the last dayand the foundation that holds all of this up is the sovereign will of

God.

It seems that the sovereign will of God is the chief emphasis in this

section of Scripture.Scriptural proof - verse 38 "the will ofHim", verse 39 "the will of

Him" and verse 40 "the will of My Father"

The ground verse for "WHY" Jesus will never cast out His own is

verse 38 that starts with the word "FOR."

It is the will of the Father that no one in Christ is lost. There is

nothing deeper nor stronger in the entire universe than the will of

God.

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It is the sovereignty of God that grounds the salvation of man

eternally.

The first section is about man:

God says here is My Son, He is the bread of life, what will you do

with Him

and they reject Him and it looks like a plan for failure.

If there was only that section of the Bible everyone would be in hell

because no one would accept that offer.

But look at section number two.

God just doesn't offer but in fact He gives. And He just doesn't giveHis Son to the world but God gives His own to the Son. And when

God gives them they come and when they come they stay.

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Isaiah 46:910

Remember the former things long past, ForI am God, and there is

no other;I

am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the endfrom the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not

been done, Saying, My purpose will be established, And I will

accomplish all My good pleasure;

Question:How can I know that I am among those who are His that He gives to

the Son?

You know that you are given to Jesus if you come to Jesus.

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So HOW does Faith work as the means of our salvation?

Turn to Romans 4

The doctrine of faith is subject to huge misunderstanding

Faith credited as righteousness is very easy for people to

misunderstand. It sounds like I took a $30 check to the bank and Imade a deposit and they credited it to my account. I earned the

money, I drove to the bank, I fill out a deposit ticket and they (the

bank) credited that money to my account.

So I do faith, God sees me do it and He credits that faith to my

account.

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Or is getting saved very, very different than that?

I

t is not God seeing a righteousness in us or something that we dobut rather could it be "faith being reckoned as righteousness" means

there is an alien righteousness namely the righteousness of God in

Christ which is credited to our account THROUGH faith and that

He credits faith as righteousness DOES NOT meant the faith is the

righteousness.

This must be a very important issue because the apostle Paul spends

take an entire chapter to explain how faith is credited as

righteousness.

Check out Romans 4:3, 4:5, 4:6, 4:9, 4:11 and 4:22

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You need to know HOW this doctrine of faith works.

That means it is very important to understand what imputationmeans.

Imputation comes from the word IMPUTE.

Impute means to think of a belonging to someone, and therefore tocause it to belong to that person. God thinks of Adams sin as

belonging to us and it therefore belongs to us, and in justification

he thinks of Christs righteousness as belonging to us and so

relates to us on this basis.

There is a difference between imputation and impartation.

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The impartation is when the Holy Spirit works in us to transform us

by His power into the likeness of Christ. And we start to see fruit of

the Spirit in our lives.

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But this impartation has a foundation that it rests on, and it rests

on the foundation of imputation.

You must be reckoned as perfect before God before you can ever

make any progress at becoming good.

Remember a few weeks ago when I read from Ephesians 4:14

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and

there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by

the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

We need to become trees and not leaves. And the only thing that

keeps you from being blown around in this life is to get your

roots down deep into Biblical truth.

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How does the doctrine of faith work?

I

n Romans 4:6 we see the words "God credits righteousness" apartfrom works. And look at Romans 4:11 "that righteousness might be

credited to them."

In verse 6 and 11 Paul is talking about a righteousness that is

imputed to you.

So, when you read that "his faith is credited as righteousness" then

you should think, the righteousness of God in Christ is credited to

you through faith apart from works.

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Romans 3:21 - "the righteousness of God" means that God always

cherishes that which is most infinitely valuable. Therefore the

righteousness of God is God's unwavering allegiance to His own

glory. It is always right for God to uphold His glory because the

infinite worth of the universe is bound up in the glory of God.

We have fallen short ofHis glory and therefore what we need

imputed to our account is the unwavering allegiance to the glory ofGod.

Romans 3:21-22 shows that the righteousness of God is

THROUGH faith, it is not faith itself.

Faith is not the righteousness but it is the faith that joins us to the

righteousness which is Christ.

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Analogy of Butner and his clean room

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When Paul writes; God credits Abraham's faith as righteousness He

doesn't mean that the faith is the righteousness.

He means that Christ performed a righteousness that is outside of

Abraham and it is pure, perfect and undefiled.

And now God looks upon our faith as the unifying element and says

for the sake of faith I will count the righteousness of Christ to youraccount in order that you might inherit all the promises that are in

Him.

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Why is faith so important from Gods perspective?

Romans 4

1. Puts down our Pride (excludes boasting)

2. Exalt the glory of God

3. Give assurance that is eternal (accords with grace)