3rd April 2023

3rd April 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Hebrews 11:39a


Message Alan Burke 


We’ve spent the last number of weeks working through some of those listed in Hebrews 11, we have been brought face to face with sinful men and women, who are not held out to us to model their behaviour for they were ultimately sinners but to the hope that they had of the Christ who would come. They are some of those old testament saints were saved by grace though faith in Christ Jesus. It was by the grace of God that those listed received a commendation. None of it was based on their works, their endeavours, their efforts, instead they were those who were called by God who had faith and by faith they were those used by God as he worked out his plans and purposes in salvation history, it is a wonderful story of the grace of our God that would redeem sinners for his only Glory.


They had faith which is a gift of God, a faith that looked to the promises of God, the yet not seen heavenly reality! At any point throughout human history, if anyone has ever been saved it is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The faith all these had was in Christ, they way they were saved was by Christ, they only faith that saves is in Christ! For every believer it is by faith alone in Christ alone that we are saved. While some may want to claim that what matters for us ‘faith and’; faith and works, faith and keeping the commands, faith and loving their neighbour, faith and being a good citizen, or works without faith, or keeping the commands without faith, loving their neighbour without faith, being a good citizen without faith, no, salvation from beginning to end was and is about faith, these in Hebrews 11 were saved by faith, likewise we are saved by faith. 


And the knowledge of this should lead us to rejoice at the wonder of the gospel, since the gospel was first announced to the serpent in the midst of the fall, of the hope of the one who would come, the seed of the woman, a serpent crusher who would come and now has come (Gen 3:15). What God had been directing his people to from the very beginning is that what matters is not our goodness, but His grace. For as the covenant of works lay in shatters with the fall, as Adam’s first sin brought sin and death into the world, God instituted the covenant of Grace, how sinners are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, in the serpent crusher. 


For the one who was God and was with God in the begging, the one whom all things were made through, the one what was life and the light of all men came into the world, the only begotten Son came that he might die for all those past, present and future who would have faith in him. For all that receive him, for all who believe in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of God by the Holy Spirit whom we were baptised in through faith. We like those listed here have received by faith our commendation, what mattered was and is the grace of God in the Christ that they looked to and we look to, it is by faith, it comes by faith. 


You know if you are weary, weary in the midst of this life, living under the effects of sins curse in a sin cursed world, if your struggles are getting on top of you, past guilt of sin that the devil keeps accusing you off, or maybe living with the consequences of past sin? Then know that what matters is faith, it has always been this way, the only way that we please God becomes the righteous of God is by faith in the Christ the Son of God who came to die in our stead. For it is by faith that the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is credited to us, that is given to us. What we deserve is his wrath but Christ took the wrath that we deserve that we might be saved. It is the only way that anyone has been saved is by faith.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q10 How did God create man?
God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures. (Gen. 1:26–28, Col. 3:10, Eph. 4:24)
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