Soli Deo Gloria

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Soli Deo Gloria

Chet Phillips

Transcript

All glorious above, and gratefully see His wonderful love. Our shield and defender, the ancient of days. All will young in splendor and burden with grace. Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here.

If you will, grab your Bibles and go to Romans chapter 11. That's where we'll start today. I turned 30, and then my body... No, no, not recently. It was years ago. At that point in the past, my body then decided that I was going to lose my voice once a year due to pollen for some reason.

So that's nice. I got that going for me. So I am having a hard time talking today. I don't feel bad, just sound bad. And it's possible that my voice will give out on me, and this will be a shorter sermon. And I know what some of you are thinking.

As you pray and pray for something, and it's just encouraging to see God finally answers prayers. We are... We usually just walk through books of the Bible. That's what we spend most of our time doing on Sundays. We work through books of the Bible together. But we have taken the past several weeks to look at what are called the solas, the five solas, the five solas of the Reformation.

And Reformation. And these are theological distinctives that they were clarified. So we've taken a series to walk through clarified theological distinctives. And I know all of your hearts are a flutter because who doesn't want to spend a lot of time looking at clarified theological distinctives. But that's what we've done.

We've looked at during the Reformation, the entire church in the West was Catholic. And the Catholic church at that point was not teaching sound doctrine, was abusing their power, was mingled not just with church power, but had all this political power. And there were these people that are called the Reformers who started looking at the Scriptures and saying, this doesn't line up. What we're doing, what we're teaching doesn't line up with what the Bible says. And so we spent some time looking at where they clarified. And the reason it's clarified is that these Reformers, when we've talked about them, we've talked about Luther, we've mentioned Calvin.

We've said Zwingli's name. I don't know if we've actually quoted him on anything. But they weren't coming up with new points of doctrine. They were pointing back to the Bible and saying, we've gotten out of line. We're no longer in line with Scripture. And their intent was to reform.

The Catholic church did not want to be reformed. And so they protested and they became the Protestants and they broke from the Catholic church. And I want to read a little bit of John Calvin. This is a letter he wrote in 1538. An Italian cardinal had written a letter to the Swiss city of Geneva where Calvin was helping lead that city. And that city had become a reformed city.

So they were no longer Catholic. They broke up with the Catholic church and they were teaching these reformed ideas. These changes to Catholic doctrine that are coming from the Scriptures. And so he writes and he says, hey, y'all need to come back. And in the response, this is what Calvin says when he writes back to say, here's the primary issue. Here's the problem that we have and what we need to talk about.

He says, your zeal for heavenly life is a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself. He says, the problem is the stuff that you're excited about, the stuff that you're working towards, the stuff that the Catholic church is telling us to pursue, ultimately keeps humans, keeps myself at the center. That I'm the one who has to earn. I'm the one who has to achieve. I'm the one who is going out and accomplishing salvation. He says, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God.

Sanctify me, glorify, honor, praise, set apart as holy. He said, the problem is that your teaching fails the test. It does not glorify God. It glorifies man. That's a problem. The Scriptures are about a glorious God and how he works to bring about a glorious redemption for an inglorious people.

And if when we look to the Scriptures, what we come up with is here's how we can be awesome. We've read it wrong. He keeps going. He says, you touch upon justification by faith, which is sola fides, what we talked about, that we are justified, made right with God by faith alone. Meaning that you do not accomplish your salvation. You trust Jesus and he accomplishes it.

It's like when a little kid brings you a toy that's broken. They just walk over and hand it to you, hoping for the best. But they have no ability to accomplish it, fixing this. That's what he's saying is that we come to God and all we've got is mess and sin. And we trust Jesus to fix that. So he says, you talk about that idea, and he refers to it as the first and keenest subject of controversy between us.

Wherever the knowledge of it, salvation by faith alone, is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished. He's saying we're either saved by faith and Christ is glorious or saved by our works and we're glorious. He says, that's the problem. So when the guy wrote and said, y'all need to come back, Calvin wrote back, no. That was a paraphrase. I shortened it way down, but that's what he wrote.

He said, you failed the test. So when we talk through the five solas, sola being alone in Latin. So we say sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura, sola Christus, and sola Deo gloria. That's just Latin phrases for an answer of how are we saved, which is we are saved by grace alone, meaning God has accomplished this for us. Through faith alone, we just trust him to do it. We come to him and place our faith in him.

In Christ alone, meaning that it's accomplished by him, not the church, not by us, but it's in Christ. In the scriptures alone or as revealed by the scriptures alone is under the authority of the scriptures alone, meaning there is no church or pope that we have to look to. We look to the scriptures. It is our authority to the glory of God alone. And to the glory of God alone is in some ways the nucleus that all of these spin around. In other ways, it's just the final pinnacle result of all of these.

That if you're saved by God's grace through faith in Christ, it's to his glory, to his credit, not yours. And so that's what we're going to spend our time looking at this morning. So let's pray and then we'll read Romans 11, 36 together to start. God, we ask that you would be glorified. That you would be honored. That you would help us, the power of your spirit, to see and to delight in your glory, how good it is for us.

In Jesus name. Amen. Romans 11, 36. For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

From him. Through him and for him. Why does the world exist? It exists for him. It exists for Christ the King. It exists for God the Father Almighty.

It exists from him and through him. It's held together. It's brought together. Salvation is wrought through him. And it is for him. Ultimately for his glory and his delight and his joy because he is glorious.

And he says to him be glory forever. Now when the Bible talks about glory. It talks about it in two ways. It talks about it as a noun. And it talks about it as a verb. Like the way we use the word dance.

You go to a dance. And you dance at the dance. Or you stand against the wall and make fun of people. Because you like to dance but you don't know how. That's it. It's a dance where you dance.

And that's how glory works. That God is glorious. He has glory. It's in some ways it's the expression of his attributes. That the Bible talks about his glorious power. Or his glorious might.

Or his glorious grace. His glorious mercy. It's the wonderfulness. The shining forth of who he is by his very nature. So here's the thing.

God is glorious whether you like it or not. Ultimately. Soli Deo Gloria is an encouragement. Or a threat. Either to the glory of God alone. Let's join in this.

Or to the glory of God alone. You'll find out. Maybe not that squeaky. But you know. He is glorious. Then it talks about glory as a verb.

That you can glory in something. Or that you can glorify something. So that it'll say. To him be glory forever. Meaning. And it's used there in some ways in both.

That he has glory. But that we also give him glory. Or we glory in him. Meaning to praise. To give him weightiness. To show him honor.

This is where Jesus. When he gives the model prayer. He says. May your name be honored as holy. Three starts. Meaning.

That you be set apart. As holy and pure. May you be glorified. May you be worshipped. May you be honored. So that we give glory to God.

But the Bible also say. That we give glory to our shame. Or that we glorify ourselves. Meaning that we wrongly. Attribute praise and honor to ourselves. Or we attribute praise and honor.

To other things. But God has glory. And he is to be glorified. It's the appropriate response. To who he is. Because it's all about him.

I have a quote from John Piper. Who is not a reformer. He just likes them. But he's a pastor in Minneapolis. For many years. And he says this.

He says that people will periodically ask you questions. Like why is there such a meaningless vastness. Of uninhabited galaxies. And only one tiny dot. To human existence. And they'll use this.

As some kind of a thing against Christians. Like when we talk about God's design of the world. And you know. They'll say oh yeah. Well what's all this other stuff. How is it not just a big random mess.

And he says your answer should be. This universe is not intended. To portray the importance of man. It is intended to give man some inkling of the grandeur of God. And it is an understatement. That it's all about him.

And that he is glorious. And in essence. He is to be glorified. That's the appropriate correct response. If I came to you and said. This cake is so good.

Your response. Is to eat it. That's the correct appropriate response. If I came and said. This perfume is amazing. You smell it.

Because in essence. That's how you respond. God is glorious. And so our correct. Appropriate. Designed response.

Is to glorify him. The beautiful thing about this is. All genuine praise. Is delightful. So that what God has called us into.

He's. More glorious than anything. He's more delightful. More enjoyable. More worthy. To be worshipped.

So when he calls us to worship him. It's him calling us to what is ultimately best for us. And true worship and praise is enjoyable. Every time you've absolutely just. Celebrated something. That you were overcome with joy for.

That's praise and worship. That idea. Is what we're called into eternally. But if we misunderstand. Understand the nature of God's glory. Then we will misunderstand.

The nature of sin. So Romans 1 22. Is this. Says claiming to be wise. They became fools. And exchange the glory of the immortal God.

For images resembling mortal man. And birds and animals. Creeping things. And in this passage. He's talking about unrighteousness. Unholiness.

Sin. And he says after this. That this led them into further sin. But this is in essence. What sin is. For many of us.

We would like to think. Or we have in our head. This kind of framework. God made everything. So he's in charge.

And sin is primarily. Us breaking his rules. And that's part of it. But that's not the only understanding of it. That doesn't boil it down. To its absolute essence.

When you think about it this way. Then the primary problem. With Adam and Eve in the garden. Was that God told them not to. Which is true. He told them not to.

And they should not have eaten. From that tree. But it's just a list of rules. And they could be as arbitrary. As God wants them to be. And our job is just to follow them.

And obey. But. Here's the problem. If you only understand it. You miss. If you misunderstand glory.

What this passage is saying. Is that God. Is glorious. But that sinfully. We. We don't.

Give him glory. We want to. Give glory to other things. So that we pursue money. We pursue fame. We pursue.

Well. This is called idolatry. Glory. This is God speaking to the prophet Jeremiah. He says. Has a nation.

Changed its gods. Even though they are no gods. But my people. Have changed their glory. For that which does not. Profit.

Be appalled. Oh heavens. At this. Be shocked. Be utterly desolate. Declares the Lord.

He goes on to say. They have committed two sins. They have swapped me out. He calls himself. A fountain of living waters. And he says.

And they have. Dug out cisterns. For themselves. Broken cisterns. That don't even hold water. He says.

The problem is. They took me. Their God. Which is ultimately. The only place they would get glory. He calls himself.

Their glory. But Tim. Their glory. He is what makes them glorious. He is what brings good. In their lives.

And he says. They swapped me out. For broken things. And that is. Sin. And it is.

In it is very nature. A rejection of who God is. So it would be like. If I came to you and said. Oh man. This cake.

Is so good. And you go. Is it? I said yeah. And you go. Alright.

Let me get in there. Oh yeah. Oh that is good cake. So moist. And then I am staring at you. Like you are a psychopath.

Because you are. And you are like. What? I thought you said. I thought you were going to share. What is this?

I mean. That might be fun to do. At a birthday party. The last birthday party. You ever get invited to. But it is essentially.

The wrong way to respond. To someone telling you. This cake is good. If I said. This perfume is good. And you said.

Let me see. And squirted it into your mouth. And they looked at me. And were like. You liar. It's like.

Well you did it wrong. God is glorious. And therefore. As his created. Creatures. We are designed.

To delight in his glory. By glorifying him. And when we don't. We're sticking our hands in the cake. We have responded. Essentially.

Incorrect. So this. Helps us. To understand. Why sin. Is sin.

Because people will say things like. Well I don't see why God. Would send good people. To hell. I don't. I'm.

You know. I'm pretty good. I'm. I'm not that bad. But what we're doing.

Is we're using our goodness. To glorify ourselves. What we're saying is. I don't know if you know this. Pretty glorious on my own. And it's an utter rejection.

Of the God. Who created the world. You can actually. Use your good behavior. To reject God. It's actually one of the best ways.

To defend yourself from God. That people use. I'm a pretty good person. I don't need Jesus. But that glorifies yourself.

Dishonors him. And misses the point. Isaiah 42.8 says. I am the Lord. That is my name. My glory.

I give to no other. Nor my praise. To carve. Idols. He's holding out to us. What is best.

Namely himself. And to reject it. Is. Sin. But. Salvation by grace.

Alone. Through faith. Alone. In Christ. Alone. Heralds.

The glory of God. Salvation by grace. Alone. Through faith. Alone. In Christ.

Alone. Proclaims. The glory. Of God. So let's walk through that idea for a second.

Romans 3. 27. 28. Paul talking about salvation by faith. Not by works. Not by something you do.

To earn it. To merit it. He says this. Then what becomes of our boasting? Meaning if I don't accomplish this. What do I get to brag about?

We talked about this. We talked about. Sola fide. He says it is excluded. He says okay. I'm not allowed to brag.

But what. What kind of law. What rule. Excludes my boasting. He says. Is the law of works?

No. By the law of faith. For we hold. That one is justified by faith. Apart from works of the law. Paul's making a real simple point.

If you earn your salvation. Even a little bit. Then you can celebrate. You can boast. That's what Calvin was writing to them. Saying if you.

Act like we can earn our salvation. You extinguish the glory of Christ. That it. Somehow enhances man. But reduces Christ.

This is what Calvin writes. In his institutes. Calvin's institutes. Is a really thick. Theological book. It was not thick.

When he first wrote it. He wrote five more editions. When he first wrote it. He wrote it in the middle. Of a bunch of people getting killed. But he was not where they were getting killed.

For these ideas. But he said. He said he felt like. If he did not write. A clear theological manifesto. Of what they were dying for.

Why they had broken from the Catholic Church. He did not know. How he would ever. Be able to. Get away from the charge. Of being a coward.

So Calvin's institutes. Began with a. I'm writing these. Because we're in the middle. Of. Martyrdom.

And somebody needs to clarify. What we're dying. But he says this. When he's talking about this passage. Romans 3. 27 to 28.

He says this. From this. This idea that our boasting is excluded. It follows. That as long as there remains. A drop of righteousness.

In our works. We have some grounds. Of glorifying. Glorying in ourselves. That is why. If faith excludes.

All glorying. The righteousness of faith. Cannot exist at all. With that of words. So. Going from faith.

To the idea. That God gets all the glory. We understand that. If we're saved. Just by his work. He's the one who's on it.

He's the one who's glorified. And if we somehow add into it. We get some glory. But it's. It's excluded. We don't.

It's not how it works. He's the one who rescues. He's the one who's on it. If I was in a burning house. My house caught on fire. And they had to come in and get me.

I'm passed out. And choking on all this stuff. Can't get myself up. They come in to rescue me. And I mean. We got like.

Backdraft situations going on. Just shooting back and forth. There's a gas leak. Explosion. I don't even have gas in my house. But it does it just to be more dramatic.

You know. And so then they like. Take me out into the yard. I'm sputtering. They're going to give me like a. A ten-foil blanket.

And right about that time. People have gathered around. To watch our house burn. Because that's what happens. And they bring me out. And right as they're setting me down.

I'm catching my breath. I go. Yeah. Who's the man? I am. You'd be like.

What? I mean. Like I could high five the fireman. But I can't do like. Strut circle around him. Like I accomplished something.

And that's what. Paul's. Getting at. That idea. That we don't get. Nobody gets to flex.

In front of Jesus. He's the one who's the hero. He's the one who saves. And here's. And I said. Going from faith to glory.

But here's what you need to understand. If it's true. That all glory goes to him. Do you know how good that news is? Let's see if that's true.

And then. Then we'll talk about how good that is. Ephesians 1. 12 through 14 says this. Paul's writing. He says.

So that we who were the first to hope in Christ. Might be. What? To the praise. Of his glory. So they're saved.

They're rescued. But who gets the credit? Christ does. To the praise of his glory. And then in him. You also.

When you heard the word of truth. The gospel of your salvation. And believed in him. Were sealed with the promise. Holy Spirit. Who is the guarantee of our inheritance.

Until we acquire possession of it. What? To the praise. Of his glory. That God is saving us. To the praise of his glory.

In this same passage. He refers to. He says that we're. He lavishes kindness on us. To the praise of his glorious grace. Not to the praise of your glorious work.

Not to the praise of your glory. Your wisdom. Your bible memorization. Your behavior. None of that. It's excluded.

It all goes to him. Philippians 1. 10 and 11. Talks about Christ. Working in us. And it says.

So that we would be pure. And blameless. For the day of Christ. Meaning. We'll stand before him. Pure.

And blameless. Filled with the fruit. Of righteousness. That comes through Jesus Christ. So we'll have accomplished things.

But they'll have come through Jesus Christ. What? To the glory and praise. Of God. That we are saved. To his glory.

And praise. This is wonderful news. Here's why. If we were saved by our glory. To our credit. To our glory.

If we could do it. And get our name on the back of our jersey. You would need to be glorious. If you're saved. By your own glory. You need to be glorious.

That's why this is excellent news. You're not glorious. He is. That's why we gather. And sing his name. That's why we sang a song.

That said. If you could give voices. To everything. Suddenly. You'd just hear Christ. Be magnified.

He's glorious. He's holy. He's set apart. He's good. And this is so. Freeing.

It's freeing. Because we can get salvation. That we can approach him. Glorifying him. In our faith. That our faith.

Brings honor. To Christ. So that you come to him. And you say. I can't redeem myself. I need.

A savior. Here. And that's how it's designed. To work. That's what he's accomplished for us. That he would get the glory.

Not you. That you would come and say. I need. Someone. To redeem me. And rescue me.

And all I have is sin. And all I have is mess this up. And we would celebrate. That he's good. And the reason I said. Working from faith forward.

It gives him glory. But working from glory. It goes back. To just call us into faith. Is that I have to go backwards. So often.

I have to work my way backwards. And go. Hold on a second. The reason he redeemed me. Is so that he. Can be seen.

As glorious. Not because I am. And this helps me so often. When I have these moments. Where I'm very very struck. By the fact.

Of how fallen I am. And how far from glory I am. And I have these moments. Like oh. I messed this up again. Oh.

I failed again. I recently got to go on a trip. Um. It was a long trip. Down to Florida. And we were all excited about it.

Getting to go. And we've been planning. And going with Granddaddy. And all that stuff. Go. And I have a four year old.

And this didn't happen. But this is a sermon illustration. So just listen. I have a four year old. And uh. Every once in a while.

He gets real sad. And his lip will actually poke out. Like the little. Like little pouty lip thing. And uh. My older son had tried that some.

But I could tell he was just. Doing it. Because he had seen like cartoons do it. To like make himself seem more sympathetic. And it absolutely backfired. He was like.

Get that mess out of my house. But his little brother has done it a couple times. When he's been genuinely sad about a thing. That I didn't think he was trying to manipulate me. And his little lip has shot out. And it's like.

I'm not super sensitive. And I'm like. Dude. Oh man. What. Boy buddy.

Let's fix it. But if he came to me looking like that. And just said. Yeah. I'm so. I'm sad.

We're not going to get to go on our trip. Why not? I can't push the tunnels. And I don't know where we're going. And even if you gave me a map. I can't read.

I'd just be like. Buddy. Let's get in the back of the car. At no point. Were you responsible. For getting us there.

Like. Honestly. You need my help. To get in the back of the car. I'm going to strap you in. So you can't escape.

You're actually going to Florida. Whether you want to or not. Take a nap. Eat a snack. Steer out the window. Sing a song.

We're going to get you there. And I have to remind myself. That there are times. Where I come to God. And I basically am saying. I don't know how to push the pedal.

Like that somehow. Factors into the equation. There are times. Where I come to him. And I'm basically saying. God.

I know this is going to blow your mind. But I just found out. I'm not glorious again. And then my response. I can go one of two ways. But my response so often is.

Don't worry. Don't worry. I'm going to make myself glorious again. I'm going to work really hard. You'll see my glory. And you'll be so proud of me.

And in that moment. I am essentially rejecting Christ. Do you see that? There are times when I go. I'm going to just make myself feel bad for a while. Or I'm going to just.

I'm going to dig in. And I'm going to make this better. And I'm going to get better. And I'm not going to mess up again. What I'm saying is. Don't worry.

I'll be glorious again. But that's not the response. The response is to come and say. I just dawned on me. How inglorious I am. Thank you Jesus.

Oh glory and praise to your name. Infinitely. That you redeem a sinner like me. And I don't. My ability to push the pedals. Has nothing to do with this.

My ability to behave. My ability to keep it together. My ability to have enough wisdom. My ability to figure things out. My ability to respond appropriately. My ability to desire what I'm.

Thank you so much. That you save a sinner like me. And so then. In my repentance. Repentance. I give him glory.

We give him glory in our faith. When we come to him. But we give him glory in our repentance. When we come to him and say. I'm so thankful that you're the hero. So yes.

Our faith. Gives him glory. But sometimes. I think you got to work backwards. From glory to faith. And you got to remind yourself.

That the whole point of this. Is that he's glorious. Not you. So that you can stir up again. In your heart. Faith for the one who redeems.

We give him. Glory in our faith. And we give him glory in our repentance. And we get to give him glory in our obedience. I just said. We won't always do that well.

But he saved us to the praise of his glorious grace. If you have a moment. Where you suddenly realize. You need the glorious grace. That's the whole point. Praise it.

But also. We choose to obey. And we give him glory in our obedience. You see. So often what happens.

As we get in our head. There are certain things in the Bible. If you follow Christ enough. If you read your Bible enough. There'll be things in there that you. Don't agree with.

Don't understand. Don't like. There's just will. Because you're a sinner. And God wrote this. If everything in here.

You're like. Yep. Good point. You know. Yep. That's not exactly how I would have said it.

But good. You know. I don't think you're reading your Bible right. There are going to be things where you go. Wait. Why can't I do that?

Why can't I have that? There are going to be times where you're having to go. I know you said. I can't pursue this. But I just don't understand why.

I don't see why I can't. Everybody else gets this. Everybody else has that prayer answered. I don't understand why I can't have this thing. I don't understand why I can't. And what we want to do.

Is short circuit the process into sin. But here's the thing. We get to give God glory. In our obedience. When we're saying. I actually trust that you're better.

I trust that if you don't want me to have this thing. That ultimately you haven't deprived me of anything wonderful. Because you've given me yourself. And you're more wonderful than this thing. We get to trust in his glory. This is what 1 Corinthians 10 31.

He says. Whether you eat or drink. Whatever you do. Do all to the glory of God. That whatever it is. Whatever you're pursuing.

Whatever you're abstaining from. That it's got to be to the glory of God. Because that's what lines us up with the ultimate reality of the world. In Colossians. He says the same thing to people working. He says.

Don't work for your boss. Don't work for your master. Work. Work for God. But you know how freeing some of that is.

Because if you have to work for your boss. If the only reason you're going to do a good job is because your boss is awesome. Six of us will work really hard. The rest of us are like. I'm not doing anything because this idiot gets out of here. But that's not how it works.

You're not doing it because your company is awesome. Your boss is awesome. We get to work because our God is awesome. We get to obey because our God is awesome. Because he's glorious. I get to serve.

And give him glory. This is beautiful. This is when we give away money. The Bible calls us to be generous and give away money. Do you know the only way you can do that is if you actually trust he fulfills his promises. And he's actually paying attention.

And he cares. And he notices. And he's going to provide for you. And there's rewards. All of life is like that. There are times where you're absolutely not participating in something you want to.

You may not even understand why. You might be like. I don't know why I can't live with my boyfriend. I just know the Bible says it's bad. It's bad for me. I don't know.

I just want to. But it's because it shouldn't. And then we choose to obey. What we're saying is I actually think you're more honorable. You're good. You're not buying to me.

Is it the trick? That you're going to lead me towards the light. And that ultimately at the end of all this. Just get you. I've gotten everything. So we get to glorify God in our faith.

We get to glorify God in our repentance. And we get to glorify God in our obedience. Because ultimately obedience is worshipful, glorifying faith. There are times where we obey because we agree. And those are the easier times. It's all the times when we disagree.

That we're saying I actually trust that you're smarter than me. I actually trust that you're more valuable than me. I actually trust that your desires for me are good. And so I'm going to fight my own for this. That's faith. And it glorifies God.

And it's what we ought to do. And it's hard. But he's good. And I don't know if you heard either of those words. But I'm moving on.

The end result of history. This is one of the most beautiful things that you'll see if you look at the scriptures. God repeatedly says I'm not going to share my glory with anybody. And then the ultimate end of history is that he shares his glory with all those who he redeemed. Now, now that he lied, he's talking about it in two different ways. He says I'm not going to share my glory with anybody.

What he means is when he shares his glory with us, it'll be to the praise of his glory. He'll be the one who we sing to, who we enjoy, who we delight. Now, on that day, he says this in Isaiah, he says on that day, I want to share my glory with another. Meaning when we stand in front of him, you don't get to go, I'm here. Because you helped, but I did most of it. That's not how it works.

We're redeemed by his grace as a gift. And he gets all the glory. But then, if you're in Christ, if you've placed your faith in him, what we're told is that he did that to share his glory with us. Romans 8, 17 says this, that we're adopted and we're made children of God. It says, if children, then heirs to get an inheritance, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. We're told that we will be given glorified bodies.

We're told that we will be brought into his glory and to share in his glory for eternity. The next chapter, when he's talking about this, he says, what if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory? But if you place your faith in Jesus, you're an object of mercy, meaning you received his mercy and that he prepared us beforehand to delight in and enjoy how glorious he is. Like a dad who takes his mercy and that he is. Like a dad who takes his kid to school, knowing that an hour later he's going to go pick him back up just to sneak him off the day to hang out and have fun.

And what he's sharing with him is himself, but he also knows what a wonderful gift. Because the child wants to spend the day with his dad, delights in his dad, delights to be delighted in by the father. That's what God has done. He is glorious and the kindest, most merciful, wonderful thing he's ever done is sent his son to redeem us out of our inglory to bring us back into his glory so that we might delight in him for all eternity. That's why he's worthy to be praised. Because he rescues sinners to the praise of his glorious grace.

This is what the Westminster Catechism says. It's a Westminster Catechism. This is a Westminster Shorter Catechism. It's a question and answer thing to help you remember some theological points. The question they ask is, what is the chief end of man? Meaning, why do you exist?

Why are we here? This is the answer they give coming out of the scriptures. It says, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's it. That's why we're created. And if you're in Christ, that's your ultimate home.

Enjoying and delighting in God who has pleasures at his right hand forevermore. God is glorious. Whether we like it or not. But. When we see it. We get to delight in it.

And when you see that the whole point that he saved us was so that his name would ring forth with glory. You're free. To say the reason I'm here is because Jesus is good. Not because I'm good. And if you're here this morning. Trying to be good.

That's your aim. I'm going to be well behaved. I'm going to get it together this time. I'm going to make my parents proud. I'm going to make God proud. I'm going to make my wife proud.

I'm going to show my husband that I can do this. If that's why you're here. Oh, I've got better news for you. You are not glorious. But you are never going to be able to be glorious.

You need Jesus who is glorious to make you glorious. As he invites you into his own glory. You need him to redeem you. You need him to get the praise and the honor for your life. Sometimes people say, I don't like the church because everybody there is messed up. Yeah.

Join it. You'll see it's way worse than you thought. That's the whole point. That's why I'm here. Because he saves sinners to the praise of his glory. The band is going to come back up.

And we are going to, through song, praise his glory. That he redeems us. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus. Can I tell you something? You do not clean yourself up to do that. He doesn't need you 5% glorious or 10% glorious or 35% glorious.

And then he can work with the rest. Honestly, all that gets in the way because you're confused about how it works. You're walking into his house already telling him that he should give you some honor. And that's not how it works. You walk in and you say, I'm a sinner and I need a savior. And guess what?

He does not put to shame any who call on his name. Place your faith in Jesus. If you're a Christian right now and you've been falling into sin, you've been struggling. You've been seeing how fallen from glory you are. Do not promise yourself that you're going to fix it. Go to Jesus who does.

Praise him for his glory. Can I tell you something? If you're trying to fix your behavior, telling yourself that you're going to muscle it out is actually way less effective than going to Jesus and thanking him for saving a sinner like you. It changes your heart when you see how good and wonderful he is. And it motivates us to obey because he is glorious. He's worth giving our lives for.

The more you try to do it on your own and the more you think you've earned it, the harder it is. Because the further from him you've gotten, the more confused you are about how it works. May we praise his glorious grace who redeems sinners. May we be people with smiles on our face because we're not the ones who achieved this. We are held secure. We don't have to push the pedals.

We don't even buckle ourselves in. He's going to get us to the end. And when we do, it's going to be glorious. Let's pray. God, we thank you. Thank you that you're so good.

And that your goodness did not just work to cast us out. But your goodness is so good it overcame our wickedness. That your goodness does not just show the dividing lines so that we could be far from you forever. But that you have chosen to pour out mercy and kindness to the praise of your glorious grace. And may we be a people who praise your glory for all eternity. Amen.

And may we be a man Oh my God. Amen.

Solus Christus

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Solus Christus

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Turn the burden with grace. Good morning. My name is Spencer again. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in a series called the Five Solas. These are the five dividing lines of theology that ended up forcing the Protestants out of the Catholic Church and started the Protestant Reformation.

We are in the fourth sola today, which is Solus Christus, which is Christ alone, the very thing we just sang about. So we'll be looking at that. About a month ago, I went to Houston, Texas. I took Ben Johnson, who's one of our members. He's the director of a missions organization called 1040 Hope, and they plant churches across the Middle East and North Africa. He's actually currently over in North Africa right now.

And I took him there because I said, Ben, part of what he does here is he raises money for church plants and mission projects over there. I just said, Ben, if you want to raise money, I want to introduce you to something called Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the pockets of people who can give to plant churches. Let me take you there and introduce you to some people. So we went.

We had a good weekend. I got to preach at my longtime friend and mentor's church, a Methodist church in Houston. And at that church, I sat in the front right by the choir loft, which kind of felt nice to be a part of the choir because I'm never going to be allowed to do that up here. But I got to sit up there because, you know, in that tradition and other traditions, you have the pastor that sits up front the whole time. We don't do that here because not every face that stands up here is ready for prime time. You can guess who that might be.

But we... I got to stand up there. And because of that, Ben saw my face as we went through some of the liturgy that the Methodist church does. I came to faith in the Methodist church. I love the Methodist church. I'm obviously no longer a Methodist.

But I appreciate so many of the things that they do. And as we went through the liturgy, as we sang things like the Gloria Patri and things that we don't do here, I was very excited. Ben said your face was beaming, like you were glowing. And then we got to the Apostles' Creed, which is something that I grew up Presbyterian and I came to faith in the Methodist church. Both traditions say the Apostles' Creed every single Sunday. And as we said it, I just was so...

I was like, man, this is so good. Because it's a truth. It's a creed that goes back to the 4th, 5th century that binds us all in Christian faith. Whether you're Catholic or Protestant or whatever, like this binds us together. It starts with, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. That is the Father, right?

That's who we believe in. Then it gets to Jesus. It says, All of those statements are about Christ. And we, yes and amen, all of them. Like we believe that, yes, He came, was born of the Virgin Mary. That, yes, He did die a death on the cross for us that we deserve.

That He rose to new life in Christ at the resurrection. That He will come back as judge one day, but currently sits at the right hand of God the Father. We believe in all of that. And Catholics and Protestants would both say that our faith is in Christ alone. We both would say that. We both are bound together that Jesus is the centerpiece of our faith.

We don't believe in any other God. We believe in Christ. So if that is true, why is it that this is one of the five solas? Why is this one of the dividing lines for us? It has to do with how we define alone. As Protestants, we put a period there and say, amen.

In Catholicism, there's a bit of an asterisk in how you define that. And as we're going to see today, part of that is bound up in how we have access to Christ. That is going to be the difference. So I want to quickly go through the history of solas Christus, of Christ alone. I want to look at the power of it, why we believe it's good and how powerful that is for us. And I just want to leave us with some encouragements of what that means for us as Christians.

So let me pray for us and then we will dive in. God, I pray that you'd help us be present this morning. You would speak to us. You'd open our hearts to receive your word. And that you would help us see how good it is that Christ alone is whom we have. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Okay, first I want to look at the history of Christ alone. So as we've said in this series, that there are, that the spark that lit the powder keg of the Protestant Reformation was Martin Luther. There were things that happened before him and after him, figures before and after that helped this come to being. But he was really the spark that lit it.

And the event that lit it, as we've talked about in the last few weeks, was when he posted the 95 theses, 95 objections, really, to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Now he had written some stuff before then. Check over that last week. He'd written some 97 theses before covering this. But the 95 that he wrote, well, this really lit the Protestant Reformation.

And there's a lot in there that deals with some of the things we talked about faith alone and grace alone. There's a little bit of what we see, the beginnings of this in Christ alone that later gets developed by the Protestants. In Thesis number 6, it says, the Pope cannot remit any guilt except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God. And what he's getting at there is that only God forgives sins. the only power that the Pope, the only power that a priest has is to acknowledge the work that Christ has already done. There is no one that stands in the middle here. And Luther and the Reformers began to develop this further in their theology as time progressed.

Chet last week talked about sola fide, which is faith alone. He talked about the cell of indulgences. The cell of indulgences were sold, indulgences were sold so that they could lessen their time in purgatory or get family or friends out of purgatory. So they bought these indulgences to do that. And Chet walked us through last week how problematic that is. You could actually buy and purchase salvation.

That is, that traveling preacher Tetzel said, he said, when a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. He walked through how that doesn't line up with the gospel of faith alone. But also, it's not just a problem that you could teach that someone could purchase salvation. That's not the only problem. What makes that doubly terrible is the idea that anyone could stand in the middle between us and God. That there is any mediator, someone who stands in the middle between us and the Lord.

1 Timothy 2.5 says, for there is one God and there's one mediator mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. That's what we believe. That's what the reformers continue to come back to. There's only one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, the man Jesus Christ. Now, we've talked about this a little bit in the past few weeks. I just want to make this more clear now.

Many of the things that the Catholic Church was doing at the time, they are no longer doing. Right? So what happened after the Protestants protested and had their objections and were forced out, the Catholic Church thankfully did look in the mirror at some of their practices. They had something called the Council of Trent that lasted for a couple of decades where they looked at the sale of indulgences. They looked at some of the inquisitions and some of the horrible things that they had done and they said, we can no longer do this. And thank you, Jesus, that they did.

They reformed a lot of their own ways. It's the reason why the Catholic Church is the way it is today and not how it was 500 years ago. We're thankful because there's lots of brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church. Absolutely, yes and amen. However, on some of these dividing lines of theology and specifically this one as well, they said no and that's why the Protestants left and did not come back. On this issue of Christ alone, we have a different understanding of how we have access to God.

We walked through faith alone and grace alone and how the Catholic Church, even the Council of Trent, very aggressively said no to that. They believe you're saved by faith and works. Well, how they define works is bound up in the means of grace. That's the language that they use. The means of grace that the priesthood administers. The Pope, bishops, cardinals, priests, that the grace is something that they control and administer and we find that incredibly problematic as Protestants.

I read one Protestant scholar, this is pretty thick but I'll walk through it, I think he absolutely nailed this. He said, outside the Roman Church there is no salvation, which, that is a standard Catholic doctrine, that we, because we are not a part of the Roman Catholic Church, at a minimum and their eyes are going to purgatory, which Protestants say purgatory isn't biblical, we don't agree with that, no, but that is Catholic doctrine. Outside the Church there is no salvation outside her walls, no infused grace can be found. As much as Christ is man's exclusive Savior, which we look at that and say, yes, Jesus is our only hope, He is our only Savior, yes and amen.

He says, the Church is needed as mediator of the grace that Christ gives. And we say, no, no, there is no mediator between us and Christ. No. He goes on to say, salvation cannot be based upon the work of Christ alone, solus Christus. Rather, Christ is in the Church, Christus in ecclesia, which is just Latin for Christ in the Church, and the Church is in Christ, ecclesia in Christo. Simple trust in Christ is not alone.

I think He accurately describes it there, but I read that, and I was like, but you are a Protestant. I said, I think it's fair. We spent a lot of time looking at different Catholic doctrine over the last few weeks. I was like, let me hear actually their arguments to see how they teach this. So I did it, I had some fun this week, and I went through the Catholic Catechism, which is very long, and was not as fun as I just described it.

But, I went through the Catholic Catechism, and I'll just show you a few places where they fleshed this idea out. In one section of the Catechism, the Catechism is the teaching that they give to the people. So the Catholic Church members have the Catechism that guides them in faith and practice. In the Catholic Catechism, in one section, it says, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith in baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time, hear this, the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door.

And what they just said there was, is that the Church is necessary for salvation, because they are the ones, and more accurately, the priesthood is the ones who administer baptism. And for Catholic faith, to enter into faith, you have to be baptized. That is initiation into faith. You're saved through the first work, which is baptism. So they're the ones that control that, the priesthood.

Then it goes on to say in a different part of the Catechism, through the ordained ministry, especially that of the bishops and priests, the presence of Christ as head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers. And that last part is beautiful. when it says the presence of Christ as the head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers, we say absolutely, yes and amen. We absolutely believe that, wholeheartedly. That we are, and yes, that Christ is beautifully made visible in this Church body right now. Yes and amen. But that's not what they said alone.

The qualifier on that is especially that of the bishops and the priests. That there is something special about the priesthood as a part of the Church. So, how specifically is the Church necessary for salvation? How specifically are the bishops and the priests the most necessary, especially necessary part of it? Because they are the ones that deliver the means of grace. And specifically, when they talk about means of grace, they mean the sacraments.

The sacraments. The language they use for sacraments are channels of grace. Alright? We, as Protestants, look at that. Sacraments are practices that Jesus ordained that are holy. We, as Protestants, said we think there's two of them in the Scriptures.

Baptism that we practiced last week is a picture of faith in Christ. And the Lord's Supper, which we'll practice this week, which is a reminder of what Jesus did for us. We look at that and we say that's what these holy practices are. The reminders of the goodness of the Gospel. But for the Catholic Church, they're more than that.

They are channels of grace that initiate and sustain faith. There's baptism, there's confirmation, the Eucharist, which is the Lord's Supper. There's penance, there's anointing the sick, there's matrimony, which is marriage, and there's the holy orders, which is ordination. But a few of those are especially really important, right? Because if you want to be saved, you have to be baptized. And you need a priest to do that.

If you want to take part of the Eucharist, which is the Lord's Supper, they believe in something called transubstantiation, which is just a big word of saying, that they believe that literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. And that gives you spiritual power as you partake of the literal sacrifice of Christ every week. If you want to sustain your faith, you have to take part in this. But the priesthood is the only one that can administer this. If you want to repent of your sins, you must take part in penance, which is going to confession, which is having the priest tell you, you should say, seven Hail Marys, go help a widow, and make good on your penance.

You need the priesthood for all of that. Do you understand how that is a problem? That have access to God, you would need someone in the middle to deliver these means of grace. As Protestants, we looked at that and we said, no. Like when they started to, I mean, Luther very early on wasn't objecting to this, but as they continued to search the scriptures, the reformers looked at the Bible and they looked at the practice of the priesthood being necessary for faith and for sustaining your faith, and they just said, no. Like they were zero days old when they realized this isn't true, which is one of those memes, the zero days old memes.

Like if you're zero days old when you figure out a thing. Like I looked at this week, there was one meme. A meme is a picture, y'all, that has words on it. There was a picture that had words on it and the picture was a picture of IHOP. All right?

And the word said, I was today years old when I realized there's a smiley face in the logo of IHOP. I was like, ah, that's cool. And I looked at another one and it said, I was zero days old when I realized that flames don't have a shadow. And I went, wait, what? And I had a picture of a match and behind the match there was no shadow of the flame. I was, my mind was blown.

Like I was in the office and I ran down, I was like, I grabbed Chet and Isaac and I said, Chet, Isaac, look at this. I had a lighter and I had my flashlight and we went to a dark room, probably a little, lit it, no flame, no shadow behind the flame. And I was like, there's no shadow behind the flame. And they were like, yeah, of course there isn't. It's a light source. Why would you believe that?

And I was like, don't act like you're not impressed. That is amazing, y'all. You're welcome. That, it blew my mind. They, they looked at this, the scriptures and said, no. And it blew their minds.

They said, no, we don't need a priesthood to have access to God. They ultimately said, we are the priesthood. That's why we believe we're the priesthood of all believers. That's the Protestant teaching. That we believe we all equally have access to God. That is what we believe.

That is what we maintain. That we have this access to Christ. That's the history of it. Now, I want to look at the power of this. Because I want us to see how this is unbelievably good news by looking at the power of Christ alone. In 1 Timothy 2, 5 again, it says, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Jesus Christ.

Here's the deal. You can read that on a Facebook post. You can see that on a billboard. Alright? You can open a Bible and read that. And if you are not a believer, you can look at that and say, I need a mediator.

I need somebody to cover my sin. I need the gospel. I need Christ. You can place faith in Jesus and get in your car to go tell your family or friends that you place faith in Jesus and then a semi takes you out and you are dead. And in that very next moment, you are standing in the presence of God for eternity. You did not need a mediator for that.

You did not need a priest to come and give you this. You read the word of God. God saves you, redeems you. Christ is our mediator. You don't need a priest to be baptized into faith. You don't need to take part of the Eucharist and thinking that the literal body and blood of Christ is what is going to sustain your faith.

You don't need a priest for penance. You have direct access to the great high priest in Christ. Look at the book of Hebrews that talks about this, this great high priest. I just want to show you two places. In chapter 4, it says, Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession that we have a great high priest that went Christian when you pray.

Offering prayers to the Father, Jesus stands at the right hand of God and He is our great high priest who is taking our prayers and our worship. It says, Verse 15, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. It's not just that we have a great high priest, which we do. We have a great high priest who understands what it's like to be human, who understands what it's like to be weak, who understands what it's like to be tempted. He was tempted and tried by Satan himself in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights after fasting.

He knows what it's like to suffer. He knows what it's like to lose. He knows what it's like to experience the sting of death. He understands all of it and He stands in the heavens right now and is able to sympathize with us as we pray to Him. Verse 16, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. What that means is that you can approach our great high priest with confidence.

Like we don't have to because some of us look at our sin and our brokenness and our rebellion and we just you might think I can't approach God I gotta figure this out I gotta clean up my life I can't look at Him I just feel so dirty I feel so ashamed and the goodness of the gospel is that you get to in your sin approach Christ with confidence because the confidence isn't from our own it's from what He gives to us that we can boldly enter the throne room of prayer and offer up praises and prayer to Christ because of what He has done and not what we have done.

Sola Fide

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Sola Fide

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab a Bible and go to the book of Romans. If you have one of these blue Bibles in front of you, it will be on page 547 in the book of Romans. We're here this morning.

You're here. I'm here because at some point we've asked the question that we were supposed to ask. We've all come together asking the same question. Some of you are here this morning. Maybe this is the first time you've begun to ask this question and you've come this morning. And the question is the same question that comes out of the mouth of the rich young ruler when he meets Jesus.

It's the question that the Philippian jailer has after an earthquake where he sees the authority and the power of God and he's talking to Paul. It's the question that everyone asks after Peter's sermon on Pentecost. It's what must I do to be saved? That's the question. You may have worded it different. You may have thought about it differently, but that's the question.

It's what Carl Jung refers to this. He's a Swiss psychologist. He refers to this religious instinct that humans have this desire, this longing, this searching in them to have religious answers. It's the question that all religions are answering. What does God want from me? If there is a God, what does he expect from me?

What am I supposed to do? What must I do to be saved? What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? That's the question. And some of you are saying, I'm not asking that question. This person brought me here.

Well, I will tell you that it is the question you need to have an answer to. That if you actually were able to meet God and ask him one question, you may be curious about things like Bigfoot and UFOs or the next winning lotto Numbers, but this is the question you actually need answered is how can I be saved? Because that one has eternal implications. And I'll tell you that the Bible's answer to that, I'm going to give you a short answer, and then I'm going to give you a longer answer. You thought maybe it would just be a short answer, but I'm a preacher and that will never happen. I'm going to give you a short answer, and then I'll give you a longer answer.

The short answer is that in order to be saved, you need to be able to stand in front of God who is a judge, who weighs the hearts of humans. You need to be able to stand before God and be righteous. As Leviticus says, we have to be holy as he is holy. Or as Deuteronomy says that we need to be blameless before God. Or as David puts it in Psalm 24 where he says that he who has clean hands and a pure heart. Or as Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, that we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

That's the standard. Now, if you're like me, like if I was going to take a test, if I was going to get my electrical license, and I went in and they said, you know, you got this amount of time and this many questions, there's 50 questions, there's 100 questions. My first question I have for them is, how many do I have to get right? Where's the cutoff? We're talking 50%, 75%. So the question that we should have is how holy, how blameless, how clean are my hands supposed to be?

How pure is my heart? When you say perfect, you meant like C plus range, right? It's like we want to argue that somehow it's graded on a curve. Like, you know, it's like, like it works the way it works when you're running from a bear. If you're ever running from a bear, you actually don't have to be faster than the bear. You just have to be faster than the other people with you.

And that's kind of how we want this to work. It's like the salvation work like that. Like if I can just find people who are worse than me and I'm in the top 50%, is that okay? And when it says blameless, it means blameless. When it says holy, it means holy. When it says perfect, it means perfect.

That's the standard righteous. This is the theological word is that we would need to be justified before God, meaning that when we came in, we would need to have no sins that we have committed and we would need to have practical, positive righteousness, no sins, no negative righteousness. And we would need positive righteousness. I mean, we've actually done good in the world. So never having sinned and done what we were supposed to.

Good luck. Let's pray. That's the question. That's the short answer. But there's a longer answer that's more beautiful and more helpful than good luck.

Let's pray. And it's that question that drove Martin Luther, who we've been studying as we've talked through these five solas of the Reformation, these five theological truths that came out in the Protestant Reformation as the Protestant church broke with the Catholic church that we hold dearly because they come from the scriptures. It's this question that drove Martin Luther to, uh, to the church and ultimately to kind of where we are today. So let's pray. And then we'll, we'll start in now. We ask for your help this morning.

As we study this, we pray that this truth would be visible, tangible, tangible, that we would see it's a beauty and that we would accept it and trust you in Jesus name. Amen. So Martin Luther had this question, how can I be saved? It's why he became a monk. He thought it was the best route to being saved. Uh, we said earlier, lightning struck near him and knocked him over.

He yelled, St. Anne protects me. I'll become a monk. And he did. He becomes a monk and he's trying to be good enough to be saved because what they were telling him is you had to practice penance. You had to practice confession.

He would go into the confessional. He would confess. He'd be on his way out. He'd remember more sins. He would go back. He, he was haunted by the reality of his sin.

And the truth is he wasn't crazy. He actually saw himself pretty clearly that if you could really look into your own heart, you would see depravity. And so he, he was trying to wear out and carry out. How do I get saved? How do I make myself okay? And he was stuck studying the book of Romans and we've shown this passage, but this is where he was.

He was in Romans one and he was reading this over and over again. Romans one verse 17 for in it. That's the gospel. It says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God for salvation. So in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith from faith for faith by faith. And he was stuck here. He didn't understand how the righteousness of God was revealed in this way, that God is righteous in this way. And then he began to realize that righteousness of God being revealed is that it's granted to us that his righteousness is given to us. And his understanding of how you became righteous was that you did it. You worked it out.

You repented enough. You did enough good works. And he starts realizing that righteousness is, that it is given from faith, that we receive righteousness from faith and that it's given for faith and that we live by faith. And when he wrapped his head around this, he said, it was like the gates of heaven swung open to him that he was saved, not by his work, but by faith alone. And that's what we're looking at is this idea of sola Fide, which means by faith alone, that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone, that it's God's grace working on our behalf, but that it's faith that is the channel that brings that grace to us.

And so he wrote 97 theses. Addressing this great theological rift between what the Bible says and how we understand the Bible and what the Catholic church was teaching at that time, he wrote 97 theses on how to study the Bible and understand the Bible. He wrote it on grace and faith. And he said, you know, this is, he was dropping a bomb on the Catholic approach to understanding of, of life and sanctification and faith and how we were saved. He was saying, we've answered this question wrong. The question that we're supposed to get right.

We've answered wrong. He wrote 97 theses, which were just his end conclusion points. And he wanted to debate them. He wanted to discuss them. He was ready to show his work. He, he dropped this out to basically say the Catholic church is wrong.

This is how we're saved. And they said, the response was underwhelming. He thought, I've just thrown a hand grenade in here. Everyone's going to care. They didn't really debate a whole lot. He was winning over some people in Wittenberg to this idea that we're saved by faith, by grace alone through faith alone.

And then the cell of indulgences happened. And he threw what he did not think was a hand grenade into a situation that turned into a hand grenade. And he was like, you like those 95 theses? I have 97 other ones I'd like to share with you. Here's what happened with the cell of indulgences. Indulgences is this idea, it's Catholic idea that when you sin, there are consequences.

Consequences we're tracking so far. That's true. There are consequences. And they taught that there were time bound consequences and eternal consequences. Also true. We're on board.

Protestants are still nodding along. Yes, there are eternal consequences of sin. There are time bound consequences. They said that there are time bound consequences that are paid out here on earth. True. We agree with that.

Like if there are just consequences to sin, if you punch someone in the nose, there are consequences, immediate consequences to their face and then follow up consequences. Maybe they punch you back. Maybe they call the police. Maybe the job interview didn't go so well. I don't know. There are consequences.

But they taught that those consequences weren't the natural result of the way God designed the world, but that God would actually keep record of what you have done and dull consequences back out to you to make you pay it back off. And that he would not only do that here, but he would also do it in purgatory. As soon as they make this argument, we back out. God isn't paying you back specifically to make you pay off your debt. It's just the natural way that there are consequences to sin. It's the way God designed the world.

And there is no purgatory where you pay off mid-level sins that didn't send you to hell, but that you have to be there for a certain amount of time. But they taught this. And so they taught that what you could do was an indulgence. You could say a certain number of prayers. You could go on a pilgrimage. You could do good Acts.

And what that would do is put good back into the world. You brought bad into the world. You could put good back into the world. And as you put good back into the world, God would remove some of the consequences he was going to give you either here or in purgatory. They taught you could go on pilgrimages. Then at one point they started saying, well, you could give to like help good causes.

Like there was a hospital. You could help pay for that. And then they were like, well, you know what? We're actually working on a church building. And so in Rouen, France, they have a part of a church building, a cathedral called the butter tower, because during Lent you weren't allowed to eat butter or dairy, but they started letting you pay a little money and they'd give you like a butter ticket. And that's where we, the way we use the word, like I'm going to indulge in some ice cream.

That's where they, that gets tied to that. This indulgence of you paid some money. We're going to build our tower. You can, you can have some butter. Then enter the archbishop of Mainz.

He paid a lot of money to become the archbishop because it was a very powerful position. The church wasn't just the church. It was also in charge of politics. So he paid a lot of money to become the archbishop of Mainz. He was now in a very powerful position, but he wanted to recoup some of his money and Pope Leo the 10th wanted to finish St. Peter's Basilica and make it a lot nicer.

And so they hatched a plan. We're just going to sell indulgences for cash and split the profits. And so they hired a guy named Tetzel to begin to be their indulgence preacher. And he's traveling around Germany preaching and he's preaching. Basically, these are indulgences that if you pay us a certain amount of money, we'll give it to you. And if you keep it, if it's for you, you'll, you won't have to go to purgatory.

And if you pay it on behalf of someone else, we'll let them out of purgatory right now. So they was teaching. Um, and he had, he was like a, he was hawking these things. He was a salesman. He had different phrases he used. He said, if you buy one of these, you're cleaner than when you come out of baptism.

If you buy one of these, you're cleaner than Adam before the fall that the cross on the indulgence has as much power as the cross of Christ. But the one he's most famous for is as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory Springs. And I was like, man, that's catchy. It rhymes, you know, it's true. But I was like, well, you know, it rhymes in English.

He was saying this in German. So was it as catchy? I looked it up and I hadn't been as excited about anything in a while. It's amazing in German. It still rhymes. If you don't speak German, I'm about to crush this.

If you do speak German, I'm sorry if I say something offensive, but this is the phrase in German. So bald, that's geld in cast and clinked. Die still in den Himmel springt. Clinked and springt. I was so pumped when I saw this. I think we should put more T's at the end of words.

So he has this phrase that he's saying, this is how you do. This is what happens if you'll buy one of these. This is how salvation works. And I was so excited about this that we've come up with some of our own. When the money goes in the slot, your sins are forgiven on the spot. The check goes in the wall.

There's no more sin on y'all. Set up recurring gifts online and then your soul will be just fine. You better have a Venmo if you want to sin-mo. So proud of those. Anyway, it would be absolutely crazy if we actually taught that. That if we were like, you know, we need to place our faith in Jesus.

He's the one who redeems us. Or there's a cash option. But that's what they were doing. And so Martin Luther writes 95 theses about this. His 97 weren't a big hit, but he was like, this is ridiculous as well. So he's doing the same thing that he did.

He's not thinking this will blow up. He's just trying to say this is wrong. Some of the arguments he makes are, first of all, he says the Pope is in charge of Pope things, not purgatory. If the Pope tells you that you have to pay some kind of penance, then the Pope can give you an indulgence to not have to pay that penance. He's in charge of the churches doling out and removing of things. He says, but God's in charge of purgatory.

Later he decides there is no purgatory as he continues to read his Bible. But at this point he's not there. So he says, God's in charge of purgatory. He says, the Pope can't get you out of purgatory. Secondly, if the Pope could get you out of purgatory, he should just be doing this because he loves people, not for cash. He should pay out of his own pocket if it costs money.

He should pay his own money to get people out of purgatory if he has that power. He should want to sell St. Peter's Basilica to get people out of purgatory. This is what he writes. This one was not well received by the Pope. This one makes it to him.

He attacked the Pope. He attacked his wallet. And it becomes a big thing. And he was like, you like those 95 theses? I got 97 more on something that I think is way more important. So as soon as he got some, people started hearing him and reading this.

He started pressing this idea of there's salvation by grace through faith. And this is how it comes to us. It blows up over this idea of indulgences, which affects this. But it wasn't his primary argument he was trying to make. He's more famous for the 95, but his 97 matter more because it's a theological argument. So he comes through and he says, this is how it works.

And all we're going to do now is I'm going to show you in the book of Romans where this is. And we're going to walk through that we are saved by faith alone. We are not saved by our works. So in Romans chapter three, turn to chapter three. We're going to pick up in verse nine and we're going to move our way through Romans. I'll show you some passages in Galatians, but we're going to work our way through Romans.

First thing you need to know to understand how salvation works, to answer this question, what must I do to be saved? We're supposed to be righteous. You're supposed to be holy. You're supposed to be blameless. That's the standard perfection. Out the gate, you need to understand something.

You aren't. Romans three, Paul says this. He's talking about the law, meaning the ways that we would behave, that God has told the Old Testament Jewish people, that this is the law on how you would be holy is how you'd be blameless. And he starts talking about them having this. And he's already making the argument that everybody has sinned. But he says, what advantage has the Jew, meaning the people who were given the law, or what is the value of circumcision, meaning this covenant that was made with them?

Sorry. Verse nine. I'm way, I'm up at the top of verse, chapter three. He's making this argument as he goes through. Then he says, what then are Jews any better off?

Verse nine. No, not at all. He's saying that this was given to him and it was a blessing, but it ultimately doesn't make them better off when it comes to salvation. The law does not do this. He says, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous.

No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good.

Not even one. You're like, no one does good. Maybe I do. Not even one. What he's saying is that, and this is a quote from the Old Testament, but that the standard of righteousness is not met by anybody. That you're supposed to add high quality good into the world.

You're supposed to have positive righteousness and you're supposed to not sin. And what we have done is we have not done this, not done what we were supposed to. And we have done what we weren't supposed to. We have sinned. That's us. If it's your first time hearing that, I'll let that sink in for a second.

You're a sinner before God. You have lied. You have stolen. You have been covetous. You've messed up relationships. One of the best examples of this is that to show how wicked we are is that most of the time, the worst things we do are the people that we would say we love the most, the people we're closest to, that we consistently harm people that we're around, that you have not, you're not one of the good ones.

So we fall short. This is what he says in verse 22 and 23 later on. He says, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So that none of us make it. Secondly, so we've all sinned. Secondly, we need to understand this is verse 19.

That we are all accountable to God. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. That not only are we in our sin, but we are accountable to God. That he, as God, as creator, as ruler of the world, holds us to account. And we don't have anything. We don't have anything to say.

He says every mouth may be stopped. This is what Job says when he talks about standing before God. He says that who could stand before God? He would accuse you on a thousand fronts and you would have no response for any of them. That if you actually went in front of God, he'd have a thousand things that he could say. You've lusted.

You've lied. You've tried to make yourself seem better than you were. Every time you did something good, every time you did something that would be counted as good, you walked around with pride in your heart, strutting as if you were better than everyone around you. You couldn't even do something good without bringing your sin along. And we would have nothing to say. It'd be like he had it on tape.

He had it on record. He showed it to us. We'd have no argument to make. That's what he says. The law just shuts us up because it holds us accountable and there's nothing we can do about it. The third thing you need to understand is that no amount of work can fix this.

So when we're called to be righteous, there's no amount of penance that you can pay, no amount of debt that you can work off, no amount of goodness that you can add back into the world, no amount of, okay, I've been bad, I've messed up, I've hurt people, but now I'm going to get it together. Now I'm going to do it right. That doesn't work. He says, for by works of the law, this is verse 20, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So if you say, well, what do you want me to do?

Just give me the list and I'll do it. He says, that will never make you justified. You'll never be able to stand before him by works of the law and have done practical righteousness and not sin. No human being. If you happen to be a part of the Illuminati and you're like a lizard person, you might can sneak in, but everybody else, all the human beings, will not be justified in his sight. This is what Galatians 3.10 says, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and do them. So I want to talk to two people real quick that I think often are trying to rely on works of the law. I want to talk to a good old boy, Southern Christianity. What does God want from me? He wants me to be an upstanding citizen. He wants me to do what's right.

Okay? True, he does want those things for you. That will not save you. Because if you don't uphold every part of the law, you're cursed. There is no, just be in the middle of the pack. Don't make things worse.

And we'll be all right. That's not how it works. It says, all who rely on works of the law. For you to say, well, I'm just going to be good enough. I'm just going to kind of do what I'm supposed to. I'm going to be a part of a church.

I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to pay my taxes and pay my tithe. And that's what you're relying on. This is what you're going to present to him. This is your resume you're building. You are under a curse.

It will not work. And some of you are shooting for middle of the pack. And some of you go, that's ridiculous. Got to be in the top 10%. So let's talk to church ladies.

If we're going to give a hard time to good old boys, let's talk to church ladies. If you think that, no, it's not, it's not just be kind of good. It's be really good. It's get a perfect attendance pin to Sunday school. It's know your Bible backward and forward and be able to quote it at people. It's be disgusted with sinners.

My wife works at a bank and periodically they'd have situations where things were going wrong. And I don't know if y'all know this about people, but they get upset during customer service incidences. And they seem to crank that up if it involves their money. But there was a time she was telling me there was a lady they work with who's hard to work with. And every time something happened, she was super frustrated. And when she was arguing with them, she would cite that she was a Sunday school teacher.

And how dare they? And my wife would be like, what? First of all, this is a bank. We don't care about your Sunday school teaching. Second of all, what the heck even is that? It's like this.

But that idea of I'm one of the good ones. You're cursed. If you're trying to rely on the works of the law. If you have a resume that you're going to present to God, it will not work. It's what Galatians 2, 21 says. He says, I do not nullify the grace of God.

For if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. If you could do it on your own. If there was one person. It says, no, not one. But if there was one person who was righteous on their own.

Then all God would have to say is, see? You could do it. But this person, the rest of y'all, if we could do it, if there was a way to attain it from the law, why did Christ come? Why did he die? We don't have an answer for that. Paul says it's for no purpose.

Christ doesn't have to die. He would just have to teach us things. He would just come back in. He would reform it a little bit. He'd tweak it. He'd say, y'all aren't doing this part right.

But if you try really hard, you can. You can. You can. So Jesus comes, verse 21 in Romans. But now, the righteousness of God, that's that word again, has been manifested, means showed up, apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

So he says the law and the prophets were pointing us in this direction, but it's not the law that brought God's righteousness to us. It says it's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified. That's that word. That's that theological word, that thing that we need to be in front of God, justified.

By his grace, as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. All right. That's beautiful. That we're justified. That thing that we need, we're made right before God by his grace as a gift. A gift meaning we didn't do it.

He gives it to us. It's to be received. You look at the bottom. Received by faith. That's what we do. We receive a gift by faith, by trusting Jesus.

He's the one who does redemption and propitiation. Let me tell you what those words mean. Redemption is the idea that he buys us out of slavery. That he pays the price for us. So, to stand before God, you need no sin and positive righteousness. Unfortunately, what you have is sin and no positive righteousness.

Okay? You're in the wrong line with the wrong ticket. At the wrong show. At the wrong time. You got nothing. Jesus has no sin and positive righteousness.

So, Jesus redeems and propitiates. Meaning that he comes in and he swaps places with us. He pays the debt. He says, I'll take your sin. I'll give you my righteousness. It's redemption.

Propitiation. Then he goes to God and he says, I will, here's their sin. I'll pay for it. That's propitiation. That he absorbs the wrath of God on our behalf. If he had sinned, he wouldn't be able to do anything for us.

If he hadn't fulfilled the law on our behalf, he wouldn't be able to do anything for us. He never sinned and he fulfilled the law. We never fulfilled the law, but we have sinned and he swaps places with us. Jesus Christ died for a purpose. And it was to redeem sinners and to propitiate our sin before God. There's this idea of a champion.

I always found it really intriguing. And it's just an interesting thing that would happen in history. When people would go to fight, whole armies would line up. But then at times they would say, rather than us just our army fighting your army, just send forth your champion. Send out the biggest, baddest dude you got. And we'll send out the biggest, baddest dude we have.

And they'll fight on our behalf. This actually happens in the book of 1 Samuel. That's what Goliath was. He was the champion of the Philistines. He comes out and says, I'm going to fight on behalf of us. He actually says, if I win, y'all will serve us.

But if you win, if your champion wins, we'll serve you. The whole nations, the whole armies, everything was hanging in the balance on one-on-one fight. That's what faith in Jesus is. He's not our commander that coaches us up on how to fight well. He's our champion. We stand back.

It's all in his hands. If he wins, we win. If he secures the victory, we have the victory. If he rescues, if he redeems, if he accomplishes it, if he rises, we rise. If he doesn't, we don't. But it's all been pushed onto him.

That we trust Jesus to be the one who accomplishes this. Jesus to be the one who's righteous for us. Jesus to be the one who pays off our sin debt. That it's not, I have to feel bad enough. I have to pay penance to pay off my debt. Or that I have to be good enough.

It's none of that that we trust Jesus. We have faith in Jesus and we are saved by faith. Fifth thing we need to see is that faith is not a work. It's actually the opposite of work. It's anti-work. It's not the one work that we do.

It's the quitting of our work. Effective immediately. Resignation, effective immediately. Here's what he says, verse 27. And I love that he poses this as a question. Then what becomes of our boasting?

Like what the question is, okay, cool. Jesus saves me by grace through faith. It's a gift. What do I get to brag about? What happens with me telling everyone I'm awesome? And he says, it is excluded.

Which means you don't get to. There is no boasting in this system. You aren't awesome. Did you read the first part of my letter? It's excluded. You did not do this.

That's what he's saying. There is no boasting. And this helps us understand that this isn't a work. He says, by what kind of a law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Meaning if you did it, then you can strut. But if you watch David and Goliath go forward. And we were here for 40 days, super scared. Nobody wanted to fight Goliath. And then we're like, here's a child with a rock.

Let's see what he can do. We send him forward. All our hopes in him. We're trusting in this. Because he's the only one brave enough to go do it. He's going to go handle it.

Seems meek. Seems like it's not going to work. But it does. That ultimately he's a beautiful picture of what Jesus is. But we're the ones all scared and sitting back.

And as soon as he killed Goliath, if I jumped in the back and yelled, I'm awesome! Chad Phillips! He'd be like, what is wrong with you? He'd be like, we won. It's like, yeah, but David, what? That's what he's saying.

Like there's no boasting here because we didn't do any work. It's excluded. This is what Calvin says in his institutes. He was a French performer in Geneva. It says, because of the majority of people, because the majority of people, imagine a righteousness of faith mixed with works. Meaning you need both.

You've got to bring your good works to the table. You need to have faith in Jesus. Let us also show the righteousness of faith is so different from that of works that if one is established, the other is overturned. One's excluding the other. You can have one or the other. You can stand before God on your own merit or you can stand before God on Christ's merit.

It's up to you. But you don't get both. You either show up with Christ's record of righteousness, which I would heavily suggest to you, or you show up with your record of righteousness. But you don't get both. That's what he says. What becomes of our boasting, it is excluded by law of faith.

And this is good news. I want to jump to Romans 4, 4. Because I love this passage. Now, to the one who works, he's still carrying this idea out, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. If you work for 40 hours, you went to pick up your paycheck, and as they went to hand it to you, you reach that and they pull back and say, ah, say thank you. Like, fool.

You tell me thank you. You owe me this. That's his point. It's like if it's a wage that you earned, it's your due. We can't hold it back from you. You deserve it.

Then he says this, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. That's us. We don't work. We didn't show up with something to present. And we're ungodly. But Jesus justifies the ungodly.

If you're here and you're going, I'm so messed up. I've got to get back in church. I've got to get it together. I've got to start reading my Bible. I've messed everything up in my life. I've messed up all my relationships.

I've just got to clean this up. I've got to get this straightened out. You won't. But Jesus can. He justifies the ungodly because he's good. That's why it's a gracious gift.

This is beautiful, wonderful news. That faith is counted as righteousness. And faith is us just saying, I trust that Jesus has accomplished this for me. And that makes us genuinely, truly, eternally righteous because we stand in Christ, not ourselves. We're saved by grace alone through faith alone. Now, as we do that, Christians are supposed to work.

We have good works. But good works do not secure salvation for us. They do not earn anything for us. It's just the appropriate response to what Jesus has done for us. That's what Martin Luther, I'm going to end with two quotes from him. He says, God does not need our good works.

They don't present to him. They don't save us. He says, but your neighbor does. And that's God, we're saved by grace through faith for good works that he works in us, that he planned beforehand. We're told that in Ephesians, but they don't redeem us. So that if you look at a Christian, Christians are supposed to have works.

They're supposed to look like believers. John tells us that. James tells us that. Paul tells us that. Christ tells us that. But we look like believers because we are.

We look like Christ because we've been made like Christ through the work of Christ. So you don't bring good works to him for your redemption. You come to Jesus. The only thing that you can bring is your sin that makes your salvation necessary. That's all you have. I need a clean.

I need clean hands and I need a pure heart. But I have dirty hands and a wicked heart. And I get Christ. Christ. So this is what Luther says.

He says, it is God's nature to make something out of nothing. Hence, one who is not yet nothing, out of him God cannot make anything. So if you think you're something, if you have good works that you're going to present to God, you'll stand in that. But God will not make you new. Because you still think you're presenting something to him that has earned you something. He says, therefore, God accepts only the forsaken.

Cures only the sick. Gives sight only to the blind. Restores life only to the dead. Sanctifies only the sinners. Gives wisdom only to the unwise. In short, he has mercy only on those who are wretched.

But he does have mercy on those who are wretched. He does justify the ungodly. And so we get together and we praise his name because he saves us through his goodness and his glory on our behalf. The band's going to come back up. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus. If you do not have a good answer to the question of what does God want from me?

Or if you answered the question with he wants me to be good. You are under a curse. You are not righteous. You are accountable to God. And you will pay the due penalty of your sin. And it would be unloving to tell you anything else.

It would be unloving to stand up here and say, you'll be okay. It'll be fine. It will not. If you walk towards Christ with your resume that screams the glory of your own name. You will not be welcomed into heaven. You will not be welcomed into his presence.

You will not be given glory before his face. You will pay the penalty of your sin. But Jesus Christ redeems the ungodly. He justifies us before God. He pays the penalty of our sin. And all you need to do is bring your sin to him and say, this is all the stuff that should disqualify me.

All I can bring to you is all the things that would keep me out. And I can hand him over to Christ and I can let him take him to the cross for me. And when he rises, I can rise with him. Because he gives me his righteousness. And then when you stand before God. And he brings to you a thousand accusations.

You can say they were all paid by Christ. And I am clothed in the righteousness of your son. And we are made righteous in his son. And we are justified by God. And if someone says, well, you're ungodly. It's like, yes and amen.

That's who Jesus justifies. I'm wretched. And so I get a glorious, gracious Savior. And if you've placed your faith in Jesus. And you're somehow trying to smuggle works back in. Because we have little legalist hearts.

That you're somehow falling short. And you haven't done enough. And you aren't good enough. And you're overwhelmed by the weight of your sin. Would you stop and take a deep breath. And praise Jesus for justifying the ungodly.

If you can look at yourself right now and say, I've been following Jesus for so long. And I feel so ungodly. Praise Christ that he justifies the ungodly. That he redeems. That he propitiates. You say, I deserve so much wrath for my wickedness.

He said, yes. And Christ paid it out on the cross. And he disarmed the rulers and the authorities. And we rise with him because he rises. Not because we're good. Not because after he saved us we got together.

And we became good people. But because he redeems. And he makes new. And he gets the glory and the praise forever. If you haven't placed your faith in Jesus. Trust him.

Come to him now and say, I need you to save me. And he will. And if you have placed your faith in Jesus. Let's celebrate that he saves sinners like us. And let's sing praises to his name.

Sola Gratia

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Sola Gratia

Spencer Cary

Transcript

O worship the King, all glorious above, and gratefully sing His wonderful love. Our children defender the Ancient of Days, a billion in slender and burdened with praise. Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. I have a super fun announcement to make.

It seems that our restrooms in the lobby have been going a little crazy this morning. So if you need to use the restroom, you can go check it out. Maybe this situation has resolved itself in the last ten minutes. If it has not, there will be somebody to direct you to a different part of the building. You're welcome. Okay.

So we are in our five solas series, taking a break from walking through books of the Bible to look at the five anthems of the Protestant Reformation. The five main teachings, the five main doctrines that come out of the Protestant Reformation that formed the tradition that we are in now, that shape what we believe and how we practice what we believe. Last week we were in Sola Scriptura, which is Latin for Scripture Alone. And this week we're looking at Sola Gratia, which is Latin for Grace Alone. So when I was in, I became a Christian when I was 17.

That's when I came to faith. And when I came to faith, there were a few things that I understood. I understood that Jesus died for my sins. I understood that He was raised in order that I might have a new life in Christ, that I needed to be born again, that the old was gone, the new has come, is what 2 Corinthians 5 teaches. I understood some of the basics of the gospel, that faith was not the kind of the southern Christian in name only. I'm a Christian, but I don't actually practice this, that it was a full surrender to Christ.

I understood that, but I was real raw and green on everything else. I didn't really know the Bible hardly at all. And then I got to college my freshman year, and I was in a Bible study. And we were reading Ephesians 2 together. And I just went, what? Like this is in the Bible?

Like we were reading Ephesians 2, and it says that you are dead in sin outside of Christ. And then we keep reading, and then we get to verses 8 and 9. And it says, for it's by grace that you, this is what we read earlier together in our liturgy. For it's by grace that you've been saved through faith. That it's not of your own doing. It's not of works.

So that... Oh my God. Look at that. No? No? Let's go one more time.

My back. Head, hand, hand, hand. All right, you guys. I'm going to grip this like it's the rat battle. Here we go. Come on.

Oh, we're back. Here we go, you guys. Yes, technical difficulties all around this morning, but we're good. So, when I read that it was by grace alone, it blew my mind. I was like, you mean to tell me that I didn't bring anything to the table? That I brought my sin and my rebellion, but I have to do anything to earn the favor of God?

It absolutely, it wrecked me. I was like, this is amazing. And guess what? I was not the first person this happened to. I wasn't. 500 years before, the reformers who had not had the scriptures.

This is what we talked about last week. They did not have the scriptures that the Catholic Church had. The translation of the Bible that was in Latin. The common people weren't able to read it. But once the common people got the Bible in their language, they were able to read passages like Ephesians 2.

They went, what? This is in here. This changes the game. And that's what grace does. So, we're going to look at grace alone today and how beautiful and good this is for us. We're going to look at this in three different ways.

The first is the recovery of true grace. The second is the rediscovery of planned grace. And the third is the implications of endless grace. So, let me pray for us and then we will begin. Father, I thank you that we have your word, that it is sharper than a two-edged sword, that it pierces the division of soul and spirit of bone and marrow, that it sinks into our hearts to show us the goodness of the gospel and where we need to grow. And grace is beautiful and it is good.

But we need to have open hearts to hear what you have to say. So, God, I pray that you'd open our hearts this morning, that we would be present, and we would respond. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, first, we're going to look at the recovery of true grace. So, grace can be used, that word, broadly, to mean a few different things in the New Testament. It comes from the Greek word, charis.

So, if you're wondering why we named our third child charis, there you go. It means grace in Greek. It can mean a few different things. It's like people will often say, can somebody, before we eat, say grace? And what do they mean? I mean, can you say the blessing?

Because in the New Testament, you see over and over again, grace is used as a blessing. Grace to you. You hear about spiritual gifts and charismatic, right? Well, the base word for charismatic is charis. It comes from grace. Like, grace has a few different uses throughout the New Testament.

But when we are talking about sola gratia, sola grace, grace alone, what we're talking about is salvific grace, salvation grace. We're talking about how we are saved. And sola gratia and sola fide, grace alone and faith alone, are separated. They came to the realization of Martin Luther at the same time, the Reformers at the same time. But they're separated for a reason.

Because faith alone shows the mechanism, shows how we are saved. But grace explores why. Why we were saved. Now, Catholics and Protestants will both say that you're saved by grace. But how we define grace there is different.

And some of you might be saying, oh my goodness, we're going to argue about semantics and how a word is defined and how it's used. Yes. Absolutely so. Like, our faith is built on the Word of God. It's built on semantics. Like, if someone in the press pool for the President asked him this week and said, hey, are we going to be in a nuclear war with Russia?

And he said, possibly. Yeah. How he defines possibly is really important. The implications of that are huge. If he means, well, actually, yeah, possibly. And at this point, it's a real possibility.

We are buying potassium iodine pills. Like, we're building bunkers. We are getting ready for nuclear fallout. The implications of that are huge. But if you meant, well, actually, possibly.

I mean, there's an endless amount of possibilities. Right? So, I'm sure it's certainly possible. That's a way different definition of the word possible. The implications of that are way different. That's how it works with grace.

It's important how we define our terms. For Catholics, grace is a gift in cooperation. Okay? Grace is a gift in cooperation. They have a few different descriptors of grace, but one of them is justifying grace. So, for the Catholic Church, justifying grace, it starts with baptism.

Because in the Catholic Church, they believe that you are saved by baptism from a Catholic priest. And we as Protestants say, no. No, we don't believe that at all. But for the Catholic Church, yes, you are saved by grace at baptism. And that work continues in penance and in confession and in other sacraments. And grace, therefore, is a cooperative work.

And that is the teaching of the Catholic Church. Now, as we saw last week, as we saw last week in Sola Scriptura, that for the Catholic Church, Catholic doctrine is greater than the Scriptures. Right? So the Scriptures are supporting evidence for what the Church teaches. And we as Protestants say, no. The Bible says something different.

It says in 2.8 and 9 of Ephesians, what I mentioned earlier, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Not a result of work, so that no one may boast. First, we look at this very differently. We say, did you not see?

It says, this is not of your own doing in the slightest, that grace is a one-way work of God. And the context of Ephesians 2 leading up to that shows that. It says that we were dead in trespasses and sins. Verse 1, you are dead in trespasses and sins. You are spiritually dead. Unable to make your way to God.

In verse 4, he says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us. That's the great love that He loved us. Not the love that we bring to the table. Verse 5 and 6, he says, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. That God is the one that makes us alive. He says, by grace you have been saved and raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

That God is the one that raises us up in faith. One of the more popular definitions I've heard over the years that I appreciate for grace is an acronym for grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. That we get the riches of God, the infinite beautiful riches of God at the expense of Christ on the cross crucified. That is a gift to us. We cannot earn that in the slightest.

It would be like if I gave you a brand new custom Rolls Royce. Okay? Like the most expensive Rolls Royce in the world is a custom made Rolls Royce. It's about 10 to 12 million dollars. So let's say I give you that Rolls Royce.

You know what? I'm going to up the ante. It's got a full tank of gas. Which pretty much just doubled the value at this point. Right? So I give you this Rolls Royce and you go, man, that is so good.

And then you pull out your wallet and you got five fresh hundred dollar bills. And you say, here you go. One, two, three, four, five. Thank you. Thank you so much for this gift. I would be like, listen, I don't think you understand the exchange that just happened.

I just gave you a 12 million dollar car. I'm not looking for your money. Especially not that. That's us. When we misunderstand that the gift of Christ and what He has done for us, that His crucified flesh, His perfect record that was nailed to the cross on our behalf. That's a gift that we cannot earn in the slightest.

And it doesn't just affect how we define the mechanism, which is faith. Because Protestants, as we'll get into next week, we believe it's faith alone. In the Catholic Church, it's faith and works. It's not just that. It affects how we view ourselves. It affects how we view God in salvation.

Because in grace alone faith, there is no room for boasting. Like we don't have a righteous leg to stand on above anyone else. In grace alone faith, there's no separation between the priesthood and the laity. Meaning the pastors and priests and the lay people. In the Catholic Church, there is. There's a holy separation there.

All the way down to how they are dressed. There's a distinction there between the priesthood and the laity. But we as Protestants, because of grace alone, we look at that and say, no, we believe in the priesthood of all believers. We believe that all of us have received the same amount of grace. There is not this distinct holy separation between us as four elders of this church and you. Now, the Bible does call for respecting the pastors and elders of the church.

So we probably go too far in the other direction because we disrespect each other quite a bit. If you've sat in our sermons long enough, you know that I will make jokes about Chet who preaches the other half of the time. And then Chet will make funnier jokes about me when he comes up and preaches. Right? So we do this.

Probably go a little bit hard in the other directions because it does talk about respecting elders. But the point we're trying to make is that there's nothing great and glorious and super awesome about us. It is grace alone that we are who we are. In a grace alone faith, as we'll get in next week, there's no need for indulgences, which was a practice at the time of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation of purchasing, buying indulgences to get people out of purgatory, which we looked at last week. Purgatory isn't scriptural anyways. But the idea that you could give money to get someone into heaven is evil.

We don't believe this in the slightest. The scriptures do not teach it. It is by grace and grace alone. There are no rituals, baptism, praying to saints, Hail Marys, anything that, any of those extras, also that we would add to it, none of it. It is by grace and grace alone. We, as Protestants, look at this and say, grace isn't really an act to begin with.

That grace is God's nature towards His people. It's His nature towards God's people. That grace is, like, grace is like a giant lake. Okay? It's like a big lake of God's grace. And what flows out of that is the river of faith.

Alright? So, faith flows from this lake of grace. And as our faith flows from this, there are no outside external tributaries. Right? There are no creeks or small rivers that flow into it outside of the lake of grace. Your good works, your being at community group on a regular basis, baptism, none of that is an outside work.

It all flows completely and solely from the lake of grace. From grace alone from our God. Even as we completed that in the liturgy earlier in Ephesians 2.10 when it says, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Those display the faith that God has gifted us but all of that, everything flows from the lake of grace. It all comes from the grace of God. And this had been missing for a very long time in the church.

And then when the reformers like Luther and Zwingli and Calvin, when these reformers and the people of that time read the Bible and saw this, they went, man, we've got to get back to this. This is really, really good news. And that began to be recovered. And as they were recovering this aspect of grace, one of the things that they rediscovered was planned grace. We're going to look at the rediscovery of planned grace. So, as they're rediscovering the Scriptures, they rediscovered this aspect of planned grace that had been lost for centuries.

This aspect of grace reawakened the church, the Western church, to the sovereignty of God in salvation. As they're reading the Scriptures, they began to see this, that a teaching that had been largely lost since about 400 A.D. Augustine was one of the last major church figures to write about this. They saw the Scriptures and said this idea of planned grace needs to be further explored. And in one of Luther's most famous works, he wrote something called The Bondage of the Will. And The Bondage of the Will, which is probably Luther's best work, in The Bondage of the Will was a response to a brilliant Catholic scholar named Erasmus.

Erasmus was brilliant. I mean, everyone in Europe knew Erasmus was one of the top scholars at the time. Now, Erasmus stayed Catholic because he sat on the fence during the Reformation. He agreed with the Reformers and their critiques of the corruption of the Catholic Church. Some of that led to the much-needed Counter-Reformation that cleaned up a lot of the really grotesque things that were happening in the Catholic Church and led it on a better path. But Erasmus was on the fence and he agreed with some of those critiques, but he disagreed with some of the theology of the Reformers.

And as the Reformers were being kicked out and excommunicated from the Catholic Church, he stayed put. He did not go with them. So Luther wrote a very respectful disagreement in the bondage of the will with Erasmus' view of salvation, which for Luther was a lot because if you read his writings, he wasn't very respectful of any of his opponents. But he was very respectful of Erasmus and he wrote this disagreement because Erasmus believed that sinners of their own free will and volition could cooperate with God in salvation. This is a doctrine of, it's called synergism, the idea that you can, your will and God's will combine for faith.

Whereas the Protestant tradition taught monergism, which is one, the will of God. And honestly, Erasmus' position in his theology went on to influence a lot of Protestant denominations, the Methodist Church, a lot of Pentecostal churches, even a lot of Baptist churches. But Luther disagreed with this and he wrote The Bondage of the Will. And in one of the sections of that text, he said this, First, God has promised certainly His grace to the humble. That is, to the self-deploring and despairing. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled until he comes to know that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsel, endeavors, will, and works.

And absolutely depending on the will, counsel, pleasure, and work of another that is God only. That he argues that it's utterly beyond our own will, our own good endeavors, our own counsel, that our hope firmly rests on the will, counsel, and pleasure of God alone. Some of you may be familiar with this teaching. This is the teaching of election or the teaching of predestination, the idea that God chooses those whom he will save. And we see this throughout the New Testament over and over again. I'll just give you a few passages.

In Ephesians 1, 4-6, it says, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. That God chose us before the foundation of the world, before time. He says, in love, he predestined us for adoption. That is being, as Ephesians 2 says, we're once children of disobedience. He brings us and adopts us into the family of God. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he blessed us in the beloved.

You see that in Ephesians 1. You see it in Revelation. The book of Revelation, there are two references to this book of life. There are those that before time, their names are written in the book of life and in those who are not. And in 13, it's talking about those who are going to worship and follow the beast. That is the Antichrist type figure.

He says, all who dwell on the earth will worship it. That's the beast. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. You get to 2 Timothy when Paul is writing to Timothy to give him encouragement. He says in verse 9, he says, who saved us and called us to a holy calling. Not because of our works, but because of his purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

You see this teaching over and over and over and over again in the New Testament. you see the sovereignty of God in salvation. And as the Protestant Reformation was getting going and they were reading the scriptures for the first time, this was being rediscovered. Now, many Christians have wrestled with this, have wrestled with these passages. Myself included. I became a Christian in a Methodist church, which is a Wesleyan, Armenian tradition. And for years, I wrestled with this.

I wrestled with the idea of fairness in this. Well, how is it fair that God would choose some and not others? That's really what it boils down to. Like, I wrestled with this. How is that fair? I got people that I love, that I know, that don't know Christ.

How is that fair? I wrestled with this. And I had some reform-leaning brothers who would sit down with me and some of them not as, some of them very bluntly would say, listen, you know what's fair? Everyone goes to hell. They would say that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've rebelled against His good nature and His good works and His good design.

Fair is we all receive punishment. And I was like, I don't like how bluntly you're telling me this, but I don't know how to argue with you on that either. And I wrestled with this. And I would do this, it's a bit of a textual dance. I would say, well, no, what's actually happening is that God, outside of time, looks inside of time and He looks at us and He foreknows who's going to choose Him and He knows that who's going to choose Him and place faith in Him and that's who He elects and then outside. And in the past, and I would do this dance, which you can do philosophically, but the text just doesn't say that.

Over and over again, it makes it clear that it's God's sovereign choice. And I wrestled with this. I wrestled with the book of Romans over and over and over again. But I kept reading the Bible. And if you're struggling with any of these aspects of faith, which are very difficult, mysterious, that's my encouragement is to read the Bible and come back to the Bible. Don't deal in outside philosophy.

Come back to the Scriptures. And after years of wrestling with this, there was one summer I had a job at a resort cleaning public bathrooms. Had a lot of time to myself. Cleaning bathroom after bathroom after bathroom. I'm an extrovert, so I love talking to people, but that's a job where you don't talk to people because it's real awkward and weird. So I had a lot of time to think and I was wrestling with this idea, wrestling with this theology, and then it finally dawned on me, I don't have to know why God does what He does.

I don't have to know why God chooses whom He chooses. I don't have to know why God doesn't justifiably give the wrath of God towards all of us for our rebellion. I don't have to know why any of this is the way that it is because I am not God and His ways are higher than my ways. I will never understand the mind of God. These things are too wonderful for me. You know what's funny?

Paul, I think, felt the same way. Romans 1-11, those 11 chapters are some of the most beautiful, some of the most beautiful literature that's ever been written. It's incredible. And he's wrestling with this. Alright? He's saying very tough.

You get to Romans 9, you're just like, oh man, this is really difficult. He's under the inspiration that God is inspiring him. He's writing this beautiful, wonderful text. And then he gets to chapter 11, the end of his long argument because the first 11 chapters are theology and the last 5 are the application of that theology. And he's wrestling with this. And he finally just throws up his hands because it's just too wonderful for him.

And he just starts to praise God in verses 33-36. He says, oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. It's just too deep for me. He says, how unsearchable are His judgments. How inscrutable are His ways. Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who has been His counselor? Who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever and ever. He's like, I don't get it. I don't understand it. He's too glorious.

And I will rest in the mystery of God. And Luther came to the same conclusion in the bondage of the will. He says, the dreadful hidden will of God who according to His own counsel ordains such a person as He wills to receive and partake of the mercy preached and offered. This will, hear this, this will is not to be inquired into but to be reverently adored as by far the most awesome secret of divine majesty. The doctrine of God's plan's grace is not meant to vex and bother us into this existential crisis where we're like, I don't know. It's not what it's meant to do at all.

Our ways are not as ways. Our thoughts are not as thoughts. It is meant to drive you to a humble, deep worship where you just say, thank you Jesus that you saved me. I don't know why you saved me. I don't deserve it. I haven't earned it.

I've sped upon your goodwill. I've rebelled against you but praise you Jesus that you redeemed me. That is what it's meant to lead us to. That it's not of our own will and it's not of our own good works but praise God and if you can get to that place, brothers and sisters, you will find peace. You will find peace knowing that He's higher than us but He's good to us and as a finite human being that's good enough for me. So, when you get to that place, you can just worship.

That's why an amazing grace, you don't see, He didn't go in there and just write a whole bunch of things about all the theology. He just praises God. He says, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, a broken wretch dead in sin like me. I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see. you can just praise God and rest in the planned grace that He's been given to us and when you get to that place, when you start to understand the depths and the mystery and the beauty of grace, then you can really appreciate and understand the implications of His endless grace. That's the third thing I want us to see today.

The implications of His endless grace. There are lots of them. I only have time for three. First, grace removes the pressure. Grace removes the pressure. In doing a lot of preparation for this series, I spent a lot of time reading different Catholic doctrine and scouring different Catholic teachings and I stumbled upon this Catholic blog from a monastery in Kansas and this monk was writing about one of the most famous stories of Saint Benedict.

So, Benedict of Nercia was basically like the Billy Graham of monks. Okay? Really big deal. And he was writing about this famous story about Benedict who one day was walking down a path and he became tempted to lust over the thought of a woman. Now, this is how he responded. I'm going to read word for word how this monk retells this story because I think how he retells it actually is very helpful to understand the difference here.

He says, just then he noticed a thick patch of nettles and briars next to him. Throwing his garment aside, he flung himself naked into the sharp thorns and stinging nettles. You catch that? He stripped off his clothes naked and he jumped into a briar patch. Then he rolled and tossed until his whole body was in pain and covered with blood.

Yet once he conquered pleasure through suffering, his torn and bleeding skin served to drain off the poison of temptation from his body. I want to read that again and absorb what he said. His torn and bleeding skin served to drain off the poison of temptation from his body. Before long the pain was burning. His whole body had put out the fires of evil in his heart. It was by exchanging these two fires that he gained victory over sin.

Now, part of me wants to admire that approach to sin because Jesus teaches to give a really serious response to sin. In the Sermon on the Mount he says, cut off your hand if you're tempted by lust. That is strong, intense, metaphorical language. You don't read the book of Acts and read about a bunch of one-handed apostles, a bunch of one-handed Christians. You're not going to read the book of Acts and read about how Paul and Barnabas were walking down a path that got tempted and they threw themselves into a barpratch and cut themselves up into the blood, the poison drained from their body. You're not going to read that because they believed in grace alone.

You cannot earn the favor of God and achieve perfection. Jesus did that on our behalf. So, you may look at that story. And look at that story. I think that's kind of silly. But I would argue that we do this in a different way.

That when we approach the sinful fallen parts of our nature, we do this. How many of us will work ourselves into deep anxiety or depression because we're trying to do it all. We're trying to achieve perfection. We're trying to prove ourselves over and over again to God, to others, for the approval of God, for the approval of others. We try to control everything we can because we've got to conquer sin. We've got to do it right.

And we work ourselves into this deep sadness and anxiety because we don't understand the grace of God. How many of us hurt ourselves because we don't like the sin and fallenness in our lives? how many of you have been tempted with suicidal thoughts because you look at your life and you just, you hate it. You hate the sin in your life and you wish it was over. How many of you engage in a negative cycle of cruel talk and you talk down to yourself all the time? You talk to yourself in ways that you would never let anybody else talk to you. We do this.

When we face our sin and our brokenness, we beat ourselves up. We're our own worst enemies. And it's no more effective or pious or holy than what Benedict did. And it never, hear this, it never fuels effective repentance. Christian, the pressure is off. If you're in Christ, there is no pressure that you're not having to fulfill the law and all the commandments of God because that's been fulfilled in Christ.

And that was nailed to the cross on our behalf. The pressure is off. Any attempt to gain righteousness on your own is pulling out $500 bills for a Rolls Royce that's trying to purchase a gift that has been given to us. You need to see the lake of His grace that is upstream and say, praise Jesus that I don't have to earn this. Though I deserve punishment, you paid for me. You need to rest in His grace.

The pressure is off. God, hear this, God the Father, He saw you and He said, you're mine. Before you were ever thought of, He said, you are mine. You are my child. That Christ, before you ever thought of, His death, His brutal death on the cross was for you. His blood shed was for you. that you are gifted the Holy Spirit who sealed your faith and who will carry you all the way to the finish line until He calls us home.

The pressure is off. We need to see the beauty of His grace from the moment of belief until we go home. Listen, the enemy, he can point at the worst parts of your sin and say, how gross is this? How bad are you? How disgusting is this? And you know what you can say?

Yeah, you don't know the half of it. But you also don't know my Savior. You'll never know Him. And He died for all of that and did something. And that's how good my God is. We rest in the grace of God and it takes the pressure off and the next thing it does is it removes our boasting.

Grace removes boasting. I personally have never understood the self-righteous Christian. It's been very hard for me to understand the thought process of anyone that positions themselves above anyone else. I just don't get it. I think maybe God has been gracious to me because He shows me my sin on a regular basis. And I see it and I'm like, man, that crap is gross.

No. Thank you, Jesus, that you died for this. I don't have a category for anyone that can position themselves over somebody else. I just don't. Because I'm like, have you not read when it says, not a result of works that none may boast? Do you not see that?

I don't understand that. But I do understand that you need to get past your own pride and inflated self-worth. Those are heinous in the eyes of God. And that maybe, may be the only reason that you've not gone down the rabbit hole of depravity. Right? For the self-proclaiming Christian that says horrible things about sexuality or drugs or work ethic or fill in the blank, maybe the reason that you've not gone down the rabbit hole of depravity is because God has not let you.

The reason that you are not a drug addict, the reason you did not fall headlong into the opioid epidemic is because God did not let you. The reason that you are not a jihadist Muslim is because you were born in this country. That was God's choosing. You were not born in the darkest parts of Afghanistan. The reason you are who you are is because the sovereign God made it so. So you have to get off your high horse.

You have to realize that you are who you are because God has been gracious to you. And approach him in humble repentance and worship. To look at our souls in the mirror and realize that every decent quality that is of God comes from him. Listen, this is an aside for a few of us. This also applies to those who boast about their theology. This also applies to those, and listen, I am as reformed as the next guy.

You can go to my office, you can go to my bookshelf, and I got Piper, and Keller, and Dever, and Grudem. I got them all. I got the Institutes that's right behind me. Listen, the person who is boastful about their theology has not been humbled by the doctrines of grace. It should not lead you to a position of arrogance. It should lead you to a deep position of humility.

Grace removes boasting, and lastly, grace gives glory. Grace gives glory. Paul, Luther, Calvin, each of them understood good. That grace alone means that it is from Him, and through Him, and to Him. It is to His glory. Calvin once said, he said, the glory of God shines indeed in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than the cross.

And that is sure, and that is true. Which means, listen, which means that the darkest parts of your flesh, the parts you are most ashamed of, the parts that plague you the most, that is where His grace shines the brightest. And that is where God gets unbelievable, uncomparable glory. That every time God bends a center to faith and belief, God gets glory. That every time you have victory over sin, God gets glory. glory that God willing as you are on your deathbed and there are saints around you singing hymns and you are murmuring them in your final breaths of life praising God, God gets the glory because all of that is by grace alone.

And that is what we have to remember. Matt and Kelly are going to come up and they're going to finish us out.

Sola Scriptura

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Sola Scriptura

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Morning. My name is Spencer and I am one of the pastors here. So we're going to be looking at Sola Scriptura today. We are in a series called the five solas. These are the five anthems that came out of the Protestant Reformation. And we are in, well, last week, Chet walked us through kind of an overview of all five and we're posting up in Sola Scriptura today, which means scripture alone.

So when I was in college, I was a new believer. I was excited about following Jesus. And when I got to college, I was like, I need Christian community. As Chet said at the very beginning, like you Christians need community. I realized that. And I was like, I want to find some people to love Jesus.

I went to a college, Presbyterian college, though it's called Presbyterian college. It was very much not a Christian college. So I got on campus and I met some people that said, hey, come to this, this discussion group, this faith discussion group on Monday night. And I said, sweet, I'm there. So I rock up, got my pocket Bible, ready to go, excited.

I walk in and they say, oh, they pointed at my Bible. You're not going to need that here. I said, what? No, seriously, like we, we don't, you're not going to need that here. And I was like, oh, okay. So I put it down and, uh, I was like, this is gonna be the worst Bible study ever, but we'll give it a go.

Uh, and for the next hour, I listened to a bunch of 18 and 22 year olds pontificate and theorize about what Christianity was all about by never pointing to the Bible at all. And it just blew my mind. It would be like going to a calculus class and day one, the professor just says, hey, put your books away. You're not going to need that this semester. What do you think math is? What is math to you?

You'd be like, no, I'm out. Well, guess what? I stayed the whole hour and, uh, because I didn't want to disturb the herd and make it seen. I was like, okay, I'm just going to be curious here and watch and see what happens. And it blew my mind that you could actually have a discussion about Jesus and Christianity without actually opening the Bible. And what I did not realize at the time is that I had been shaped by a view of the scriptures that has a long tradition.

That tradition is called sola scriptura. I like how one pastor defines this. He says, sola scriptura, he says, is the Bible has the final say on everything. The Bible has something to say about that. The Bible has the final say on everything. The Bible has something to say about.

So sola means alone. Scripture alone is the final authority for what is true. That's why I found that group so shocking. And also why I never went back that you could actually have a discussion about Jesus without going to the scriptures. And as I would go on to learn over the coming years, is that these beliefs were rooted in the Reformation tradition of sola scriptura that goes not just back to the Reformation, but goes all the way back to the early church. So today we're going to look at sola scriptura in this series.

It's basically what the five solars are answering this question of how are we saved? Okay. And if it's as Chet was walked us through last week, if it's by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, if that's what that is, then we've got to have some source material for that statement. And this is where Protestants and Catholics have a different answer. Have a different answer for what the answer is for that. So we're going to walk through this today.

I'm going to walk us through the history of how this came to be. And then we're going to sit in what the Bible teaches on this. And then we'll close with some encouragements that I think are good for us as we continue to reform as the Protestant tradition is. That we can grow in this encouragement to continue to be people of sola scriptura. So let me pray for us.

And then we will jump in. Lord, we love you. We thank you for the goodness of the gospel, that it sets us apart to be a people that can sit under the authority of your word. God, I pray that you would mold and shape us this morning in your image, that you'd help us be present, and that we respond in Christ's name. Amen. Okay.

So one of them, one of the common misconceptions about the Reformation is that Martin Luther and the Reformers came up with new ideas. These were not new ideas. Luther was not the first to say these ideas like scripture alone. This goes back all the way to the first century church. The first century church believed the Bible was the final authority on what is true. And if that is the case, then how do things go awry?

How do the church go off the rails? In order to do that, we've got to walk through some church history. Now, I know when I say history, some of you are like, please, no. Like, don't. I hated history in high school. I don't.

Listen. Church history can be helpful. So come for the church history. Stay for some of the incredible baby names you're about to hear. For those of you that are thinking about starting families, boy, oh boy, do I have some special names for you. Church history is chock full.

It is fertile with baby names. All right. So you can stay for that and listen. But we've got to walk through some history to understand what's happening here. So like each of the five solas, the slow fade began when the Western church became the Roman Catholic church.

Because early on in the New Testament, the New Testament church, the New Testament people believed that the Bible was the final and sole authority for what is true and what is good. You can see that. We'll walk through a lot of the biblical evidence here in a little bit. But you see that in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, when it says, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Like the church believed this out the gate, that if you want to be equipped for every good work, you went to the scriptures that would grow you and shape you in what is good.

This is what they believed early on. And as the final books of the New Testament were being written, and as the New Testament canon was being finalized, canon is just a word for standard of the books. So this is the standard, which is the 27 books in the New Testament, 66 books in total in our Bibles. The early church looked at the Bibles. You can look around. You got blue Bibles underneath your seats in front of you.

Okay? That blue Bible, the words that are in it, this is what guided the early church. They looked at this as the chief authority for their lives. Now there are skeptics that will say, wait a second, no, no, no. Didn't they just choose what they wanted? They just choose which books of the Bible they wanted.

They kicked out some of the other ones. What about the Apocrypha? What about the things that were included? I don't have the bandwidth to be able to get into the Apocrypha today. If you want to have a discussion on that, we can have that later. But that is a false argument.

That is not true. Early on, you can see it in early church history. They looked at the books of the Bible, and they didn't choose them and say, these are the ones. They were already recognizing, these are the scriptures. These are the scriptures that were handed down to the church. You can see that through the early church fathers.

You can take it Clement. Clement, a church father in 95 AD, was writing about this, pointing to these scriptures that were authoritative. You can look at Ignatius in 115 AD. Get your pens ready, guys. We'll see some baby boys named Ignatius. It's a good one.

All right? You can look at Polycarp. Maybe not a good one. You can give it a try. It's the Wild West of names these days, guys. You can name whatever you want.

Polycarp in 108 AD. Irenanus in 185 AD. Hippolytus in 200 AD. Church father after church father after church father is simply pointing out, these are the books that guide and shape the church. These have authority. Let me make this very clear.

The church did not choose the scriptures. They merely recognized what was already authoritative as the word of God was handed down to them. And for 300 plus years, for 300 plus years, the church was guided by this belief as it exploded across Europe and North Africa. And then early on in the fourth century, Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert Christianity. And then in 380 AD, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. And that's when it became the Roman Catholic Church.

Rome meaning centered in Rome, Catholic meaning Latin for universal. So the universal church as centered in Rome. And a few things happened when that took place. The first is that it was now politically convenient to not just be a Christian, but to be a Christian leader. Because when the church got morphed into government, it became convenient to be a political leader and a church leader and corruption started to seep in. The elite started to convert to Christianity and become political leaders because that was convenient.

Second, the Roman Catholic Church commissioned one of the early church fathers, Jerome. They commissioned Jerome to create the first Latin translation of the Bible. The Bible was written in the Old Testament, Hebrew and Aramaic, and the New Testament, Greek. They commissioned him. We want you to translate that into Latin because Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire. So he did this and his translations ended up becoming something called the Vulgate and became the translation of the Bible for a thousand years.

From 500 to 1000 AD, that was the chief and almost sole translation in the Western church. Now around this time is when Rome finally falls. The Roman Empire falls and we enter into a period between 500 and 1500 AD, which is known as the Middle Ages. Okay, so in the Middle Ages during this time, there's no longer a need for everybody to learn Latin because the Roman Empire has fallen. It's a time where there's not a lot of technological advancement. There's a lot of disease that goes through.

There's not a lot of education. Some of the stuff you see in movies may be overplayed, but it certainly wasn't a very good time. And while this is happening, the only scriptures that are circulating around the churches in Europe and Northern Africa are in Latin. And the Catholic Church had those. And no one else except the elites knew Latin, which means, this is why this is really important. It means that for a thousand years, they held the keys to what the scripture said.

They're the ones that knew it. And everyone went to the priesthood, went to the bishops to find out what God said because they weren't going to be able to read it for themselves. And this is when around this time is when the Catholic Church stops looking to the scriptures as the chief authority and it starts looking within. And it starts looking within. And that's when councils are start forming and bishops start forming doctrine and the church starts forming doctrine that is completely disconnected from the word of God. And the scriptures stop becoming the chief authority.

That is why to this day in the Catholic Church, the church is greater than the scriptures. The church is greater than the scriptures even today for the Catholic Church. That is how certain Catholic doctrines creep in that have no basis in the scriptures. Take purgatory, for instance. Purgatory is the idea that there's this limbo place between hell and heaven, that if you don't commit these super bad mortal sins, when you die, you have some venial sins. You can go to purgatory.

You can be purged of that before you enter into heaven. That's found nowhere in the scriptures. There's not a scriptural basis for that. You can go back to Platonic philosophy. You go back to Plato, who was a pagan Greek in the 4th century BC. But you're not going to find that in the scriptures.

And that's what happens. A lot of times with Catholic doctrine, they have debates, scholars have debates, and they have councils. And over time, it develops into a doctrine that's cemented. It's a little bit like a game of telephone. The game of telephone when you're a kid, where you would, you know, one kid would whisper to the next kid a phrase, and the next kid would whisper all the way around the circle. Then you get back to the final person.

They stand up and they say their phrase, and it's not the same thing. That's a little bit of how some Catholic doctrine came in to be. It was passed, it was passed, it was passed, it was passed, and then it's completely disconnected from the scriptures. And then in 1274, in 1274, purgatory became an official Catholic doctrine. And this happened with a host of issues we'll see in the other five solos. Things like pilgrimages, things like veneration of the saints, which is praying to Saint Mary or Saint Thomas.

This happened with things like indulgences. We'll see that more in sola fide, with paying to get out of purgatory. There are different doctrines that crept in and became official Catholic doctrine. And that was until about 300 years before Martin Luther steps on the scene in 1500. About 300 years before, there were some people that finally started to challenge the Catholic Church on this. And I'll give you a few examples.

From 1200 to 1400 AD, there were three different main figures in Europe. They started to challenge this idea that the church is not the authority on what is true, that the Bible is the authority. There's a man named Peter Waldo, who was a French merchant that began to challenge this with a movement. There was a man named John Wycliffe, an Englishman, a professor at Oxford, who began to also, like Peter Waldo, translate the Bible into their native tongue. They're like, we don't have the word. The common people need the word of God.

There was a man named Jan Hus, which is Czech. Hus is Czech for goose. So again, baby names, y'all. Hus. Who doesn't want a name? That's boy or girl, right?

Hus. Okay? Each of these figures over the next two to three hundred years began to challenge the Catholic Church by translating the Bible into the common tongue and preaching it to the people in their own language. And when they did this, well, the Catholic Church was not very happy. Back then, the Catholic Church did what they did best back then. They absolutely destroyed dissent.

Like during that period, if you challenged the Catholic Church, it did not go well for you. They came at you very hard. It's a little bit like, if you've ever seen Parks and Rec, which is an episode, which is a TV series on local town government, there's this episode of Parks and Rec where a Venezuelan diplomat comes into town to observe local town government. And then he, there's this, he shows up to a town council meeting and the people are doing what happens at town council meetings. They're yelling at the council members and they're protesting. And he sees this and he's like, why are they not being taken to jail?

This does not happen in Venezuela. If you do this, you go to jail. All right? You play music too loud, jail. You drive too slow, jail. You drive too fast, jail.

You undercook fish, jail. You overcook chicken, jail. Jail, jail, jail, jail, jail. All right? That's, that was the Catholic Church. You challenged them, jail.

You challenged them, inquisition, torture, death, crusade. During this period, they went hard after anyone that showed dissent. And that is what happened. So there's a first, there was a high stakes game of where's Waldo? Waldo, because Peter Waldo and his people were being hunted down. Peter Waldo was actually not killed by the Catholic Church, but thousands of his followers, thousands of his followers were called the Waldensons.

They're absolutely crushed. The Catholic Church couldn't get to Wycliffe. He was in England. They couldn't kill him, but they did excommunicate him and they did get him fired from his teaching position in Oxford. And then after he died, they dug up his bones and they burned him for good measure. And then Hus, they said, Hus, come to Rome.

We want to hear your ideas. We'll give you safe passage. And then he got to Rome and they said, ha ha, we don't make deals with heretics. And they arrested him and then they burned him at the stake. And there's this urban legend. I don't know if it's true or not.

I like to believe it's true, but we don't know for sure. That when he was being burned at the stake, that he said a hundred years from now, somebody is going to take up this cause. And then a hundred years later, Martin Luther steps on the scene and Martin Luther steps on the scene. And when he realizes that the Bible is actually the chief and final authority, when he begins to discover this, boy, the backlash was intense. It led to a very aggressive resurgence of this. Because when you're deprived of something that's really, really good, you get a little angsty when you realize you've missed out on it.

Like Chet and I were talking a few months back, we're talking about biscuits because Chet loves biscuits. About twice a year, you're going to hear a sermon illustration about biscuits in heaven. It's going to happen. He loves biscuits. And we're talking about biscuits. And I was like, man, I love biscuits too.

I don't eat them a whole lot. And then it hit me. I was like, I don't eat them a whole lot because we don't have them at home. And we don't have them at home because my wife doesn't like biscuits. And she's the one that makes the grocery list. And she's the one that cooks.

I was like, Chet, I've been deprived of biscuits for 10 years of our marriage. We haven't had biscuits. And I went home and I saw Anna. And I said, Anna, we don't have biscuits. Why don't we have biscuits? Why don't you like biscuits?

I want biscuits in this house. She's like, calm down, crazy. I'll get you some biscuits. All right. I was a little angsty because I was like, I want this. I've been deprived of something that's very good.

And we now have biscuits. I saw it yesterday in the bottom drawer. And I was like, yes, we have biscuits in our house. You could argue that Martin Luther's stand was as important as my stand. But he stood aggressively.

Y'all, he was in a debate. He was in a debate one time with a guy named Sylvester Prius, who's a Catholic scholar. And the scholar came at him. And this is what the, this is what the Catholic scholar Sylvester Prius said. He says this, he says, he who does not accept the doctrine of the church of Rome and the pontiff, that's Pope of Rome as an infallible rule of faith from which the Holy Scriptures to draw their strength and authority is a heretic. Now, look, look, look at that again.

He's saying, if you don't accept the doctrine of the church of Rome and the pontiff of Rome as the infallible rule of faith, the scriptures too support it. The scriptures support the Pope, it supports Catholic doctrine. But if you don't actually accept this, you are a heretic to which Martin Luther responded in true Luther form. You cited no scripture like an insidious devil. You pervert the scriptures. And that's Martin Luther in that show right there.

Very angsty, responds very aggressively. But that right there, that distinction of the Catholic church had a counter-reformation after this period. They reformed a lot of their corruption in a lot of ways. Thank you, Jesus, that that happened. But that right there, that argument that Sylvester Prius made and that Luther countered with, that still is the law of the land today.

That you either accept what the pontiff of what the Roman Catholic church teaches with the scriptures being underneath it, or that's heresy to them. And Luther says, no, it is the scriptures alone. And we're going to see this in the coming weeks, that as he realized what is in the scriptures, as we were going to see in Sola Fide, and Chet introduced this last week in Romans 1 17, when he read, for it is, it for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. When he read that in Romans 1 17, and realized the church teaches something different.

The church teaches faith and works. And he was so tormented by the works aspect of that, that he had to earn God's favor. He had to be good enough. When he realized that, no, it is by faith. When that clicked for him, he realized, oh no. No, no, no, no.

The Catholic church has completely missed the boat on this. And he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg on October 31st in 1517. And from that moment forward, Luther was guided by the scriptures are my authority. I don't answer to the church, I answer to God and his word. And the Reformation tradition continued after him through Zwingli, through John Calvin, through John Wesley, and the Reformers that followed, that the scriptures are our chief authority. And it shows up even today, literally in this moment right now.

That when we gather together on a Sunday, we are shaped by that tradition. It's the reason why the songs that we sing come from the scriptures. It's the reason why we read scripture all the way to the biggest moment of our Sunday morning gathering is the proclamation of God's word and a pulpit that is centered in the room. All of that is built upon sola scriptura because we find our chief authority in the word of God. So that's 2,000 years of church history for you.

You guys made it. Good Job. All right. But that's what shaped 2,000 years of history for why we believe the Bible is authoritative. But more importantly, let's look at the scriptures and see what the scriptures have to say on this.

All right. In order to look at the scriptures and how the scriptures speak about itself. Well, you have to acknowledge something. So we do believe, as I said earlier, the Bible has the final say on everything. The Bible has something to say about. But we argue as Protestants, the Bible is self-authenticating.

The Bible speaks to itself. And there have been skeptics who have said, wait a second. That is circular logic. That is circular reasoning. And we say, yes. Yes, it is.

It is a matter of faith for us because what circular logic, circular reasoning is, is that God has spoken in his word. And God speaks truthfully in his word. And the word actually testifies to who God is, that we should believe and trust in him. Because God has spoken in his word. And his word is true. And we trust his word.

And his word speaks to who God is truthfully. And therefore, we trust God. And God has spoken. You see how that works? And we say, absolutely. We take it as a matter of faith that God has revealed himself.

And he's revealed himself in the scriptures. And we believe that God has revealed himself truthfully. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, if you really do get hung up on that, you and I can have a, have a fun chat later. We can have an epistemological argument, which is just an argument about how we know things.

And I will show you why it is that most of the things that you know that you might accept as fact, whether it's science or from other systems, work in the same kind of reasoning. We make assumptions all the time. There's not much logic that's actually concrete and foolproof. But we can have the discussion later. I spent the majority of our collective attention span on church history. I'm not going to subject to 98% of that.

You can come talk to me later. But the scriptures are absolutely self-authenticating. All right. Go back to 2 Timothy. Let me give you some lead into verse 16 and 17. He says this in verse 14, but as for you, and this is Paul writing to Timothy, a young pastor, but as for you continue and what you have learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

We pause for a second. What's being referenced there is what he says earlier that his, uh, his Christian mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois are the ones that led him in faith. And it would, well, I love that is as you're saying, listen, you know, you've learned the scriptures from, your mama and your grandmama, which y'all, this is why we care so much about teaching our kids the Bible. This is why we're trying to equip you to train your children, to, to love Jesus and to know his word. It's so important. That's why we developed, we had a whole training weekend in the fall on this.

We developed something called roadmap that is meant to help you lead your children in faith. It's so important to leave a legacy of faith by opening the sacred writings, as Paul says here, because you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise, for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. And these next two verses are worth committing to memory. He says, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. The man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Amen.

The Bible is, hear this, breathed out by God. That is a metaphor that God has breathed out. He has inspired. He has spoken. And as we look at his word, it is a gold mine for teaching and for reproof and for correction, for training in righteousness. It's meant to guide our lives that all other wisdom, all other advice.

We hold that against the scriptures to see whether it is good and true. The Bible is the standard for what is good. You can go back to the Old Testament. You go to Psalm 119, a passage out of the Old Testament, and just look at it over and over again, showing that the Bible is the chief authority. Verse 24, it says, your testimonies are my delight. They are my counselors.

That the Bible, that his testimonies counsel us, that leads us. In verse 25, it says, give me life according to your word. It is life-giving. In verse 31, it says, I cling to your testimonies, that you cling to it like a life raft in the raging sea. He clings, he says, I trust your word in verse 42. In 105, he says, your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.

In the midst of the darkness of this world, that it lights up the path for us to ultimately pursue what is good in Christ. Over and over again, you see this view throughout the Old Testament, end of the new, that the scriptures are the chief authority, that no tradition, no outside teaching goes above it. Absolutely. Jesus addresses this head on in Mark 7. In Mark 7, the Pharisees are very upset that Jesus is not washing his hands before he eats. You might be thinking, wait a second, I would like him to wash his hands before he eats.

It's not an issue of sanitation. That's not why the Pharisees are upset. They're upset because it's a religious ritual, a religious ritual that you're supposed to wash your hands before you eat. Only problem is, that religious ritual is found nowhere in the Old Testament law. It's actually based on Jewish outside commentary, Jewish tradition. A Jewish tradition that they followed, and Jesus absolutely just cuts through their argument.

And how he does it is so important for how we view the scriptures versus tradition. Verse 9, he says, And he said to them, this is Jesus, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. So he's saying, You have some tradition. You get a fine way of rejecting that, and he references one of the top ten commandments, right? The ten commandments.

Honor your mother and father. He says, You have a fine way. And this is how he addresses this head on is where it absolutely makes sense. He says, But you say, If a man tells his father or his mother, Whatever you have gained from me is korban, that is, given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his mother and father. And what Jesus is getting at in that is that he's calling out what the Pharisees were actually doing themselves. You see, the scriptures in the Old Testament teach us to honor our father and mother, that as they grow in their age, to continue to take care of them.

But they started this outside practice that was outside the Old Testament law, that was in this Jewish commentary tradition called korban, that you could actually bypass giving money to your parents to take care of them and give it directly to the temple. Because that was the holy thing to do. I'm not going to take care of my parents. I'm going to give it to the temple. And the Pharisees were doing this themselves. And what makes this so evil is, is that when the Pharisees did this, they were enriching themselves because they were the beneficiaries of what went into the temple treasury.

How messed up is that? And Jesus just cuts through their tradition to absolutely see you make voices, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do. You see, it cuts through it. Is it in the word of God or isn't it? If your tradition does not line up with the word of God, you have made void the word of God. And this is still what the Catholic church does today.

They have teachings that do not align with the scriptures and those teachings sit over atop the scriptures in authority. And as Protestants, we say no. As Protestants, we join Paul as Paul in first Corinthians when he writes, he says, I've applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us hear this, not to go beyond what is written. The word for written, there's the same Greek word for scriptures. Don't go beyond the scriptures because the Bible is the final authority for us. It is why Jesus in Luke six says, everyone who hears what I says and does it is like a man who's built his house on the rock.

It is why over and over again, when he's in debates with the religious leadership, he says, have you not read? Have you not read? Meaning, have you not read what the scriptures teach? It's why when he's in the wilderness facing off with Satan, that he's quoting scripture in defense. Here's the reason why when you have a study Bible and you open up your study Bible and you look in the middle and there's these things called cross-references. It's these Numbers that have different letters that correspond to different parts of the page.

And if you look at that and you follow this verse, actually cross-reference to this verse and this verse and this verse, because the Bible is quoting itself all the time, alluding to itself all the time, because the Bible sees itself as the chief authority. That is the biblical argument. And I could cite verse after verse, after verse, after verse, after verse, after verse that proves this. Now, some of you may be thinking, that's great. I see you're really excited about that. Thank you.

I'm not Catholic. I wasn't raised Catholic. Why do we have to spend so much time making that point? The reason why, because there are ways that we as Protestants, as Baptists, there are ways that we functionally reject sola scriptura today. Though our faith is built upon that tradition that shows up in a lot of ways, even in this moment, there are ways that we functionally reject scripture alone as our final authority. And with the time we have left, I just want to give some encouragements for us to continue to grow in scripture alone.

So first, we need to know our Bibles. We need to know our Bibles. One of the ways that we function, we show a functional disbelief of sola scriptura is we just don't know the Bible. That we're biblically illiterate. There are Christian survey groups, y'all, that survey those who identify as Christians. And the results that come back every year get more depressing in a lot of different ways.

But one of them is, is this idea of biblical literacy, people knowing their Bibles. I saw one survey that said slightly over half of the Christians who surveyed on that said that you can get to heaven by being good. You can get to heaven by being, just be a good person. You can get to heaven over half. And the scriptures adamantly say, no, you can never be good enough. That's the whole point of why Christ died for us.

There's one survey, survey, that 70% of the self-identifying born of Christians, born again Christians, in this survey, ages 18 to 55. They said that Jesus was not the only way. 70%, that's off by 20%. That's startling. Our faith is built upon, no, Christ is our only hope, as we'll see in Christ alone. He is our only hope.

Another survey, 66% of evangelicals answered and said that Jesus was not God. Jesus was, our faith is built upon that, that Christ is God. These are the most basic Christian beliefs. And what it reveals is a few things. One of them is, is a lack of biblical teaching in pulpits across the country. But another thing is that we just don't read our Bibles like we should.

We don't read our Bibles enough. Y'all, we need to know the scriptures. Y'all, this is worthy of our focus. It's worthy of our lives. That passage in 2 Timothy 3 shows the riches of the scriptures. Y'all, if I told you that I had a prophetic book, and this prophetic book had every single stock pick that you should make every day the stock market is open, the stock market is open over the next 10 years.

And if you, or something you ought to do, crypto, there you go, for the rest of you. That if you follow this book every day over the next 10 years, you will be a billionaire in 10 years. And you're like, I don't know, I'll give it a shot. And a month in, you're like, I just made $1,000. Two years in, I just made $10,000. A year in, I'm a millionaire.

You would read that book every single day the market opens so that you could make the trades because that's a tangible thing. Of course, I want to be a billionaire. And the scriptures show something that is infinitely and eternally better than riches. That there's a wealth of eternal riches in the scriptures. And our lack of reading, it shows a functional disbelief that it is the sole authority for what is good in this life. We need the scriptures.

If we want to do the things that we talk about being a gospel centered community on mission, if we want to make disciples, if we want to train our children to know who God is, if we want to share the gospel to a dying world that desperately needs Christ, if we want to taste and see that the Lord is good, we need the Bible. We need to know our Bibles. And if we don't, we functionally show that we don't believe the Sola Scriptura is true. Second, we need to submit to our Bibles. We need to submit to our Bibles. We are increasingly shaped by an anti-authoritarian culture.

There's a culture that does not care about authority. And this shows up. I mean, we have conversations and we're not unique. We talk to other pastors. You read about other pastors online. They're having the same conversations that you sit across the table from somebody who is choosing sin.

And you open up the Bible. You say, you should not be cohabitating with the person you're dating. Don't do this. Let me show you from the scriptures why this is sin. That you should grow in generosity. To not be stingy with your money.

Jesus talks a lot about this. We sit across the table from someone that says, I'm getting a divorce because I want to be happy. And say, no, look at what the Word of God says here. Don't do this. And we have heard people say, and we're not unique in this. We've heard people say, I don't care what that says.

I'm going to do what I want to do. And where the Bible supports my life, I will, I will, yes and amen. But where it doesn't, I will reject it. And the Bible becomes a buffet where you choose what you want and you reject what you don't. And that anti-authority, that, that shows up. Y'all, every now and then I have this complex ethical situation, like a variety, just complex ethical situations that come up.

And I'm like, oh, goodness. I know that I'm supposed to consult God's Word. I know I'm supposed to pray. I know I'm supposed to consult other Christians who are consulting God's Word. And there's a part of me that just says, that's really exhausting. I just want to go from here.

I want to go from the gut. Let me just make the call. And that is a rejection of the authority of God's Word. And we'll submit the lesser things, y'all. We will go to the internet. We will go to mom blogs and to podcasts and to anything else to find advice and wisdom.

Or even worse, we'll go just with ourselves. We'll see ourselves as the authority on what is good for us. We spent a summer, last summer, in the Proverbs. And the Proverbs basically acknowledged that. The assumption is, is humanity, yes, you want to choose what is good for you because of your fallen flesh. Here is what the wisdom of the Scriptures says otherwise.

But we show a functional disbelief in Scripture alone when we say, I don't want the Scriptures. I want what is best for me. And the Bible holds a better way out. It shows an eternally better way that is for us if we would just submit to God and His Word. Last, we need to stand on our Bibles. Not literally.

We need to stand on our Bibles. That song we were singing earlier, it's based on the solid rock, comes from Luke 6, 47. It says, Everyone who comes to me and hears my word and does them, I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. Y'all, the Scriptures are worth our lives. We can stand on them.

They are trustworthy. They are tried and they are true. Every now and then, I will hear the objections say, the Bible has contradictions. The Bible has this in it. Look at this. When I was a younger Christian, I used to wig out.

I am like, oh, where? And then over the years, I hear someone say, oh, look at this in the Gospels. Look at this. And I go and I look at it and I study it and I go deeper, deeper down the well, deeper into the riches. Consult commentaries from 2,000 years of church history, of church interpretation. I look at it and I look at it.

I'm like, man, no, absolutely. This is true. And it's good. And the older I get, the less I'm not thrown off when someone says that. I'm like, no, show me. Show me the Scriptures.

Let's study it together. It is trustworthy and it is true. It is worth banking our eternities on what it says. We can firmly stand on the Word of God. Martin Luther understood this. He understood that the church standing on its own authority is a road lined with corruption that leads to self-destruction.

And that is why when he stood on trial for his teachings, his teachings like this on Sola Scriptura, when he stood on trial and they said, you need to recant. And he knew exactly what he could face. He knew what happened to Hus a hundred years before him. He knew that he could be burned at the stake. And he considered it for a day. And he came back later and he said, here I stand.

I can do no other. And what he was standing on was the Word of God. The Word of God alone as his authority. And from that moment forward, I mean, he would rather have faced a gruesome fate from a wayward church than disobey God and his Word. And that tradition has continued over the last 500 years. We are beneficiaries of the ones who stand on that tradition while we also look at the ways we can continue to grow into it.

Matt's going to come up and he's going to sing a song over us that you have not heard before. My hope is that you would consider those three things that are behind me. Consider how we have functionally rejected the scriptures alone as our authority for what is good and what is true. We have fallen short. And how we need to absolutely know our Bibles, we have fallen short in the ways we have said, I don't want to submit to this. We have fallen short and not standing firm on the scriptures.

Praise Jesus that Sola Scriptura isn't the only five, one of the five solas. That we can receive grace because the faith has been gifted to us in Christ. That where we fail to believe this, there's mercy that is given to us. And that we as Christians get to walk this out in beautiful repentance saying, I want God. And his word. And I get to commit the rest of my life to that.

Let me pray for us. Lord, we lack faith and wisdom. But you have it in abundance. God, may you grant that to us and more so. That we would trust you and your word. That we would see your word as valuable, as profitable, and as beautiful and good.

Help us be a people that continue to stand on scripture alone. Because it is one of the most beautiful gifts that you've given us in the church. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. The beginning of the Psalms.

And Psalm...

Here We Stand: The Five Solas

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Here We Stand: The Five Solas

Chet Phillips

Transcript

He call glorious above, and gratefully sing His wonderful love. Our children defender, the ancient of days. Alleluia, in slender, and burden with grace. Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here.

In the summer of 1520, during the height of the Holy Roman Empire, a papal bull was sent out, which sounds way cooler than it is. It just means aggressive pope letter. So the pope sent out this letter, this papal bull, and in it there's this quote. It says, Arise, O Lord, and judge your cause. A wild boar has invaded your vineyard. This letter was sent out, and it was saying that this wild boar was Martin Luther.

This monk who was in the Catholic Church had, as he was in the Catholic Church and been studying as a monk and had begun to teach, he had begun to realize that he didn't think the Bible matched up with a lot of what Catholicism was doing. And as he was reading it and studying it, he thought, oh, wow, I bet the Catholics would like to know this. I bet the pope would like to know that, like, we're not lining up with scriptures. And he started writing. His intent was to change some of the way that the church was operating. He was trying to say, hey, I don't think we're right about this.

He wasn't trying to do what he ultimately ended up doing. He was just trying to reform. And so he had begun to disseminate information that the Catholic Church didn't want to be disseminated at this time. And so Pope Leo X sent this papal bull out, and it basically said, Martin Luther, you've got 60 days. Turn yourself in. Recant.

And we can move on. Martin Luther, around day 60, with some of his students, burned the papal bull. He said, they burn my books. I'll burn their letter. And he was excommunicated from the church. And then the pope basically asked Charles, told Charles V, who was king, to go get Martin Luther.

The separation of church and state is something that comes out of the Protestant Reformation, but it did not exist before that. And in the Holy Roman Empire, the pope and the state were one and together, and the pope had a lot of authority. And so he told this king to get Martin Luther. They bring Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms, which when you read it, looks like a way worse version of the paleo diet. But diet just means council, and Worms is just a city.

So they call him to like a city council meeting, but like an aggressive one. So it was kind of like a city council meeting. And they bring him in front of it, and this council works for the church, works for the Catholic church. And so basically they're bringing him in, and it's kind of a trial to see if he's a heretic. And at this time, he's already been excommunicated from the church. But if you're deemed a heretic, someone who's actually teaching false doctrine, they most likely will execute you.

Heretics were burned. And so he stands in front of this council, and they basically slide across to him some of the things that he had been teaching. And they say, these are the teachings, and we want you to recant. We want you to take it back. And so he says, can I have a day? Can you give me a day to look over this, to think about it?

They say, yes. You have it 24 hours, and he would show back up the next afternoon. So he goes to think about it. Now, Martin Luther, if we're looking at the Protestant Reformation in a real simplistic form, Martin Luther is like the spark that set off a powder keg, where God had already been working and doing things, but when Martin Luther begins to proclaim what he proclaims, it sets all of this in motion. And the reason it's called the Reformation, or the Protestant Reformation, is that they were intending to reform the Catholic church. They were reformers.

But the Catholic church didn't want to be reformed, so they became protesters. So it's the Protestant Reformation. And out of this, we have Lutheranism and Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists come out of this. We're going to study this for ourselves. We're going to look at this and decide what we ought to do based off of the Scriptures. We have Scriptures in our own languages, in the common language.

That was not a thing that was practiced at this time. So Martin Luther comes back the next day, and he says two things, and I appreciate both of them. And I think we can learn from both of them. The first thing he says is, okay, I admit that some of my language was not helpful. Some of the way I went about this was coarse. And if you ever read much of Martin Luther, yes, he did not speak kindly.

He was very coarse in his language, very aggressive. And so he says, I didn't word this right. And some of us need to learn that, that you can come back and you don't have to hold to all your guns. You can come back and say, hey, so I still agree with myself, but I did not handle that well. I should not have said that the way I said it. I shouldn't have acted the way I acted.

I need to repent of that part. And then we need to have a discussion about the actual issue. That's what he says. I shouldn't have said it this way. And then he says, but I can't recant. And this is how he ends him telling them he can't recant.

He says, my conscience is captive to the word of God. I will not recant anything. For to go against conscience is neither honest nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.

Amen. So he tells them, understanding that those who have gone before him and have stood against the Catholic Church have many of them been executed. He says, here I stand. I can do no other. I stand on the word of God. I'm held captive to it.

He ultimately is not killed by the Catholic Church. He does have to escape. He hides for a while. But this monk who started reading the scriptures and became captive to the scriptures sets in motion this movement in the church that we stand down river from. That we stand in line with. And so for the next five weeks, well six weeks counting today, we're going to look at the five solas of the Reformation.

These five major pieces of articulated doctrine that come out of the Reformation, we're going to spend some time studying them and looking at where they come from in the scriptures. I want you to turn to Titus chapter one. So I can help you understand why we find this valuable and helpful for us to do. And then what we'll do today is we'll walk through all five of them, give a brief introduction to them, and then we'll spend a week on each one over the next five weeks. Titus chapter one, verse nine. This is Paul writing a letter to a pastor.

We're going to read what he says, but we're going to pray first and then we'll move into Titus one. God, we ask for your blessing and your help. We ask for the work of your spirit that we might see these truths, these doctrines as beautiful and good. And that we might grow to know what we believe and why we believe it as we hold fast to you. In Jesus name. Amen.

Titus one, verse nine. Paul's writing to a pastor and he's this is a pastoral epistle. He's writing to a pastor and Creek and he's basically telling him what to do, how to install more elders, more overseers in this area. And he says this in verse nine. He meaning any new overseer, any new elder, any new pastor must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. We are a people of the word that's been handed to us.

We have a message. We have doctrine. We have truth that we hold on to and that we teach and instruct one another in and keep each other in. We have boundaries. We have a foundation that we can't go outside of. This is good for us, but we don't get to come together and make up new doctrines.

It's one of the things we've said periodically. If you're reading the Bible and you come across something brand new, it's possible that you're reading it wrong. But we also and we'll get to this later, we believe that we are under the authority of the scripture and that it does reform the church. So that there are times where we've gotten off and the scriptures bring us back. But we have to hold firmly to this.

And so it helps us to know what we believe and why we believe it. Because we are a doctrine people. This puts us at odds with the world. That we actually have truths that we hold to regardless of what others say. That we don't change with the times. In so many ways, we're bound to this.

He says this in chapter 2, verse 1, as he keeps going. And he says, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. And so that's what we're setting out to do for the next five weeks is to study together good doctrine. And good doctrine is life-giving. It's foundational. It's helpful.

One of the things that happens in this room periodically is someone will come and they're coming to visit or they're coming to see something or they're coming to help fix something. And they'll walk in this room and they'll stop and go, oh, wow. We've had multiple people just walking with eyes to come fix something or look at something that will just stop and stare at the ceiling in this room. They're like, oh, my goodness. Because that's a beautiful ceiling. I mean, that's a good-looking ceiling.

Now, if you're under the balcony, not as much. But if you're out here. And what happens in places like this where something is well built, there are times where you can just kind of be captivated by it. And then there are other times where you cease to notice it. And foundational doctrine in the church works much like that. It can't be removed.

But at times we can get to where we've stopped noticing it. We've stopped appreciating it. And for the next five weeks we want to know what we believe, why we believe it. And we want to take a moment to just look and go, isn't that good? Isn't that beautiful that that's true for us? And just appreciate this sound doctrine.

So let's talk about what the five solas are. We will look at them first in Latin. One of the things that the reformers fought tooth and nail for, often being executed for, was to get the Bible in the common language of the people. And to honor that sacrifice, we refer to these in Latin. It's possible that the reason we do this is so that we can still be clear with the Catholics where we disagree. And they like Latin.

So it's like these are the ones that we want to talk to you all about. But here they are in English. Scripture alone. That's what the sola, sola, sola. Scripture alone. Faith alone.

Grace alone. Christ alone. To the glory of God. Alone. I was talking to someone recently. I said we're going to talk about the five solas.

And they were like, hmm. I don't know about that. And then I said them in English. And they were like, hmm. That's good. I like that.

That's what we believe. A way to say this is that we believe that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. As revealed by the scriptures alone or under the authority of the scriptures alone. To the glory of God alone. That's foundational for us as Christians, as Protestants. And that was not the case when this began in the Reformation.

And these were points of clarification where Luther and Calvin and Zwingli had to say, no, no, no, no. Look at this. It doesn't say what y'all are saying. So. Sola Scriptura. We'll look at it first.

Martin Luther was a monk. And he had become like a priest, pastor, kind of in a role where he was teaching. And they had him teaching through the book of Romans. And so he was reading Romans. And he was reading Romans in Latin and in Greek. And you had to be well educated to do this.

They did not have the scriptures in the common language. And so as he had been educated, he was beginning to read this. And as he was reading the scriptures over and over again and studying the scriptures over and over again. He came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church at that time was not in line with the scriptures. There were a lot of things that they were doing that didn't make any sense. So he at one point says.

A council may sometimes err. And be wrong. Neither the church nor the pope can establish articles of faith. These must come from scripture. And if you read scripture, you'll see this. Jesus says this when he's talking about the Pharisees in Matthew 15, 9.

He says, It's in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They've begun to teach foundational truths, but they're just made up. They don't come from the text. They were things that men came up with. They aren't what we build life and faith around. Or in 2 Timothy.

As we look at this idea of scripture alone is our authority. Scripture alone is what guides and directs the church. In 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 17. Paul writes to Timothy. He says that he. How from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

That's the scriptures. We believe that the scripture is from God. It's breathed out by him. It has authority. It's true and valid. And so we rest on scriptures.

When we come to the Bible, we don't approach this. We talk about interpreting. Like we want to interpret this well. And we do. We want to understand how it was written. Who it was written to.

What time it came in. We want to understand what this passage means like that other passage. But what we don't get to do is decide what we like and don't like. What we'll keep and not keep. We don't believe that the Bible sits under us. We believe that the Bible sits over us.

That it has authority over us. We actually believe that it makes logical sense that this will say things that you don't like. If you read the scriptures and they only ever agree with your political views. If they only ever agree with what you wanted to do anyway. There's a good chance you're not reading it right. Because the scriptures correct us.

They challenge us. That God is holy. We are not. And so that he has to in his holiness correct our sinfulness. This affects how we operate as a church. This type of series that we're doing right now is very out of the ordinary for us.

We'll spend most of this year as we've spent most of every year. Walking through books of the Bible. Because we think they're profitable. For teaching. For reproof. For rebuke.

For correction. For training in righteousness. That we would be equipped. We think that they're able to make us wise unto salvation in Christ. So we study the Bible together.

We just finished 1 John. We're going to hopefully, by the Lord willing, we'll look at Ruth this year. We'll get into Exodus. It's going to be a pile of fun. And we think it's going to be helpful. And it will point us towards Jesus.

That even the Old Testament will ultimately drive us towards faith in Christ. We live in a culture right now that tells you that this is a crazy idea. And that what you need to do is be true to yourself. Figure out what you really love and follow that. And as Christians, the Bible stands antithetical to that idea. You know, people sit in horror movies and they're like, don't go in the room.

You know, they yell at the person or whatever. We need to do that in Disney movies. It's like, follow your heart. Don't do it. Your heart's going to murder you. It's a liar.

We don't think we need to follow our heart. We think we have scripture that corrects us and addresses our heart and changes us. And that puts us at opposition with the world. And also, some of you right now are believers. And you're stressed. And you're tired.

And you're exhausted. And you're frustrated. And you're confused. And you're telling this to your community group. But you're not reading your Bible.

And we need this to correct us, to train us, to help us, and to point us towards Christ. So we're going to spend some time looking at that over the next few weeks. Sola fide. So we're going to keep talking about Martin Luther as we go through some of this because he's a very interesting person. But he was training to be a lawyer.

His dad was helping pay for that. I was excited about him being a lawyer. He got stuck in a thunderstorm and was terrified. Lightning struck really near him. And he shouted out, St. Anne, protect me.

I'll become a monk. He's Catholic. So he's shouting, St. Anne, protect me. I'll become a monk. He did not die in that thunderstorm.

And he did become a monk. And his dad was very mad about it. Much like my mom when she found out I was going to be a pastor. She was disappointed in me. She thought it was good. But she wanted me to do other stuff.

She told me she had to pray about it. She thought I was throwing away my potential, which I think she overshot potential. But whatever. She's my mom. She's real proud of me, guys. So he becomes a monk.

And the knowledge of his sinfulness was ever present with Martin Luther. He felt it. His wickedness. His evil. He drove his confessor crazy. You know, you have to go confess your sins to a priest.

And he would go all the time. Because there were a couple of teachings that affected this. First of all, he had become a monk to try to save his soul. So he was trying to work. He was holding vigils and doing prayers and doing effort. He was trying to make himself okay in God's eyes.

And one of the things that you have to do is you have to confess sin. And if you confess sin and then you have unconfessed sin when you die that you haven't confessed yet, you can still go to hell or purgatory. And so there's multiple cases where he would confess sin, be walking out of the confessional, and turn immediately back around and be like, I forgot something. And he would just go through. I did this and this. And he would drive in his...

The priest is like, that's enough. Like, wrap it up. Like, he was confessing too much stuff. He was driving him crazy. At one point... The other thing is they teach venial sins and mortal sins.

And venial sins are like sins that aren't that bad. And mortal sins are sins that are real bad. And one of the rules is that if you do it on purpose, like with a high hand, like aggressively sin, that can make it a mortal sin. And so Martin Luther would go in and confess sin. And his priest would say, well, that's, you know, a venial sin. And Martin Luther would be like, no, I did it on purpose.

And the priest would ask him questions. And it was... His argument was, if I know what's right and I do what's wrong, then I've intentionally done it. My heart is angry towards God. My heart is not towards Him. I'm doing all of these.

And so Martin Luther would go in, confess every sin he could think of, and argue that all of them were mortal sins. To the point that his priest said, hey, let's stop this. You need to just become a mystic. Which was the thing that was growing in Catholicism at that point. He said, you need to learn just how to love the Lord. And so he tried that.

And he came back. And the priest was like, how's that going? Do you love God? And he was like, nope. Martin Luther actually said, no, I've actually learned the more I've tried to love Him that I actually hate God. And the reason was that God was angry, waiting to strike him down, holding him to a standard that he couldn't meet, dangling him over the pit of hell.

And he would never be able to get himself out of this. He was working and working and working and working and working and working and working to try to make himself okay. And he could never escape. He said, I hate God. And his priest said, you know what? I'm going to put you in charge of being a pastor over some students.

That was his response to finding out that he said he hated God. But his theory was he was taking it very seriously. And maybe he needed something to take his mind off of how sinful he was. And just hanging out by himself, being a monk, wasn't working. So he put him in charge.

And he started teaching through the book of Romans. He's reading it in Latin. He's reading it in Greek. And he gets stuck on Romans 1, verse 17, which is this. For in it, talking about the gospel, because Romans 1, 16 is not ashamed of the gospel for in its power of salvation. He says in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And he gets stuck because he doesn't understand what on earth that means. And he keeps reading it over and over again. And in the Latin, the word righteousness is this word that means justification, to be right. Right. But in the Greek, the original language it was written in, it has this nuance to it that means to be named right.

To be considered right. So he started thinking, hold on a second, this isn't God's righteousness, wherein he's righteous on his own. But it's righteousness that he gives, that we're considered righteous. And he stares at this over and over again until he says, hold on a second. Righteousness from God is revealed from faith and it's for faith. That it's not revealed from work.

So we don't get to his righteousness from effort. We get to his righteousness from faith. And then it's not from faith to something else, but it's from faith and it's for faith. And so the righteous shall live by faith. And in this moment, it says it clicked. That he would be saved by faith alone in the work of Christ.

That the gospel was the power of salvation. And it was from faith and it was for faith and the righteous live by faith. And he has this quote. He says, when I discovered that, I was born again by the Holy Spirit. The doors of paradise swung open and I walked through. Now, it's amazing.

He jumps. This is the hinge. This salvation by faith alone is the hinge which all the rest of this turns on. It's where our faith is that we are saved by faith alone. But I feel like if he had just kept reading in Romans, he'd have figured it out more clearly because it gets clearer.

I think if he'd have been in charge of teaching Galatians, that's pretty much all Galatians is saying. I want to show you this in Galatians chapter 2, verse 16. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. That the way we're made right is not by our effort, but through faith. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. The law being God's righteous moral standard. That you being good enough will not justify you. If you've come in here and you think that the primary thing that the Bible teaches you is how to be a good person, this flies in the face of that, that is not what it is telling you to do. It is telling you about a good person and his name is Christ. And that we are justified through faith in him.

Philippians 3, 8 and 9 says, Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. We are not saved by our work. You're not saved by your morality.

You're not saved by your good works. You're not saved by what you do. You're not defined by what you do. If you're in Christ, you get to be defined by what he has done. And that we are made righteous, acquitted, not guilty, perfectly clothed, beautiful, spotless, blameless, above reproach. We are made righteous in Christ through faith in what he has done.

That we trust in him. That we would have a righteousness that comes through faith, that depends on faith. And it is not the righteousness of our own that we've earned. Some of you need to soak in this idea. Because some of you, even those who say, I'm a Christian and I believe that I'm saved by faith, that you live out your life much like Martin Luther, constantly in the confession booth. All you can see is your sin.

All you can see is your brokenness. All you can see is your wickedness. And you're constantly going to God and saying, help me with this. Forgive me of that. I'm so, and that's all, you're stuck there. And some of you need this truth because you don't even think you need a confession booth.

You're strutting around in your good works. How wonderful you are. How well behaved you are. How you're one of the good ones. And the beautiful thing about salvation by faith alone is that he saves us from our sin and our good works. That he rescues us from our wickedness through his righteousness.

And he saves us from our self-righteousness through his righteousness. That we get to be free in faith alone in Christ. The next one that we'll spend some time looking at over the next couple of weeks is sola gratia, which is by grace alone. If faith alone is the mechanism by which we are saved, if it's the means, if it answers how, how are you saved? Well, you're saved by faith in Christ or through faith in Christ. Then grace answers the question, why?

If faith answers how, grace answers why? That God in his grace saves us. And this is so freeing when you see these two truths together. But I want to show you this. Ephesians 2.8, it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God. If you've ever gotten a gift and you brag on the gift. My wife's really good at gift giving. She's a thoughtful person. She remembers stuff. I'm getting better at it because I've learned to write things down.

Like a genius. But if I ever talk to you about a gift that she's given me, I'm bragging on the gift. I'm bragging on the giver. I'm never like, yeah, I don't mean to brag, but I crush going to Christmas. It doesn't make any sense. And that's what he's saying is that we're saved by grace.

It's a free gift from God. And it's not your own doing. And I want you to, if not your own doing, if you could wrap your arms around it, I want you to. I want you to hug and love this idea of grace. Because if it was just faith alone, then we might feel like, okay, I've got to keep my faith. I've got to have faith.

I've got to muscle up some faith. Because if there's anything that we're good at, it's smuggling some works in there somewhere. And so what you might be tempted to think is, well, I'm one of the smart ones. I'm one of the ones who did research. You know, other people just bounce along in life not even thinking about it. But I actually studied.

And so I was able to come to the conclusion that Jesus is who I need to place my faith in. And yes, he saves me, but I somehow got myself here. Not your own doing. It's the goodness and the mercy and the love of God. Which means that it's faith in what Christ has done that saves us. And it's his grace that got us there.

And it's his grace that keeps us there. So that I'm saved by his work and I'm kept there by his goodness. And that's good news. This is what Martin Luther said. He came to the conclusion that he hated God. And then he says this.

He says, if you have a true faith that Christ is your Savior, then at once you have a gracious God. For faith leads you in and opens up God's heart and will that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. This is what it is to behold God in faith that you should look upon his fatherly, friendly heart in which there is no anger nor ungraciousness. He who sees God is angry does not see him rightly but looks only on a curtain as if a dark cloud had been drawn across his face. So that when he was trying to work, he hated God.

He was frustrated with God. He was fearful of God. But when it dawned on him that he was saved by grace through faith, God's glorious. He's good. So that some of you are tired and you're frustrated and you're mad at God because he's not doing what you want him to.

Or you feel like that you're always falling short and he's always disappointed with you. And you need to wrap your mind around and wrap your heart around that you're saved by grace through faith. This gives us ultimate humble confidence. It gives us ultimate humility. Because we did not earn this. This isn't the super morality club.

This isn't the most well-behaved people in Casey. If you join a community group, there's going to be a time where you're like, these, these, these, what? These people are the worst. Over the course of getting the pastor, people have found out that our pastors are sinners. Yeah. Uh-huh.

That's actually why I'm here. If I didn't believe it was by grace through faith, I'd be doing something else. Because I wouldn't be in the good behavior club. I would have never, would have never gotten in here. Would never, this is good news. We have humility.

We're sinners. If someone comes to you and say, I need to talk to you, I think you've sinned against me. Your response should be, probably. What was that? I need to know some specifics so I can repent and try to change my attitude. But you shouldn't be surprised.

Me? Sin? Never. People all the time will be like, hey, can I talk to you? Like, they'll text me or they'll call me and I'll ask. Hey, are you correcting me?

Because I just like a heads up. I want to get emotionally prepared. I want to remind myself I'm a sinner before I get in there and you just spring it on me. I don't want to know. Like, it's a thing. We have humility.

But guess what? We have off-the-chart confidence. I didn't earn this. I didn't earn this. It's not my doing. It's not found in me.

It's not found in my goodness. It's not found in my wisdom. It's not found in my strength. You know what that means? It's not kept by me. It's not kept in my goodness.

It's not kept in my wisdom. It's not kept in my strength. How are you going to take it away from me? Are you going to make God not merciful? Good luck. Are you going to snatch the righteousness of Christ out of Christ?

Not going to happen. That's why you can tell me I'm a sinner and I don't lose my way. I already knew that and I already knew my hope wasn't in me not being a sinner. My hope is in Christ. Oh, faith and grace are glorious. And don't take them for granted.

Let's take some time to just look at them and say thank you that you are so good and this is so beautiful. And that I'm kept and I'm saved and I'm free. The fourth one that we'll look at is solo Christo. In Christ alone. You see this faith alone, grace alone leads us to it's in Christ alone. Which is they go together that Christ is the one who has accomplished this.

That it's his grace and it's his work that we have faith in. But this also one of the things that they were having to combat was that the Catholic church believes in faith. But they would say it's faith plus and they would add things to it. And so what ended up happening was that the church stood in between you and Jesus in so many ways. That you needed the church for sacrament. You needed the church for to be absolved by a priest.

You needed to go on pilgrimages. You needed to have catechism. You needed all these things that were from the church. And this church administered grace. But we believe that it's in Christ alone.

That the church is good. That loving our brothers and sisters. We talked about this in 1 John. Is good. But that salvation and grace do not result from the goodness of the church.

The goodness of the church results from salvation and grace in Christ. And so that we get Christ and then we're ushered into these good things. But it's Christ alone. He's the one who does this. 1 Timothy 2.5 says, For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men. The man Christ Jesus.

That you get to go directly to Christ. And by Christ's grace you get to be brought directly to the Father. That you get to have a relationship with the Father. That you get to be adopted into the family. That you get to belong. That you get to be brought to the Father.

Secure. Through the work of Jesus. And I think this may be a thing that we take for granted. That if you didn't grow up Catholic. You're not familiar with the Catholic Church. At this time it was thousands of years.

A thousand years where this had been taught. And they finally wrapped their mind around. Wait I just get to know the Lord. And he knows me and he loves me. Where Paul writes. That God.

That Jesus loves me and gave himself up for me. He's writing a letter to the church. And he says no he loves me. And gave himself up for me. And this beauty of our genuine personal relationship. That we get to have with the Lord.

This is not perfunctory. It's not something that we do some routine things. And we're in. But we know Christ. And he knows us. And we love Christ.

And he loves us. This is why we preach Christ. And celebrate Christ. And that we want to leave praising Christ. Because our hope is only in Christ. Christ.

The fifth one that we'll spend some time on. Is soli deo gloria. Which means to the glory of God alone. I have a relative that I used to follow on Twitter. When I was on Twitter. And he would post things.

He would post. It was like it was connected to his Instagram account. Which I'm not. I wasn't on Instagram. But he would post.

And he would say. Had a great night out with friends. Or he would be like. Wonderful day at the museum. Or whatever. And I would click on the picture that he had posted.

And he would be like. Great night out with friends. And I'd click on the picture. And it would just be a selfie of himself. Like in the corner of a booth. Or like.

Got to see the Grand Canyon. And it was just him. And like. He was like. What are you. What are you doing?

I also wanted to see the Grand Canyon. I guess I could just Google it. But I wanted to see which part you saw. Like I. I wanted to see if you actually had friends. Like why are you only taking pictures of yourself?

I think you've missed the point. Of what you were supposed to do. At least given the caption. You know. I guess he could just post. Handsome at a restaurant.

You know. Whatever. If we. With these doctrines. These. Truth.

Joyous. Glorious. Truth. Somehow turn around and go. Look at how great we are. We've missed the point.

That we don't earn something. We receive something. And then we celebrate. That if you believe that you're saved by faith alone. By grace alone. In Christ alone.

Then you'll celebrate the glory of God alone. That if we walk in here as those who have trusted in Jesus. And have been redeemed by his grace. And are kept by his grace. Through the work of Christ alone. Then we'll stand.

And we'll sing. And we'll praise. Because that's the appropriate. Right. Joyous. Response.

To a God who loves us so much. That he would come and redeem sinners like us. That we'll come in and say. Thank you. That you would purchase. For yourself.

Me. With your blood. That you would welcome me. That you would make me righteous. That you would keep me. That you would do this by your grace.

And your mercy. Praise your name. You are glorious. And you are good. And you are holy. And that we would walk in this humble confidence.

That makes us free. To delight in the goodness of the Lord. We're not earning this. We're not achieving this. And we're not losing this. That it's in Christ.

And we trust in him alone. And so we celebrate the glory of God alone. This is kind of the centerpiece that holds this all together. In Isaiah 48, 11. God's talking about salvation that he's going to bring. And he says.

For my own sake. For my own sake I do it. For how should my name be profaned. My glory I will not give to another. That the right response to his salvation is to glorify him. To praise him.

Because he's the one who's done it. He doesn't share his glory with us. Jude 24, 25. And I think it's a good place for us to end. It's where Jude ends his letter. He says.

Now to him who is able. To keep you from stumbling. And to present you blameless. Before the presence of his glory. With great joy. Go back to that real quick.

That's salvation. By grace through faith. In Christ. That he's the one. Him. Him who's able.

To keep you from stumbling. By his grace. By the work of Christ. Some of you feel like. I think I'm going to stumble. Well he's able.

Well he's able. To keep you. He's able. To present you blameless. Before the presence of his glory. With great joy.

Can you wrap your mind around that for a second. That when we stand. Before. The king. We will not shrink. In fear.

Or sin. If we're in Christ. But we'll be. Blameless. Radiant. I have two little boys.

Every once in a while. Something will happen. I'll ask my older boy a question. And you can see this moment. And I know that moment well. When someone asks you a question.

You didn't want to answer. And so you have that little lightning strike of terror. So I ask him a question. He'll be doing something with his brother. And he'll be bopping along. His brother's crying.

And I'll ask him a real pointed question. And he'll go. Like oh. Did not expect to see my father in my own house. I did not know you cared for that little one. That lives here.

It's this moment of pure terror. And I don't even want to imagine. Because I know what that was like. A teacher would ask me a question. Or my dad would ask me a question. Or even my relationship.

Or my wife's asked me questions. I didn't have a good answer for. I didn't want to answer. I know that moment of terror. I don't even want to imagine. What that's like.

Before the face of God. Who can see directly through us. The deepest part of our wicked souls. Oh but he can keep us from stumbling. And he can present us blameless. And that when we stand in Christ.

There's none of that. Just joy. Just welcoming. And he says this in verse 25. To the only God. Our Savior.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Be glory. Majesty. Dominion. And authority. Before all time.

Now. And forever. Amen. That our God is good. He redeems. He saves.

By his grace. Through his work. To his glory. We sit under the authority of the scriptures. That has good news to proclaim to us. And we celebrate.

So for the next five weeks. We're going to look at doctrine. So that we know what we believe. And we know why we believe it. And so that we hold firmly. To some really good news.

And we don't drift from it. Into something that is worse. And something that is smaller. And something that robs us of joy and hope. Matt's going to come back up. We're going to sing.

But before we sing. We're going to take communion. Communion is a practiced rhythm. For the church. Where when we gather. We remember what Christ has done.

That on the night before he was betrayed. On the night he was betrayed. And the night before he died. He took his disciples. And he took bread. And he broke it.

And he said. This is my body. It's broken for you. And he took the cup. And he said. This is my blood.

It's a new covenant. It's poured out for you. That this is a meal. Remembering. The body and blood of Christ. The sacrifice that was needed.

For the redemption of our sins. And Paul says. That as often as we take it. We proclaim his death. Until he comes. That we stand.

That he's had glory. From eternity past. He has it now. And he'll reign forever. And we stand right now. In this moment in history.

Where we stand in between the cross. And his return. And so that we proclaim his death. Until he comes to get us. Until it's consummated in the kingdom. And we share the wedding supper of the lamb.

All those who have been redeemed. By God's grace. Through faith. In Christ. And there are three things that we need to do. As we come to this this morning.

If you're a Christian. If you're not a Christian. We ask you to not partake in this with us. This isn't for you. We'd love for you to place your faith in Christ. For you to receive what we have in him.

Which is by his grace to be saved. To be made righteous. To be made new. We'd love for you to do that. But if you're not a Christian.

We'd ask you to refrain from taking communion. But for Christian. There's three things we need to do. We need to see ourselves. See our sin. We need to repent.

We need to go before the Lord. And ask him to forgive us. And to make us whole. And to watch us. We need to know. That we need a savior.

And we need to see him clearly. We're to discern the body and the blood of Christ. To know that this was a sacrifice that was necessary for us to be made whole. And then we proclaim his death. Which is to proclaim the good news of the gospel. That you aren't saved by your own works.

And you aren't kept by your own works. That we get to come as sinners made new in the work of Christ. That he physically came. That he physically died. And that he made us whole. To take a moment.

Where you are. To pray. To repent. And to celebrate. As you're ready. That Jesus died.

To save a sinner like you. And that by his grace. And by faith in him. We are redeemed. And we are kept. And we are whole.