Since We Are Redeemed by Grace Alone, Through Faith Alone, Where Does This Faith Come From? (Q35)

• Since We Are Redeemed by Grace Alone, Through Faith Alone, Where Does This Faith Come From? All the gifts we receive from Christ we receive through the Holy Spirit, including faith itself.
• “If we believe the gospel, we should praise God for giving us the grace to believe it, for he is the only One who made the difference for us. Therefore, the Christian life must be marked by gratitude and humility. In and of ourselves, we are no better than our non-Christian neighbors. The only difference is that something (or, rather, someone) absolutely wonderful has come into our lives and changed everything.” - Mika Edmondson

Recommended Resources

• New City Catechism Commentary: “If salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone—if we are saved and forgiven and accepted based not on our good works, not on our deserving, but on what Jesus has done for us—is there still a place for good works and obedience in the Christian life? The Bible gives an emphatic answer: yes.”
• Don’t Be Like Moses the Pragmatist (9Marks): “ In his worst moments, Moses was a pragmatist. He had a performance-based approach to the prophetic ministry. He assumed that it was up to the prophet to get the results. If people listened to him, then he was doing his job; if not, he should find some other line of work. This explains why Moses was always worrying about whether people would listen to him.”
• A Whole World Hangs on a Word (Desiring God): So when Paul says, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God,” part of his meaning is that our faith is a gift of God. It is a divine creation. It is the work of grace when we were dead. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

This is our last uh lesson of Redeemer Youth this semester. How exciting is that? Uh we're finishing up our series on Christ, redemption, and grace, the gospel, the nuts and bolts of how Jesus saves us. Uh, we've been using the New City Catechism. A catechism is a tool that helps us understand what we believe via questions and answers. Redeemer Youth, uh, we have the podcast that's set up for past lessons. If you take a look at it, my lessons are a lot shorter. Sorry about that. Um just speak real fast. Um at any point, if you have questions, okay, text your questions to um to the number on the screen there. Um if you don't have a phone and you have a question, uh get a friend. I'm sure your friend has a phone, right? Somebody's friend has a phone. Um and so tonight's lesson is since we are redeemed by grace alone through faith alone, where does this faith come from? And so I'm gonna look at our destination, okay? Since we are redeemed by grace alone, through faith alone, where does this faith come from? All the gifts we receive from Christ, we receive through the Holy Spirit, including faith itself. This is a quote from Mika Edmondson. If we believe the gospel, we should praise God for giving us the grace to believe it, for He is the only one who made the difference for us. Therefore, the Christian life must be marked by gratitude and humility. In and of ourselves, we are no better than our non-Christian neighbors. The only difference is that something, or rather, someone, absolutely wonderful has come into our lives and changed everything. So we've been looking at the New City Catechism, which raises objections to particular ideas and questions. And the objection for this lesson is if God is the one who gives faith, is my believing just kind of automatic? Does it even matter what I do or decide? Well, let's take a look at uh Romans chapter 10, verses 9 through 13. And if you find it first, shout out the page that it's on. Romans 10, 9 through 13, 890. Way to go. Before we look at Romans, okay, while you're on your way to page 890, I'm gonna read from the book of John, chapter 6. This is verses 44 through 51. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me, not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. So in this passage, notice that Jesus connects two ideas here. No one comes to Jesus unless the Father. Oh, is it hitting me? Yeah. One of my two skills. And Jesus is the bread of life. Eating is not something we do automatically. It is a, usually, right? Um, it is a response to a desire inside of us. God creates the spiritual hunger, and we come to Christ to receive him as the bread of life. Okay, this is why we celebrate when we take the Lord's Supper every Sunday. When we eat the little cracker and drink the little thimble of grape juice, we are spiritually feeding on Christ as the bread of life. There's nothing special about the elements themselves. They are not spiritually transformed into something other than a little cracker and some juice, but the spirit uses this meal to give us a tangible benefit. And that benefit is Christ Himself. Do I need to move over? Sure. Yeah, look at me. All right, let's switch. Okay, let's take a look at our passage, Romans 10, 9 through 13. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For every one who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. When God creates faith in us, it creates a response in us also. Confessing with our mouth is not something we do as blind robots. It is a willful, conscious, deliberate choice on our part that reflects something God is doing in our heart. So we've got another objection here, okay? And this is a rough objection, okay? How can two people hear the same sermon or read the same Bible and one believes, but the other doesn't, if it's the Holy Spirit giving faith? Anyone ever asked that question? We've got one person. Let's look at uh at another text. Let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 3 through 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 3 through 6. This is gonna be our anchor text. 907. Good work. 907. While we're looking for 907, I'm gonna read Matthew 13, 10 through 16. Then the disciples came to him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered them, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their cause the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, it says, You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their eyes they can barely hear, and with their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear. Jesus Himself says that not every one who hears the words will receive them. It is God who opens our ears and hearts to understand his word, and he spoke in parables to illustrate this very reality. The disciples only understood the parables because God gave them understanding. I have another passage I'm gonna read. If you want to look for it, okay, it's at the very end of Luke. We're gonna read Luke 24 verses 44 through 49. This is after the resurrection. Luke 24, verses 44 through 49. It's gonna be up here too. Go ahead. 831, 832, yeah. Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high. So after his resurrection, Jesus appears to his disciples and open their minds to understand the scriptures and show them that he is everything Scripture points toward. Everything in the Old Testament is all about Jesus. Okay, the law, everything written by Moses, right? The first books of the Bible, everything in the Psalms, everything written by the prophets, okay, even the Proverbs are all about Jesus. And if you can look at them through that lens, it will open your world to see and to hear and to understand the way Jesus was talking about when he says that he speaks to them in parables, right? So let's take a look at our anchor text, right? We're right there, 2 Corinthians 4, 3 through 6. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So that same gospel that saves some is veiled to others. In their sin, the God of this world, which is a nickname for Satan, keeps them in their sin and unable to receive the gospel. It is God who must shine a light in our darkness and give us knowledge of Christ and respond to his gospel. We've got one more objection. I don't know that we've had three objections in any of these lessons, but we've got three in this one. So our last objection is this, okay? If God is the one who has to give faith, what's the point of evangelism and or missions? Won't God just do it without us? Let's take a look real close to 2 Corinthians' 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 3, 5 through 9. 1 Corinthians 3, 5 through 9. That is correct. Before then, I'm going to take one more look at Romans 10. These are the next verses after what we read earlier. This is Romans 10, 14 through 17. How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. It is our preaching, our teaching, our evangelism, our living lives for Christ that the Spirit uses to create faith in others. God has made our proclamation of Christ the means by which people come to know Him. Okay? People need to be able to look at you and see something different, something that this entire world is driven by selfishness, right? And we've never been selfish, right? None of us in here. This world is driven entirely by selfishness. And and Christ, when he came down, he didn't, he wasn't a selfish man. He was a servant, right? He was someone who served. And he served in all of the ultimate ways that a servant can serve. And that's how we need to show the world that we are like Christ. So let's take a look at our anchor text, okay? This is our last passage for the evening. 1 Corinthians 3, 5 through 9. I want to give some background here real quick before we look at this, okay? So right before this, Paul is kind of talking about how uh the Corinthians have been uh making divisions amongst themselves, right? One person says, you know, oh, I follow Paul. Oh, one person says, I follow Apollos. And some people are like, oh yeah, well, we follow Jesus. Ha ha ha ha ha. Okay, and and what that's what Paul is sort of responding to here. Um, that that we all we don't, even when we say that we follow Christ, we don't want to be haughty in it and prideful and say, oh, I follow Christ and you don't, uh, okay. Um so here's here's our reading. What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor, for we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. Followers in Christ are the church. If you are a Christian, you have a part to play in God's work. Some of you may plant seeds of the gospel in someone's life, some of you may water those seeds, but in both instances, it is God working in you, God working through you. You are God's fellow workers. What an incredible honor. How many of you want to be God's fellow workers? Oh, look at look at some hands, some nods, more hands, more nods. What? Somebody asking questions, right? So let's go back to our destination, right? We've come full circle. Since we are redeemed by grace alone through faith alone, where does this face come faith come from? All the gifts we receive from Christ, we receive through the Holy Spirit, including faith itself. Here's that quote again from Mika Edmondson. If we believe the gospel, we should praise God for giving us the grace to believe it, for He is the only one who made the difference for us. Therefore, the Christian life must be marked by gratitude and humility. In and of ourselves, we are no better than our non-Christian neighbors. The only difference is that something, or rather, someone, absolutely wonderful, has come into our lives and changed everything. Redeemer Youth, God bless you, and we're going to be able to do that.