GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 24 ~ ~ Psalm 19:7 ~ ~ “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;”
Excerpts from “The Pleasures of God” by John Piper
(Yesterday we talked about obedience coming from genuine faith being necessary for salvation.)
But how does faith produce obedience? When you trust Christ to take care of your future (“faith is the assurance of things hoped for”), the inevitable result is that sinful strategies to gain happiness sink in the peaceful confidence that God will make a greater joy for you in his own way. Therefore moral conformity to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) is the fruit of faith.
Martin Luther saw this so clearly! In the two years between October 1518 and October 1520, the indomitable reformer had a respite from the Roman (Catholic church) siege. He worked feverishly, not knowing how long his safety would last. One of the works that came from this period was the walloping little pamphlet called “The Freedom of a Christian”. Even in translation, and four centuries later, it vibrates with the passion of this ignited man.
It captures —or I should say releases!) the connection between faith and holiness—between confidence in the promises of Christ and conformity to the person of Christ. Luther wrote;
“It is a further function of faith that it honors him whom it trusts (Christ) with the most reverent and highest regard, since it considers him truthful and trustworthy. So when the soul firmly trusts God’s promises, it regards him as truthful and righteous. When this is done, the soul consents to his will. Then it hallows his name and allows itself to be treated according to God’s good pleasure for, clinging to God’s promises, it does not doubt that he who is true, just, and wise will do, and provide all things well.
Is not such a soul most obedient to God in all things by this faith? What commandment is there that obedience has not completely fulfilled? This obedience, however, is not rendered by works, but by faith alone.”
We should never think of obedience as something unattached to saving faith as though the one could exist for long without the other. Obedience to Christ is the NECESSARY RESULT of true faith.
But to make crystal clear why it is that faith begets obedience, or practical likeness to Christ, we should draw out the essential meaning of saving faith even more clearly than we have so far. We will see in a moment from Hebrews that the FUTURE dimension of saving faith is essential if faith is to have its sanctifying effect. Trusting in God to meet our needs breaks the power of sin’s promise to make us happier. But what we need to see here is that the ESSENCE OF FAITH IS BEING SATISFIED WITH ALL THAT GOD IS FOR US IN CHRIST.
This statement emphasizes two things. One is the God-centeredness of faith. It is not merely the PROMISES of God that satisfy us. It is all that GOD HIMSELF is for us Faith embraces God—not just his promised gifts—as our treasure. Faith banks its hope not just on the real estate of the age to come, but on the fact that GOD will be there. (Revelation 21:3). And even NOW what faith embraces most earnestly is not just the reality of sins forgiven—as precious as that it— but the presence of the living Christ in our hearts and the fullness of God himself. (Ephesians 3:17-19).
The other thing emphasized in defining faith as BEING SATISFIED WITH ALL THAT GOD IS FOR US is the term, “satisfaction”.
Faith is not just believing facts about God. It is not just intellectual assent. Faith is the quenching of the soul’s thirst at the fountain of God. The biblical evidence for this can be seen most easily in John 6:35. “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life: he who COMES to me shall not hunger, and he who BELIEVES in me shall never thirst.’”
“Believing” means “coming” to Jesus to eat and drink the bread of life and the living water. (John 4:10, 14) which are nothing other than Jesus himself. And when we eat this food and drink this water we are satisfied with Jesus. That is the meaning of faith. We rest in him.
Here is the secret of the power of faith: WE REST IN JESUS.
Here is the secret of the power of faith to break the enslaving force of sinful attractions. If the heart is satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus, then the power of sin to lure us away from the wisdom of Christ is broken!
We will love holiness because it is an expression of the personality of the One who brings us so much satisfaction.