Righteousness by Faith is Recreation by Faith

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. Thank you for tuning into the program again today. Braedan and myself are delighted to have your company. And just as we start, we just want to ask God's blessing on our study and our time together. Gracious Father in heaven, thank you for all your blessings. Thank you for another day. Thank you for the word of God that can be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Father, we just ask for your Spirit to guide and lead us, baptize us anew, teach us and instruct us and lead us into all truth. As you have promised is our prayer. In Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C So we have this program that deals with faith. Now, faith is essential. You know, the people who came through the Reformation spoke about faith alone, grace alone, faith alone, the glory of God alone. Now, faith, as we've unpacked it before we said faith is placing explicit confidence in the Word of God exclusively. So that's the exclusion of everything else in the Word of God exclusively, simply because we know the person who the Word has been spoken from, we can trust God as we unpacked in the past. It's impossible for God to lie then also expecting what God has said either in person or through his prophets, to be accomplished without any need for external aid. In other words, when God says something, he doesn't need us to go and fulfill it. He fulfills it himself because his word has power. And we've spoken about that a little bit, seeing God's Word active in creation now at times. Braedan, I have taken on some projects. You've got some plans, you've got some ideas and thoughts and think, okay, well, I'll do this, I'll knock that out, maybe in a half an hour, maybe I'll do it in a day or two. And as you take the projects on, they sometimes turn out to be a little bit more complex or a little bit more difficult than you had anticipated. Have you got any examples of that where you've taken on some projects and they've turned out to be a little bit harder than you expected? SPEAKER D I actually just had one yesterday and I turned out relatively okay, but I just was not happy with it. My housemate has just bought a car and the gear stick in this little Ford Fiesta, that little fake leather sock that goes around the gear stick, he'd had frayed and had kind of torn off the top of the knob of the gear stick. And he wanted to know how we could fix it. And so he pulled it apart and called me down. I was just upstairs and I took on the project. I took it on and I was going to do something to fix this. And I ended up snipping the top off, thinking that if I just clean up the top, I can work it again. But the more you snip down this cone shaped sock, the bigger the hole gets at the top, okay? And it's very, very hard to actually get it back again. And I just was realizing that I've just bitten off something a little bit more than I can chew. And so I started to come up with some other ideas. I actually undid the stitching of the sock, this fake leather sock, and actually, now I've got this big flat piece of fake leather, and I'm just like, what am I going to do here? I ended up getting the scissors out again and actually cutting down the sock and then trying to stitch it back together and to try and get the. SPEAKER C Neck at the top narrow again, to. SPEAKER D Get the neck at the top narrower. And I stitched it up and look, I don't have much experience with stitching. They're happy with it. But as I got to that point, I just said, Braedan, why did you take on this project? I thought that I could fix this. I thought that would just be a simple little fix. But I was out there for about an hour trying to solve this problem. And I told him, I told my mate, I said, I think what you need to do is just head down to the Ford dealership and pay a bit of money and just buy a brand new one. We were trying to fix something that really it's beyond it. SPEAKER C Okay? Materials that you had to work with there were no longer sufficient. SPEAKER D They were no longer sufficient. But I find it so interesting we do that in our own lives. We think that with this thing that we've been given, this life, this experience and that kind of stuff, we keep trying to fix something that's broke. Yes, something that's broken. And we trying to fix it all the time and trying to make something new out of something that's deteriorated, dilapidated. And we frustrate ourselves with just so much time and energy, trying to make ourselves into something more than what we are. SPEAKER C Right. SPEAKER D But we just make it worse. SPEAKER C Yeah. Now, I've noticed there's a text there in Romans where it says to him, a works is not counted as grace, but as debt. And that could be interpreted probably two ways, but that debt sometimes thinks you're trying to dig yourself out of a hole, but as you're digging, you're just making the hole deeper. You're actually making things worse rather than better. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And that's probably a good example of that. We're trying to fix something and it turns out to be worse than it was before. I actually have a little bit of a story as well. I had a motorbike years ago and I've always wanted to get back into motorbikes. And I've sometimes joke and said I wouldn't mind a midlife crisis because they get all the nice toys. So I end up finally buying myself a motorbike. I thought it'd be a good way, especially with the fuel prices the way they are nowadays. That would save me a little bit of money running to work and back. And I got myself a learner's because I never finally sat my exam with my motorbike license going many, many years ago. So I bought this motorbike just a cheapie. I thought, well, let me just get it checked over, got it checked over, had a few things that I need to fix on that. It was another $1,000, which I didn't expect. I should have just spent the extra money. My wife particularly reminded me of that later. But one of the things I found out, I bought this during daylight saving time and after daylight saving fell away. I went down and visit somebody one evening and it's dark by 06:00 already, so I went home about 630 and I'm driving with these lights on and I realize how terrible these headlights are on this motorbike. I can't see a thing. I'm struggling to see the road at 40 mean at 45, 50, driving the beam on this light that shows you how bad it was, right? So I'm going, I need to fix these lights. So I take it to the motorbike dealer and said, listen, I need to get these lights it out. They just worse. Then they checked and they said, oh, there was a little bit of a wiring issue in one of them. And also one of the bulbs had something loose and it wouldn't have been as bright. So they put a new light bulb in and I tried it out at night, but still, when cars are coming the other way, it's not bright enough in front of me to actually see where the road is. So I've got to guess I want to stay to the left of where their lights are. But I also got to make sure I don't go too far left because I can't see where the shoulder of the road finishes and where I'm going to hit gravel or whatever it is, the grass or whatever it is. I'm driving very nervously down this road and I'm really worried. And when the cars come behind me, because they're catching up, because I'm slowing down, I can't see a thing. Their lights are so bright behind me, they're casting a shadow where my light is supposed to be. It shows you how bad it is. So I finally go online. I think I'm going to go and buy myself some Led lights. And I talk to the guy, goes, yes, get some H Three lights, buy them, and we'll just fit them for you. So I end up buying these super duper bright Led lights, and I thought they'd be excellent for my motorbike. Take it back to him. He gets back to me. He goes, Listen, this is a bigger job than we thought we thought it would. Just take the fairing off, put it in 20 minutes. Half hour later, it's all done. It's going to be a two hour plus job because we have to take the head out. We now have to bore it because the lights you bought are too big. They can't fit into the original socket. Okay? Okay. So how much is that going to cost me anyway? $250. Later, I have these new super duper lights fit into my motorbike, and I'm driving around at night, and I can't tell any difference. I just can't see anything with this. I thought, well, maybe it's just because I decided to take the motorway so I don't get blinded by the headlights coming from the front anymore. And I can sort of take the benefit of the lights of the cars as they're going past me. Anyway, these lights are worse. I've spent $250 on fixing a problem which actually didn't fix the problem or left it where it was. It actually got worse. SPEAKER D Oh, dear. SPEAKER C I can't see a thing. So now I can't even put the old headlights back in because they won't fit. The holes are too big now because they've bored them out. They've drilled them out to put these new headlights in. So I've got a worse problem. I try to fix this problem, spent money on it. I mean, that's money I can't get back. The guy said he's not going to give me a refund because he was just doing a favor for me to fit these new lights. So I've made things worse. I wanted to see. I wanted light, and I haven't got enough light. So I can't drive the motorbike at night. I only can drive it during the daytime. And now while it's winter, obviously it's not working too well for me because I leave when it's dark, and I get home when it's dark. SPEAKER D Oh, dear. You know what that reminds me of? A Bible verse in Matthew, chapter five. Jesus says, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Then it goes on to say, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. I find it so interesting. Jesus has called us to be a light shining in this dark world. And what is that light? According to this verse. It's our good works. It's living life in a good way and doing good things. Selfless deeds of kindness to others. And Jesus says that's how you reveal the light to the world. So he's called us to be the light. And sometimes we kind of do just what you're doing with that motorbike. We kind of just trying to fit new different bulbs into it. And as you were saying, you probably should have got a different motorbike. SPEAKER C I should have. I would have saved money by now. SPEAKER D But it's interesting, we try so desperately to just modify strap a head torch to the front of something and just trying to become what God has called us to be. SPEAKER C I've looked at all those things you wouldn't believe. I went to Bunnings to prime the brightest torch they would have and think, how can I strap that to the know while it's winter? So I can see I've abandoned all those ideas because it just wouldn't and. SPEAKER D Don'T we just chuckle it a little bit when we think about our Christian experience sometimes? The old spiritual trip down to Bunnings to get something to strap on the front, to try to make do, trying to modify and try to just make it work. When God is actually revealed in the scriptures that modification is not what Christianity is about. It's not about just modifying us. SPEAKER C And I like where you're going with this thought as well, because that concept of just developing what is inherently in us already, okay, there's a little bit of light. So my high Yosung motorbike had a little bit of light, and I think I want to fix it, but I made it worse. So is it possible that we, in our desire to strive to be a light, actually think that the source may be within us, but it's not really it needs to come externally from us? SPEAKER D It's interesting. SPEAKER C Yeah, because, I mean, we look at creation, for example, right, and creation and salvation, creation and redemption are connected because it's the same God that created, that saves, and the same God that spoke creation in existence, that actually speaks righteousness into our lives. But the God in the first day of creation that spoke light into existence, I've always wondered about that light because we know it's day four, so three days later that God actually makes the sun and the moon, and he says he also made the stars. So what was that light? Is there a text that gives us a bit of an understanding regarding what that light could be? SPEAKER D We actually find it in Two Corinthians, chapter four. And we actually find quite a lot about light and darkness in this particular chapter. But I love this. When Paul is writing this particular verse, he's very much pointing our minds to creation, because on that first day, we have darkness and void and emptiness and this watery chaos. And then God steps in and does something and brings this beautiful world out of this dark abyss. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D In so chapter chapter four of two Corinthians and verse six, paul says, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. SPEAKER C Okay, so that's definitely a reference to the first day of creation, isn't it? God said, Let there be light. There was no light before. There was just the earth was void and dark. And he God says, Let there be light, and there was light. Okay, so we are on the first day of creation as our reference point for that. SPEAKER D That's right. So he's referring to the God who, way back in the beginning, spoke and spoke light into a very dark place. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D So for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts. That's interesting. He's shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. SPEAKER C That is fascinating. So this light, the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, just like in creation now in redemption, in enlightening us and giving us understanding, shines, that same light must be by the same word, I would say, into our hearts. And by doing that, it gives us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Now, that is as fascinating because knowledge obviously comes to us as a means of instruction, and we are instructed by listening to God, by listening to His Word. But it's not just any knowledge. It talks about the knowledge of the glory of God. So this when we talk about glory, moses asked to see God's glory, didn't he? SPEAKER D He did, yeah. SPEAKER C He had a knowledge of God more than any person living at that time, but he wanted to know more. And he said to God, show me your glory. And then God said, I will make all my goodness to pass before you. So the glory of God is his goodness. And he says, I will proclaim the name of the Lord. And then he says, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, abundant and mercy and truth. So it talks about truth. It talks about his character. SPEAKER D Talking about his character. SPEAKER C Yeah. So the way God shines in us is through the same word, but it's through a knowledge, which is a knowledge about who God is. It's about his glory and his character. SPEAKER D So if we can kind of summarize what's going on here, paul is contrasting two situations. He's got this picture way back in the beginning where you've got this dark, vacuous void and you've got God who speaks and light shines into this dark place. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And then we have fast forward to Paul's time, and he's talking about the human heart, which is equally as dark, which is like a vacuous, empty abyss, and God is the same. God is wanting to speak light into this environment. And then Paul actually explains what that light is. It's light is actually knowledge, it's information. It's a revelation of God's character. And he specifically says that's seen in the face of Jesus Christ. It's so interesting that Jesus himself says in John, chapter eight, he says, I am the light of the world. Yes, he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. So Jesus comes as the light of the world. He is light. It's interesting. He's the word. He brings God's message of grace to this planet and he comes to this world and from his very face shines the glory of God. And that's going to do something in this world to recreate us in his image. I'll just quickly read from chapter three. How does this glory, this shining light, affect us? In verse 18 it says, but we all with unveiled face. Beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. SPEAKER C Right? SPEAKER D So as we see this glory, as we see God's character being shone into our hearts, if we are willing, we will actually begin to reflect that image as the Spirit of God transforms us from the inside out. So God's business is to reveal his goodness to us and then by the Spirit to transform us to reflect that exact same image. SPEAKER C Amen. So here the word transformation is used. Now that we are to be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, that's transformation. But in the Gospel, do we also see the same power as in recreation, because creation is instant. We read there in Psalm chapter 33, verse six, that God. And verse nine as well. It says that by the word of the Lord, the heavens with ramen, and all the hosts them by the breath of his mouth he commanded and understood fast. He spoke and it was done instantly. So we obviously have regeneration, but we also have recreation. We can be instant. Now, you went to chapter three of two, corinthians we've read from chapter four and verse six. I want to go to chapter five. SPEAKER D Okay. SPEAKER C And just three, four, five. Yeah, it's funny how it's worked out in our discussion here, but verse 17, it tells us something fascinating. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. SPEAKER D That's so interesting, isn't it? SPEAKER C Yeah. So we've read about regeneration or being transformed, transformation, but now we're also talking about recreation. If anybody's in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. So God is able to not only transform, but he's also able to recreate. So what happens is my motorbike doesn't just need me to have those headlights replaced and I thought I was doing a good job or do a Rebor or strap a torch, those things that will work I need to replace the whole thing actually to make it work properly for me. Otherwise I won't be able to drive it at night, drive it while the sun's shining, but when the sun goes down, I'm in serious trouble. I'm a danger to myself and everybody else on the road. SPEAKER D That's so interesting. And I think also about the psalm, psalm 51. This is the prayer of David after his terrible failure. So just for a bit of background, he's just gone and kind of set up a guy to be killed so he could steal his wife and then he kind of hides it and ends up having a child with this lady. And God kind of taps him on the shoulder and holds him to account for what he has done. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And David, he takes it so well and is truly repentant. And this is his prayer. He doesn't say, God, just strap a head torch to the front of my motorbike. He doesn't say, Just give me a paint job. He doesn't just say Just do this, or what he recognizes is that from the very inside he needs to be transformed completely. And we actually find this in verse ten. He says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit away from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by Your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. I find this is so know. We want to reflect God's character. We want to be used by God to bring others to Christ. But what David recognizes is that before he can do any of that, before he can be winning people to Christ and bringing people to the knowledge of salvation, he needs a new heart. And it says create. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And if I list all of the words here, it says Create, renew, restore, uphold. And these are all things that he wants God to do for him because he recognizes that he's born with just a fundamental flaw and he knows that no amount of sticky tape or duct tape or sticky taping head torches on, nothing will fix him. He needs a brand new heart. And so what we have contrasted in our study today is we've got creation, where God takes a black vacuous void and through his word, through this revelation, he just speaks light into existence and starts this work of creation and makes this beautiful gem of a world. And then he sees us with our darkened black hearts, this void, and then he speaks into our lives, reveals his glory and continues this work of speaking and recreating us into his image. And then that's the work of recreation, the work of salvation. SPEAKER C Yeah, you've got all those elements there. It's incredible. It says creating me a clean out why don't you just say, Lord, just modify what's there and make the little bit of good. SPEAKER D Take my bad parts out, just stretch. SPEAKER C Out the good that I already have and just expand that a bit. He doesn't say that. He says create. Now, the word create, as you were saying before, is actually creating something or making something exist that didn't exist before. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And we've already discussed in previous programs that when God spoke things into existence, the materials from which these things were made weren't there previously. It was the inherent power in the Word of God that caused these things to be and the materials to materialize. When God said it, the materials weren't there before. So in the same way in our own hearts, this light of the knowledge of the glory of God is not in our hearts. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C By nature. Now, it is the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse nine, where it says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? SPEAKER D So that's the natural not just wicked, desperately wicked. SPEAKER C That's right. So there is no natural righteousness. There's no natural light as in righteousness within that heart. So God has to speak into that void where there was no righteousness before by His Word righteousness. Now, we are told in John, chapter one, it talks about Jesus being the light. It says that in verse four. John, chapter one, verse four after, it tells us that he was the Word and he was God and he was in the beginning and all things were created by Him. Then it tells us that he is actually the light. It says that in verse four. And him was life and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. Then it talks about the prophet John the Baptist saying that he came from God, he was sent by God, he came to be a witness to the light. He was not that light. Then it talks about Christ being the light that lights every man that comes into the world. Now, christ is known as the Word. He is known as the Word of God. Revelation tells us, for example, he has even a name, a title called the Word of God. So this Word of God then shines into the earth and all that this prophet could do to be a light to the world was merely to be a witness. Just like the moon doesn't have its own light, it only bears witness to the light of the sun and reflects that light. So we can have that. But we need the light of God's Word to shine into our lives, to create a righteousness there which we do not inherently have and we don't have by nature. It's void it's without form and it's dark, just like the earth was. SPEAKER D That's right? SPEAKER C Yeah. And then God has to speak it into existence. SPEAKER D There's a verse here in Ezekiel, chapter 36, and I love what God promises to do over and over again through the Bible. God says I will, I will do this, I will do this. And it's so funny when God says I will. Often we think, okay, I'll do it. When God says that he will, we. SPEAKER C Think that we must, which is the Old Covenant response. Everything that the Lord said he will do, we will do and be obedient. SPEAKER D It's crazy in it. So this is Ezekiel 36, verse 25. God says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. It's like I'm going to wash you. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers. You shall be My people and I will be your God. Just let us notice the amazing promises that God says here, I'm going to cleanse you from all your filthiness, all that yuck stuff, I'm going to clean that out. I'm going to give you a new heart. I'll take out that stony, rocky heart, replace it. God doesn't just paint it, god doesn't renovate it. God just takes that stony heart, throws it away and puts in a brand new way of thinking, a new spirit, a new heart. God puts that inside of these people and he says, now you're going to be able to walk in my precepts, now you're going to walk in my laws, because I've basically changed the software, I've changed the operating system. He says, now you're going to walk in My judgments and do them. Now you're going to reveal my character to others because I've done something miraculous in your heart as the Creator. SPEAKER C That is incredible. And I like some of the things. It talks about water, it talks about stone the stony heart out of your flesh, give you a heart of flesh. But that verse 25 says, I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you will be clean. Now, water quite often is a symbol of obviously baptism, which is washing away of sin. But the way we see it explained in the New Testament by Paul, for example, in Ephesians chapter five and verse 26, talking about the church and Christ, it says that he might sanctify that's, sanctify the church and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word. SPEAKER D Interesting. SPEAKER C So the way God cleanses his church is through the Word. Now we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God only. So when we receive. That message of righteousness by faith which comes to us by the word of God. When we receive it, we receive the righteousness that that word talks about, which is the righteousness of Christ. And into a void there was dark and without form. The righteous image of Christ is recreated and then also regenerated. So dear listener, that's our lesson for today. We just wanted to let you know that the Bible teaches that conversion and salvation and redemption is actually the power of God. Recreating in us the image of God that was lost through sin. We look forward to catching up with you next time. May God bless you. Until then. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. Or you can send an email to [email protected] You can also contact us on our 3ABN Australia radio Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you.