A Mustard Seed's Worth of Faith

I am not one to encourage people to hang their assurance of salvation on their ability to recollect "a time and a place where they met God". There are far too many people today living like the world having never shown any signs of a change in their life thinking they are going to heaven simply because they wrote a date in the front cover of their Bible or can remember walking an aisle at some point in their lives. That said, I do not want to demean the spiritual value of being able to recall the circumstances of one's own conversion experience. It is a good thing for us to look back from time to time in wonder about the mystery of our salvation and to marvel at how God used other people to plant the Gospel into our fertile hearts.

I cannot recall the exact date and time, or even the exact sermon, but I can remember the circumstances of my own conversion more vividly than any other event in my life. I hope to share more about those events in greater detail in a later post, but for purposes of this post, suffice it to say I had been going through a six-month period of suicidal depression and extreme isolation from other people. I had been beaten down emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually to the point where I was at my rock bottom. A whole life of church attendance and being "the good son" (in my mind) was rendered useless when at that point I was cut to the quick by the realization that I had no clue what it meant to have saving faith in God. Everything in my life at that point came to a complete stop. I was in complete darkness.

Enter: God, and His Gospel, through a portion of a sermon preached by John Piper. I still can't remember the exact sermon (I've listened to hundreds of Piper's sermons since then), but what he preached stands out in my mind more than any other truth from Scripture. In referring to Luke 17:6, Piper said saving faith is a gift from God and not something we conjure up within ourselves on our own. It is the result of the work God is already doing in our lives at the point in which we believe. That's the reason that a mustard seed's worth of saving faith is enough. The faith that God provides is sufficient to save. The faith that comes from within man's corrupt heart is not. For the first time in 32+ years (at that point) of living the "church life" I had to completely resign myself to the fact that I had no assurance because I was living under the false assumption that I just needed to 'try harder at having faith', 'pull myself up by the bootstraps' and 'live right'. At my rock bottom I looked up, and there was Christ. The hand which had been pushing me deeper and deeper into that pit was now reaching down to pull me out of it.

The following quote comes from a sermon Piper preached on 1 Peter 1:22-25. It expresses exactly what I heard preached that day in 2005. It also expresses the point of this post regarding the value of looking back on one's conversion experience with wonder and awe, and exult in the glory of God through his work of regeneration.

Regeneration is God's work, not man's.

O, do you know what it means to be a Christian? Do you stand amazed and speechless that you are a Christian? Do you look back with wonder and awe at the miracle of your new birth? Or do you take so much credit for it yourself that it doesn't occur to you to fall on your face and thank God that you are a Christian?

Think on it! If you have any truly spiritual desire for God, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any love for holiness, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any hatred for sin, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have a mustard seed of faith in Christ, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. To God be the glory for our conversion to Christ! Consider and be astounded, all you who by nature are children of wrath, that you believe in Christ and are new children of the Almighty.

Regeneration is a glorious work of God, not man.

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Some thoughts on James 2:18-26

Below is a blog post I wrote last September for the Feeding Jesus blog. It is part of a dialouge I was having with my brother-in-law regarding the role of works in faith. This is a question that comes up quite frequently in Sunday School classes and Bible study groups. At the outset I must give credit to John MacArthur's and F.F. Bruce's commentaries on James, which helped give me clarity on this often clouded passage.

The lines between works resulting from living faith and works resulting from legalism (dead faith) become blurred because people generally are looking at the wrong "line". I don't even like using the word line because it's so much more than that!!! James is calling us to be honest with ourselves about is whether what we are doing is being done from a desire to make much of God or to make much of ourselves. To simply say "well, this is biblical" is not enough. Just because I mimic something that was done in the Bible does not make it God-centered.

This is where living faith comes into play.

First, we know that living faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8-9) and that's how we know it's alive. It's not the same kind of faith as me saying "I have faith that Danny will be a good husband to my sister". I know good and well that there will be times when Danny does something that ticks me off royally and my faith in him will wax and wane during the years to come. This happens because any faith that I generate is dead in the corruption of my sinfulness and in the process of being made alive (sanctification). Only the faith that comes from God is living and can produce righteous works.

Second, living faith ALWAYS results in righteous works. Pay close attention here. Notice I did not say that someone who has living faith ALWAYS does righteous works. Those who have authentic faith still fail. We still have the warts of our old nature on us. When we fail, it is always a result of acting out of self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness. But we have been given the ability to do works solely for the purpose of glorifying God and magnifying His name (the unsaved man does not have any desire or ability to do this). Therefore for anyone to expect a Christian brother or sister to live a legally sinless life in the eyes of the law represents a misunderstanding of what our justification is all about.

So from James' perspective (3:18), when an arrogant, legalistic Pharisee challenges him by saying "show me your faith without works", he responds by showing his faith BY his works.

James 2:18-26 is a wonderful description of the relationship between justification and sanctification. It can also be a dangerous minefield for the uninitiated. Paul had a lot to say about this too. I recommend comparing James 2:18-26 with Romans 4:1-16 and Galatians 3:1-9. You can throw Hebrews 11:8 and 11:17 in for good measure. This might give you a more "rounded" picture of what the Bible has to say on the topic.

Bottom line, as Ergun Caner once said "the difference between holiness and legalism is that legalism says 'you should be more like me', but holiness says 'you should be more like Christ'!"

God calls us to holiness, not legalism.
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