True Faith Works

Today in the church, we seem to be enamored with better methods and ways for getting God to do what we want Him to do for us. The false teachers tell us to pray certain prayers, these little incantations, and use these certain words.

And the deceivers instruct us to go and get a little group or lobby that we could somehow force God into doing what we want. And we're told to claim it and name it and speak it and simply vision it, and it will happen from God and this eternal butler will deliver the goods. My friend, true faith understands that he does the talking and we do the butlering. Is it possible to claim faith in Christ without living it out?

Can someone truly be saved without showing any signs of spiritual growth? Today's episode tackles these tough questions as we explore Romans 1-5. The apostle introduces a powerful phrase, the obedience of faith. What does that mean for believers? This message will reveal how true faith isn't just something we profess. If you've ever questioned the relationship between faith and action, stay tuned. You'll discover why real faith always leads to obedience and why that obedience matters more than you think. Now, whenever you are involved in a biblical discussion about the nature of the truth of the gospel, sooner or later, you come to the subject of faith and works. Just what is faith and what does it have to do with works?

Are these two subjects mutually exclusive or are they both part of the gospel truth? Now, the reader of this verse is perhaps struck by an odd phrase that seems almost out of place. It is the phrase, the obedience of faith. Now, if that seems unfamiliar to your eyes and your ears as I say it, it is in fact only used one other time in the entire New Testament.

And that other location happens to be this same letter. In fact, if you were to turn to the last chapter of Romans 16 in verse 25, you discover how similar Paul ends the letter with how he began the letter. In fact, I'll read verse 25 of Romans 16. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel in the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to obedience of faith.

Now, there are similar themes here. You can hear the gospel which is summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. You hear about it being announced long ago in past times through the scriptures of the prophets. It is now to be preached to the nations, which we just read in Romans 1.5, which leads to the obedience of faith.

There it is again. Well, what's Paul saying that faith and obedience are inseparable? That disobedience reveals the absence of true faith? Is he saying that genuine faith as delivered in the gospel cannot exist without obedience to the gospel?

I have been asked similar questions in words like these. Is it possible for somebody to be a Christian and not live the life of a Christian? Is it possible to have saving faith without ever evidencing a spiritual walk? Is a person a Christian if they never pray and read their Bible and only sporadically go to church? What do you say about a man or a woman who says that they accepted Christ early in life but now have absolutely no interest in the pursuit of the things of Christ?

Are they really born again? Well, in order to answer these questions, we have to understand what Paul meant in Romans 1 and chapter 16 when he spoke of the obedience of faith. And in order to do that, we have to back up a little further and understand something of the nature of true faith. So I want to begin by as clearly as possible defining genuine saving faith.

And let's for the moment step back and perhaps look at some familiar territory. First of all, faith is not mental acknowledgement of truth. If salvation, men and women, consists in nothing more than believing that God exists and believing that Jesus is the Son of God, believing furthermore that heaven is real or that hell is real, then every demon is a believer. James wrote in chapter 2 verse 19 of his letter, you believe in the one and only true living God?

Great, you do well. The demons believe that and they tremble. But no demon is on his way to heaven, even though they believe all of that. They believe in God the way I believe in Julius Caesar. I believe that he was the dictator of Rome. I believe that he was a military genius.

I believe that he personally conquered most of his known world. But I have never met Julius Caesar. And furthermore, I have never bent my knee to him and said, Caesar, you are Lord.

And I, as your loyal subject, will do your bidding. See, for you to believe that Jesus is the Son of God may mean nothing more than the demons who also believe that Jesus is the Son of God, because they will never bend their knee in worship to him. That's why they're never going to go to heaven. What's the difference, my friend, between you and what you believe and a demon and what he believes? Saving faith is not mere mental affirmation of historical truth.

Secondly, faith is not temporary assurance in trials. It's always interesting to me to read some of this poll stuff, but Gallup Jr., who's a believer, puts a few of those out every once in a while and always so high of people who say they believe in God. And he's always smart enough to ask a few questions after that, like, do you believe in the authority of Scripture?

And the numbers just plummet. They say they believe in God, but only a fraction believe the Bible has any authority over their life. But they believe in God. If you ask them, how do you know you believe in God or how do you know you're going to heaven or whatever, they will give you answers like I have been given over the years with something like this. Well, I prayed when I lost my job and went through that difficult situation and God provided financially or he gave me that job and that's how I know that God is involved in my life. Or I had a child that was sick or a spouse that was sick and I prayed that God would bring them to health and look, they got better.

And that proves to me that God is in my life because I talked to him about that. Their assurance has nothing to do with the gospel of saving faith. It is merely temporary assurances that I have everything to do with their lives on earth, but absolutely nothing to do with life in heaven. John wrote in his first epistle these interesting words. He said, by this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness does not belong to God. Now, are you saying that that means a believer can't or won't sin? Does that mean that a believer can't or won't rebel against the Lord? Does that mean a believer won't disobey or can't disobey?

Now, the key word in that text is the word practice. You see, it's one thing to practice righteous living. It's one thing to practice the pursuit of God. It's one thing to practice righteousness and fail as you practice that. It's another thing entirely to have nothing to do with God's righteous standard, nothing to do with the claims of Jesus Christ, nothing to do with the word, and say somehow you belong to God. He says, no, no, no, no, no. It's obvious.

Look at their lives. For those who claim to know Jesus Christ but refuse to follow him and live in sin, I want you to know my job is not to give you any shred of hope. It is my job today to comfort the afflicted and especially today afflict the comfortable. The apostle John did just that.

He uses these sobering words. They went out from us, but they were really not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.

But they went out in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us. 1 John 2 19. Charles Spurgeon said, if the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord's will but does not mean in any way to obey it, you are not to pamper his presumptions, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. What is saving faith? What is true, genuine faith?

Let me give you four thoughts. First of all, saving faith is trust in the living Lord Jesus Christ alone, which brings personal forgiveness and eternal life. You see, as we define salvation, we define it by faith alone. For by grace you have been saved through what? Not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of what? Works, lest any man should boast. We sing, my faith has found a resting place, not in device or creed.

I trust the ever-living one. His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument.

I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. As we define salvation, it is faith in this one alone. Secondly, faith in Christ apart from any works brings salvation, yet at the same time genuine faith works. Ephesians 2 goes on, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. In other words, real faith will always produce righteous works. Third, good works are not the condition for salvation.

They are the consequences of salvation. Paul wrote in Titus 2.14 that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people for his possession, zealous for good deeds. Finally, salvation then is God's gift of grace to us. Good works are our gifts of gratitude to God. Paul wrote with great rejoicing in Romans 6, but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Yes, as a slave to righteousness, you can sin, but your greatest hope and your greatest desire is to honor him.

Douglas Moo wrote these interesting and insightful words as he commented on this paragraph. He said we can understand Paul's words, obedience and faith, to be mutually interpreting. Obedience always involves faith. Faith always involves obedience.

Paul called men and women to a faith that was always inseparable from obedience. For the Savior in whom we believe is nothing less than our Lord into an obedience that can never be divorced from faith. For we can obey Jesus as Lord only when we have given ourselves to him in faith. Notice this, faith and obedience are not separate stages of Christian experience.

I think that's well put. In other words, it is impossible to receive from God the gift of eternal life without desiring to give back to him the gifts of gratitude that come from living in a way that would please him. How can anybody who has received the gift of eternal life care nothing for him? See, what kind of faith do you have today, my friend? The Bible talks about several different kinds. First of all, the Bible refers to dead faith.

James 2.17 talks about faith that is considered dead if it does not have accompanying works. In Matthew 7, you have the horrifying description of deceived faith. Not everyone, Matthew writes, who says to me, quoting the Lord, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

In other words, there are those who are even calling him Lord. But he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. In other words, those who obey him and his revealed will can have assurance that they're entering heaven. What is the will of God? Well, you go through the Bible and you study and you discover certain things. And one of them that I find in the Bible is where Paul wrote, flee, abstain from fornication. That is sexual relations outside of marriage. This is the will of God that you abstain from fornication. There's one way.

Are you obeying that one way? He says, many will say to me on that day, Lord, but did we not prophesy in your name? We got a lot of preachers there. And in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles. We got miracle workers in here now.

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. You talk about those who had visions. Talk about those who didn't just see miracles, but but literally were involved in miracles. We can tell now empowered by Satan himself. But they were involved in all of this and all in the name of Jesus. And Jesus, the judge says, I never knew you.

That is, I never had a relationship with you. You're deceived. Peter describes, I believe this crew of people in Second Peter two, three is those people who were merchandising the gospel. That is, they gathered a following only so they could profit from their following all within the context of the gospel. Maybe it was to boost their pride or to gather a following or to get rich or whatever reasons they displayed faith. They talked about their faith as being genuine, but they were putting on a show.

They knew not Christ. Perhaps that's why it's so important, men and women, for every one of us to have the next kind of faith. It is examined faith. Second Corinthians 13 verse five says, test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. He is writing to a church that was, for the most part, disobedient to the will of the Lord. And he tells them, Listen, you need to test yourselves to see if you're in the faith.

He goes on. Examine yourselves. Or do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you fail the test?

Can you imagine failing that test and for all eternity reaping the consequence because you never examined? Have you ever asked yourself the question? I'm really a Christian. Or did I just grow up in the church?

My parents, you know, they took me and it's the right thing to do. And have you ever asked yourself, Do you have a hunger for the word? Or does this grow dust from Sunday to Saturday? Do you ever ask yourself, Why is it that I don't want to talk to the Lord? Could it be that you're deceived? There are people who have all of the spiritual religious language but who have never examined themselves, and Paul exhorts them to take a close look and examine themselves to see if they are indeed in the faith. I like to ask it this way. If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you in a court of law?

Take inventory over last week or last month. What does the evidence say? What did you listen to on the radio? Did it honor God? What did you watch on television? Was your soul troubled by the sin that paraded its way across the screen? What did you read? Did you read this book?

Did you ever bend your knee in prayer? What does the evidence say to you? And finally, there is genuine faith. Well, what are some of the evidences or passions or actions of genuine faith?

Well, those who have it live it. We're told to live by faith. Romans 1 17, The just will live by faith. Paul wrote in Romans 1 verse 8, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all and that your faith is being proclaimed throughout all of the world.

It's not necessarily some dramatic thing, but faithfulness to God is something that creates ripples like a stone thrown in a pond and the influence ever widens. We are to live our faith. Secondly, we are to keep the faith. 2 Timothy 4 7, it's a reference not to somehow hanging on to your salvation and if you hold on real tight, maybe you'll make it in.

It has a reference to being faithful to the gospel truth. That is what we all want to do. We all want to end well. We all want to end living for Jesus Christ. And we fear as Paul feared living in such a way that we are disqualified. And as John wrote, we forfeit that full reward by our disobedience to our Lord.

He was able to say he was faithful all the way to the last lap. We're also to communicate the faith. 2 Timothy 2 2, the things you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses.

Communicate those to others, other faithful believers, faithful men who will be able to teach others also. We are also to contend for the faith. Contending for the faith means to defend the truth of the gospel against those whom Jude warns us will appear within the context of the gospel, within the context of the church, only to lead people astray, these deceivers and false teachers. Does it bother you when you hear something or you read something that attacks the credibility of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you ever talk to that television as you're watching the news?

Do you have the little messages you give it as if it could hear and change its text? Well, we're to contend that is something within us wants to defend the purity of the gospel. Finally, we're to fight the good fight of faith.

1 Timothy 6 12. Let me summarize the relationship between faith and works before we go further. Faith is that spiritual internal reality which brings about physical external results. Faith is the attitude.

Works are the action. Now, with that as my introduction, let's go to Romans chapter 1 verse 5. I have basically been expounding the meaning of it, but let's take one closer look at it. Through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith. There are three phrases.

This is the first. This refers to this unhesitating action of our faith. See, to obey here is seen as the substance of faith, and faith is seen as the substance of obedience. See, Paul here can't fathom anybody saying, Yeah, I believe in Jesus Christ, but I don't want to obey him. Yeah, I asked him into my heart, but living for him.

Well, that's a whole different subject. He can't fathom of that here. Maybe it's because he himself encountered the Lord in that dramatic way on the Damascus Road.

You remember? Riding his horse, he was going to persecute. He's going to put in jail and probably sign the decree for some to die who followed Christ, and he's trotting along, and suddenly the brilliance of the resurrected Lord shone. He was able to have that vision of our Lord, which gave him the credibility of later being called an apostle, where he had to see him. He saw him, and in that one moment, the brilliance of the Lord shone in his heart, and he realized he was persecuting the wrong people, and he wasn't following the true Lord. And there in his very first words to the risen Savior revealed the changing of his mind and the repentance of his heart and the evidence of his genuine conversion to faith in Christ when he simply said, What do you want me to do, Lord? See, that is the heart of the one who truly knows the Savior.

What do you want me to do for you? Today in the church, we seem to be enamored with better methods and ways for getting God to do what we want him to do for us. The false teachers tell us to pray certain prayers, these little incantations, and use these certain words, and the deceivers instruct us to go and get a little group or lobby that we could somehow force God into doing what we want, and we're told to claim it and name it and speak it and simply vision it, and it will happen from God, and this eternal butler will deliver the goods. My friend, true faith understands that he does the talking, and we do the butlering. We don't ring him up and tell him what we want.

He rings us up and tells us what he wants. True faith understands the relationship and obedience of faith, says, Lord, whatever you want me to do, I find no greater joy than that, and I will do it. Secondly, Paul reveals the unlimited arena of our faith. We have the unhesitating action of our faith, which leads to this unlimited arena of our faith. His next prepositional phrase reads, among all the Gentiles. What an amazing thing he just said.

Did you catch that? Among all the Gentiles. That's another sermon in itself, but I know you want to get to verse six, so we'll move forward as quickly as we can. See, Paul, he's been a Pharisee. He hates Gentiles. He would walk through the market, and he would gather his garment around him because if he brushed up against some Gentile, he considered himself unclean, and he would have all these rituals to go through to make himself now clean again. He would wake up every morning as the Pharisees did and thank God, among other things, that he had not been created Gentile.

Now he says, I can't wait. My faith has so revolutionized my life, my entire attitude has changed as I have come to this gospel of Christ, and I want to tell every Gentile I meet about the saving truth of Christ. This man is different. Has your faith somehow worked its way out where you live and work? Are you the kind of person that looks for an opportunity to share it, or is it a big secret to you?

I want you to examine yourself today because the reason it is a secret perhaps could be because you don't have it, and those who have it desire to share it. What an amazing change occurring right before our very eyes in this man named Paul. Finally, the last phrase reveals the ultimate ambition of our faith. Paul writes, for his name's sake. Now what's his name again? Jesus Christ our Lord.

He gave it to us earlier in the paragraph. For the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord. The greatest passion we have in whatever we do for him is for him.

Let me make two quick comments here as we wrap it up. Number one, you will never tally on earth the effects of your faith. When Paul told these believers, man, your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world, I imagine they looked at each other and said, you've got to be kidding. And yet 2,000 years later we're still talking about them. The impact you're making, my friends, on that child or that member of your athletic team or that student in your classroom or that coworker on your floor or that neighbor, you have no idea what kind of impact you are making by simply being obedient to your faith, and it will take heaven and the bema to calculate it all.

And in light of that coming day, number two, you will never regret every act and attitude of faith. This past couple of weeks I've had lunches with different men. Some of them go to our church, some of them don't. And it's amazing to me as I ate with these men to hear them basically giving testimony to this text. One man told me, he said, Stephen, I started a business out of the back end of my pickup truck about 14 years ago, and we lived on the edge. And he said, as you know, I've recently come to faith in Christ.

And he said, this year our company will pull in about 25 million in business. And he said, I'm not ready. I don't have the spiritual armor that I need for that kind of pressure. I want to grow deeper in my walk with Christ. And he looked at me and he said, would you tell me what to do? What I was hearing from that man was nothing less than the obedience of faith. I had lunch a few days ago with another gentleman who said, Stephen, I have been so convicted with my lack of passion for God. And his eyes would fill up with tears throughout our lunch.

He had a bowl of soup he never touched. And he said, I have been, for the most part, disobedient. I've been disobedient to the Lord.

I accepted Christ as a little boy and raised in a Christian home. And he said, I don't know what's happening in my life. But he said, a few weeks ago, I was so convicted of my apathy and my sin and the fact that my employees that work with me know me by profanity and off color stories. And I never talk about the Lord.

And it's a secret. And something happened a couple of weeks ago where I where God arrested my heart. And he said, I went home and I talked to my wife and confessed to her the fact that I was living a pure life. And I confessed to the Lord. And he said, we just began to talk about how we were raised in the church, but yet there was no obedience in our walk to the Lord. And we just began going through the house collecting stuff to throw away. He said, we got CDs and videos and movies and whatever that wouldn't contribute to righteousness. He said, we were up until 3 a.m. throwing this stuff away. He said, at one point, I sat down on the couch and I looked at my wife and we were just on fire. And we asked each other, what else can we do?

Is there anything else we ought to throw away? He looked at me and he said, with tears in his eye, I'm tired of playing games. I want to be real for God. And my friends, is the obedience of faith. As a pastor, I would give him assurance of salvation if I could. Only God's spirit can, but I would not on the basis of what happened when he was a kid.

What happened there? He said, well, wait a second. You should have told him when you were a kid, you asked Christ and your heart.

And then, you know, tell him, don't worry about that. You're all worked up here about, you know, some little things. See, some of you have have signed a card when you were a kid. You joined that church.

You got wet. You got a Bible with your name on it when you were 12. And that's, look, right there is that Bible years ago. And that's my assurance. My friend, I'm asking you today, where is your vibrant, obedient faith?

You may be deceived. Your testimony should be as fresh as yesterday. There's an old hymn text that combines these two elements of faith or trust and obedience. It says it simply and yet profoundly, trust and obey. For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. That's another way of saying Romans chapter 1 verse 5, when it refers to the obedience of faith.

That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen called this message True Faith Works. True faith isn't just a belief. It's a life lived in obedience. As Paul reminds us, genuine faith always produces works that glorify God. Let's examine our faith and make sure it reflects the obedience that honors Christ. Discover more wisdom from God's Word at our website. Visit wisdomonline.org to access Stephen's four decades of Bible teaching. Join us next time on Wisdom for the Heart.