O how rich is God’s grace and love toward those who believe in his Son! He forgives all our sin, gives us the righteousness of Christ, and welcomes us into his presence for eternity! God has chosen to magnify his glory supremely in his Son’s death, burial and resurrection, and we are the beneficiaries of that display of glory! He gets all the glory and we get the joy of redemption and salvation!! Wow. The Gospel is amazing…
So, how do we call people to respond to this wonderful news? Our final word then is faith. People are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8). But what does saving faith look like? Let’s examine what the Bible says…
- Faith
I think it is important for us to think of faith in response to the Gospel as “saving faith” because of the question posed in James 2:14ff. Saving faith is more than just believing in the facts of who Jesus is and what He has done. So what is it about saving faith that is more than just mental assent ?
As we look at Scripture I think we can identify four ways faith is described to us to help us understand what we mean by saving faith.
1. Saving faith = believing He will keep his promises
When we say “believe in Jesus,” what do we usually mean by that? Part of believing IN Him has to include actually believing HIM! In other words after we tell people that God will save those who have faith in Him, they must believe that promise will be kept by God. We have faith that God will do what He says He will do. This is a major, first step for people in turning away from their radical self-centeredness: trusting God instead of themselves.
Peter’s response to the crowd when they asked what they must do in response to hearing about their sin was to cal them to repent and be baptized, and he added, “For this promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39). They were believing a promise from God that He will forgive when we faithfully repent, turning to Him. Psalm 119:154 says, “ Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise!”
This is the cry of saving faith: “Give me life according to your promise!”
2. Saving faith = resting in Him
A popular illustration of saving faith goes like this:
Joe: ‘Stan, do you believe this chair will support you?’
Stan: ‘Yeah.’
Joe: ‘Well, if you truly believe that, you will sit on the chair.’
Stan sits.
Joe, to his youth group: ‘See THAT is having faith in Jesus.’
It really is a good illustration because it shows that must “exercise” our faith so to speak by actually letting Christ be our strength and support and life. Jesus gave this call to faith in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me… rest in me…”
Saving faith ACTUALLY trusts Jesus to the point of believing his promises then acting on them by letting his grace be sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9).
3. Saving faith = being satisfied by Him
I love John 6:35. Of all the “I AM” statements Jesus makes in John, this is my favorite: “I AM the bread of life.” Jesus wants us to see Him as bread!!! That is so cool… but what does it mean??? Jesus is flour, butter, fat, sugar, and water all mixed up and baked in an oven??? What does that mean???
Of course he is not the ingredients in bread because He is not literally bread. The point is that what bread does for our bodies, He does for our spirit. To satisfy your hunger you eat bread. To satisfy your heart’s greatest longing you believe in Jesus. Is that cool or what????
***ATTENTION***
I am about to make the most important point in this whole “doctrine of the gospel exercise” right here. This is the payoff you have been waiting for…
The gospel message of salvation is not merely about receiving the forgiveness of sins and going to Heaven. Forgiveness and redemption are the means to a greater end. That “end” is God Himself.
Jesus died in order to bring us to God! (1 Peter 3:18) When you trade in your sin by confessing and repenting and believing, what you get in return is God! This is why we must present a gospel that crucifies the flesh and magnifies God because He is the “end.”
In calling people to believe in Jesus we are calling them to value Christ above everything the world offers to satisfy their hearts desires.
The best picture of this part of saving faith is the parable Jesus told in Matthew 13:44. When a man discovered a treasure buried in a field, he was happy to go sell all his worldly possessions in order to buy the field and possess the treasure!!! In his JOY he sold everything! This is saving faith. Treasuring Christ above everything else.
When someone gets saved, what they really get is Christ, the Son of God.
4. Saving faith = following Him as LORD
This is very important!!! We are saved by God’s grace. NOT by our works.
However, there is a crucial part of saving faith that we sometimes leave out because it SOUNDS like “works salvation.” It is this part about following Jesus. Some would say, “If you tell people they have to follow Jesus, then means they have to DO something in order to be saved. That’s not faith.”
I admit this sounds tricky, but it really isn’t if we will let God’s word direct us.
Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
This aspect of saving faith that says we must follow Him is really nothing more than saying that we must repent of our sin. Jesus is describing the process of repentance. What we sometimes fall into is the mistake of exalting confession and forgiveness and minimizing repentance. We tell people that God loves them and will forgive all their sin but leave out the part where they have to forsake that sin and live holy lives from this point on.
The real issue here is submission to Christ as LORD. We MUST preach submission to his LORDship as part saving faith. There is no forgiveness of sins without repentance… Let me say that again: There is no forgiveness of sins without repentance.
Repentance means forsaking sin, turning to Christ and following Him. Therefore, saving faith submits to Jesus as LORD by forsaking sin and turning to Him.
Conclusion
So here is how I would summarize saving faith, meaning the response someone must have to the gospel in order to be saved:
Saving faith is believing and trusting the promises of God for forgiveness and salvation, resting in his grace and treasuring Him above the world by forsaking all sin and following Him LORD.
Sure it is long and cumbersome, and I am not saying that this is a definition of saving faith. It is just a description of what it encapsulates.
I think this is enough for this week.
Next week I will summarize the gospel for you again in 111 words and talk about how to share this with our friends and loved ones.
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