Faith’s Object: Jesus Christ

What is the object of my faith? What am I to believe in to receive the gift of eternal life and live with God in heaven? What must I do to be saved?

The object of faith for the sinner is Jesus Christ. We receive “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe” (Romans 3:22). We are “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (v. 24).

Jesus Christ alone is the object of your faith for the forgiveness of sin. On nothing else can you trust to have all your sins pardoned.

God is a just God, and He must punish sin. God at the same time is merciful and wills to pardon and forgive those who believe on Jesus Christ. How can He be just and exact the penalty for sin? How can He be merciful and accept the sinner? How can He be just and at the same time justify the believing sinner?

The Biblical solution to our sins problem is substitution, which is essential to God’s plan of salvation. God looks upon Jesus Christ as though He had been all the sinners in the world wrapped up into one. The sins of His people were taken from their persons and actually laid on Jesus Christ when He died on the cross. God in fiery judgment met the sinner and punished Him. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). God poured out His wrath against sin on His own Son. Christ was not the actual sinner, but the sins of all His people were all imputed to Him. They were charged to His account personally and spiritually. The justice of God met Jesus Christ on the cross as though He had been the actual sinner. Jesus received the punishment for His people’s sins. God extracted from His Son the last atom of the penalty for our sins. He drank the last drop of judgment against us.

Today we look upon Jesus Christ as our substitute who died in our place. We put our trust in His saving work for us. We are delivered from the curse of the law because Jesus died for us. Jesus Christ has paid the wages of sin in full.

Jesus was the “just” dying for the “unjust.” He was the “righteous” one dying for the “unrighteous.” Jesus Christ is the vicarious substitutionary sacrifice dying for the sins of all those who will trust Him for the remission of their sins. Jesus endured once and for all the punishment for our sins. He has put away our sins forever by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross.

Therefore, the object of our faith must ever be in Jesus Christ. Saving faith can never be in ourselves because we are sinners, already condemned and under the judgment of God. A person dead in trespasses and sins cannot offer God anything to merit salvation.

“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). Therefore, God now offers us His free gift of salvation. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23).

The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses the person who puts his faith in Jesus. The waters of baptism cannot wash your sins away. Only the blood of Jesus can do that. If the blood of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, cannot cleanse us of every sin surely water cannot. Trust in the blood and the righteousness of Jesus Christ to save your soul. Nothing else will do.

The object of the sinner’s faith must be Jesus Christ who is the substitute for sinners. The sinner has no other plea but the blood of Jesus that was shed for him. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and because we are sinners, we qualify. We come confessing ourselves to be sinners and trusting Jesus Christ alone and His atoning death alone to save us. We come with nothing in our hands but the cross of Jesus and His redeeming blood. Jesus and Jesus alone can save your soul. “Wash me, Savior, or I die.”

Believe on Jesus Christ and His blood will make you clean. It is not faith in Jesus Christ plus baptism. It is not faith in Jesus Christ plus church membership. It is not faith in Jesus Christ plus your good works. It is not faith in Jesus Christ plus anything you do. It is faith in Jesus and His saving grace alone that will save your soul. Put your trust in Jesus and you shall be saved.

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds

Joseph’s Secret to Success

Tucked away in his father’s blessing is an illustration that the blessings of the Lord are greater than anything we can imagine on this earth. One commentator has said, “It is the Old Testament equivalent to John 15:1-17 where Jesus taught His disciples to abide in the vine. Whether the Old or the New Testament, the secret of spiritual fruitfulness is union with the Lord God through Jesus Christ.”

“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall” (Genesis 49:22 NIV). That is the testimony of the Bible. “The LORD was with Joseph… The LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph… The LORD was with Joseph… The LORD was with him, and whatever he did, that the LORD made to prosper” (Genesis 39: 2, 5, 21).

The LORD God caused Joseph’s vine to “climb over a wall” into Egypt, and God used him there. “God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (41:52). “God has made me lord of all Egypt” (45:9).

Joseph was saying, “I saw God do it!” The LORD God was sovereign in his life, and it was His sovereign grace that delivered and sustained him during those long hard years in Egypt as a Hebrew slave.

If Joseph had been living in our day, he would say without Christ we can do nothing. However, when we are in union with Him, it is His life that is seen in us; it is His power at work in us, and our works are therefore His works.

Jacob told his son Joseph how he would be a fruitful vine. It would not be without adversity, trials, and temptations. Bitter archers who hated him attacked Joseph. “They shot at him with hostility” (v.23a-24a). He kept liberally “in an unyielding position.”

Joseph’s own brothers shot their bitter arrows of hatred and envy at him. “If God loves you, man will hate you; if God honors you, man will dishonor you,” cried Spurgeon. Joseph’s own brothers shot their bitter and hostile arrows at them conspiring to kill him, threw him in a cistern and sold him unto slavery and was taken to Egypt. The first archers were the archers of envying in his own home. “When they saw him, they plotted against him to put him to death” (Gen. 37:18).

The hot arrows of temptation from Potiphar’s lusty wife took aim at Joseph. When given the opportunity that many a man craves for, Joseph ran for his life shouting, “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” (39:9). It was not just one lustful, passionate advance because “She spoke to Joseph day after day” (v.10).

Joseph said, “No!” “He did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her” (v.10). He fled, and he paid for it by going to prison.

Joseph was maligned in the eyes of his master, and his character was ruined. Spurgeon said, “It was a marvelous providence that Potiphar did not put Joseph to death.” This lying person ruined Joseph’s character..

C. H. Spurgeon drew an application saying, “There are no royal roads to heaven – they are paths of trial and trouble; the archers will shoot at you as long as you are on this side the flood.” Those who are true to God’s Word can expect it, indeed, must expect it. “Bless be God, they have not said worse things of us than they said of our Master.”

Again, the great old Baptist preacher said, “Do not be in a hurry to set yourselves right. God will take care of you. Leave yourselves alone; only be very valiant for the Lord God of Israel, be steadfast in the truth of Jesus and your bow shall abide.”

No one was able to bend Joseph’s bow but he and God. “His bow abode in strength; it did not snap, it did not stray aside. His chastity was his bow, and he did not lose that; his faith was his bow, and that did not yield it did or break; his courage was his bow, and that did not fail him; his character and his honesty was his bow, nor did he cast it away.”

What was Joseph’s secret? How did he bear such fruit of righteousness?

“His bow remained in an unyielding position, and the arms of his hands were agile, from the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob” (v.24 using the marginal notes). The NIV reads, “But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed limber, because the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, the Rock of Israel, because of your father’s God, who helps you, because of the Almighty, who blesses you…” (49:24-25b).

Joseph’s arms “Were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.” The image is that of the LORD God placing His strong hands upon the hands of Joseph as he draws the string of his bow just as a strong father might steady and guide his son in giving an archery lesson.

Who steadies your hand? Who gives you inner strength? Joseph’s “bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed limber, because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5b). The secret of Joseph’s strength is divine strength. And if you and I ever accomplish anything to God’s glory, it will be in and by and through abiding in Jesus Christ.

Selah!

Keep on Walking by the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit suppresses the evil impulses of nature as the believer trusts Him to do so. As we cooperate with Him in the work of sanctification He enables us to be victorious in the Christian life.

It is the responsibility of every true believer to submit his life to the control of the Holy Spirit.

In the context of a church biting, devouring, and destroying Christian fellowship, the apostle Paul admonished Christians to “walk by the spirit.” Conduct yourself under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. Let the inward impulses of the Holy Spirit continue to control your behavior.

The Spirit is the source of all good and gracious impulses in your life. He works within the believer enabling with sanctifying power. The Spirit gives us wisdom and direction and by His help and power we live and overcome the inevitable temptations, sorrows and joys in life.

The present tense of the verb “to walk” (peripateite) indicates a continuing condition or need. Paul is encouraging the believers to keep on doing what they have been doing, i.e., “Keep on walking by the Spirit.” Keep in step; don’t fall out now.

It is the responsibility of the Christian to make the Holy Spirit the rule of his life. Live continually in and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let the Spirit always continue to direct your life, and when He is guiding your life “you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

How does the Christian fulfill the “righteousness of the law” without becoming a legalists? Romans 8:4 tells us “walk after the Spirit.” "So that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).

Instead of biting, devouring, and consuming one another, which is the result of fulfilling the desire of the flesh, let the Holy Spirit produce His kind of righteousness in your life.

As a believer “keep on walking” through life depending on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God for His guidance and power.

The emphasis the apostle Paul is making is this submission to the Holy Spirit is the responsibility of the individual. The Holy Spirit does not operate automatically in the Christian. We do not become robots when we believe on Christ. However, as the Christian does yield to the Spirit’s control, the promise is that he emphatically will not (ou me) carry out the desires of the flesh. Paul uses a strong double negative to reinforce this great truth. The Holy Spirit wants us to be obedient and when we do obey Him we overcome these evil desires (vv. 19-21).

This great Biblical truth frees us from going to the extremes of liberty as license and lordship as legalism. True Christianity is neither license nor legalism. We have been set free to live Christ. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery” (5:1). The Holy Spirit frees us to live in that spiritual freedom. He frees us from the penalty and power of sin and will one day free us from the presence of sin.

The Bible teaches us that the human body is not sinful; it is neutral. However, when the Holy Spirit is in control of the body, we live in a manner that pleases God. It is when the Holy Spirit is not in control that we live in a way that fulfills the desires of the flesh--the old nature with its sinful behavior.

We cannot win the spiritual victory by our own personal strength or will power. Once you let the Holy Spirit guide you, “then you will never satisfy the passions of the flesh.” The promise is realized in those who continually walk or live by the Spirit. Those who walk by the Spirit will definitely not (emphatic) fulfill the desires of the flesh. This is the only assurance that we will not yield to the power within us that leads to sinful behavior. You will always know who or what is in control by the works (vv. 19-21), or the fruit (v. 22-25).

Selah!

Be Imitators of God

“Be imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1).

Those words are startling, upsetting, impossible. It is “the ultimate ideal.”

“Be imitators of God.” There can be no higher standard than that. The apostle Paul boldly tells us if we are to be like God we must imitate Him.

How is it possible for us depraved sinners to possibly imitate the sovereign LORD of the universe?

Once we get over the initial shock we realize that as children we are to imitate our parents. We should behave like them assuming they are godly role models.

Since we were born into God's family as His legitimate children when we repented and placed our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we therefore should be an imitation of God (John 1:12-13).

Let it be clearly stated that “imitating God” has nothing to do with trying to merit eternal life. It has to do with our sanctification. We are to grow in godliness. The supreme example of this idea of imitating God is in the life of Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul used the word mimetai from which we get our English word to “mimic.” The idea is to copy closely, to repeat another person's speech, actions, behavior and mannerisms. Paul is saying get to know your heavenly Father so you can echo His speech and behave the way He behaves.

How do we “imitate” our Father? We know that the apostle is not telling us to try to imitate God's sovereignty. He alone is and ever will be self-existent and self-efficient. That is absolutely beyond our means. He alone is eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, etc. Those are non-communicable attributes of God. He alone is God.

We are “to be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1). Not childish attitudes and behavior, but as His children.

Ephesians 5:2 explains how the believer is to imitate God. We are to “walk in love.”

Jesus sacrificed His life for us. As the Good Shepherd He gave His life for the sheep (John 10:11, 15). Jesus “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God, and our Father” (Galatians 1:4).

God took our sin seriously and He dealt with it fully in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. On the basis of that death God chose to forgive you and me (1 John 4:10; Rom. 5:8; Gal. 2:20; John 15:13; 3:16).

Christ “gave Himself up” for you and me. He surrendered Himself to death by execution for our crimes against God. He died in our stead, i.e. in our place. That is how great His love is for us.

Christians can imitate God by loving others, even to the point of death if necessary (1 John 3:16).

“We are to walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma” (Ephesians 5:2).

“Walk in love” is a constant ordering your behavior within the sphere of love. The child of God is to order his behavior within the sphere of this divine, supernatural love produced in his heart by the Holy Spirit. After a while it becomes a good habit, and we be become more and more like our heavenly Father.

Let's be careful to note the context of the admonition. A couple of verses earlier he wrote, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (4:30). How do you grieve Him? The next verse says by bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice (v. 31). Let's put it away from us because it causes pain, grief, and distress to the Holy Spirit of God.

We can please Him by being “kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you . . .” (4:32-5:2).

How do you please Him, rather than causing Him grief? Act the way He acts; behave the way your Father in heaven behaves; “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God . . .”

How did our heavenly Father treat us? He dealt with us in kindness, compassion, forgiving. Praise God that He has not dealt with us with what we deserved. In grace He has chosen to love us and forgive us of every sin. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of all our sins. That is love. That is how God treats us.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children . . .” Act like the Father. Love like the Father. Forgive like the Father. Be kind to one another like the Father. “Just as God in Christ has forgiven you.” “Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us.”