One Faith

The following message by Alister Beg is made available by Truth for Life. For more information, visit us online at truthforlife.org. Well, I invite you to turn to Ephesians and to chapter 4. And for some time now we've been here in verses 4, 5, and 6, and uh here we are again in verse 5, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

And our focus this morning simply on two words, one faith. Um I didn't mean to go as slowly through this verse as we have ended up doing, but perhaps it is purposeful and we end up tackling each of these uh phrases almost in in in a topical manner, in an expositionally topical manner, but nevertheless um so we we need to pause for a moment and ask God's help.

Father, we always need the help of the Holy Spirit when we turn to the Bible so that we aren't on the voice of a mere man, we might not simply understand things intellectually, but that we might have a divine a meaningful encounter with you, the living God, through your word.

Uh we sang in our song that we take our stand on this word. And so then come and meet with us, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, it's important as we move through this sort of uh in an atomized way, that we remember that what Paul has begun to do here at the beginning of uh chapter 4 is urge the believers in Ephesus to maintain the unity which is theirs in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is not a unity that they are to create, they couldn't create it, but it is a unity which arises from the unity that exists within the Godhead uh himself. So that uh there is one Lord, uh there is one Spirit, there is one God and Father of all.

And we have been looking at this sevenfold foundation, as we've put it, of Christian unity. We've said there is one body because there is only one Spirit uh that indwells each of us and together uh we've been called to one hope that is part of the birthright of our call to salvation.

There is one Lord. We are not free to believe anything other than he has taught. We're not free to believe except in the way that he demands. We're not free to live in isolation because in being united to Christ, we are united to one another in Christ. And this one Lord is the foundation of this one faith.

So what I'd like to do is think about faith. Uh if I woke up early this morning with a thought in mind, I thought I think I have a title for this morning, I'll call it uh what a difference a faith makes. And then I thought, no, that's not very good at all, so I dispensed with it.

But uh we're dealing with it in in a way that is almost immediately accessible and then it is very possible for us to go immediately wrong. So let's let's just think in terms of faith as it is presented to us in scripture and defined, if you like, discovered, and then a moment or two on how uh we see faith worked out and displayed, and then in conclusion just say something about the implications of life lived where uh biblical Christian faith is denied.

All right? So then first of all we're thinking about uh defining this faith. Uh all of us live in the realm of faith to one degree or another, don't we? Uh there is a faith that we all exercise. I didn't come to check to see if you all checked the seats before you sat in them.

I would imagine that you didn't, you just sat down. That was an exercise of some kind of faith. Uh some of you have had your hair cut recently. That is an expression of faith. In some cases greater faith than is customary. You deposit money in the bank in the awareness that apparently they're going to look after it.

You take medication that some lady in a white coat or gentleman in a white coat rustles around with and you take it home and you swallow it. You ever think about that? It is uh you're you're you're ex- exercising a measure of faith that the person that pharmacy is actually reliable.

We understand that kind of thing, it's straightforward. But that is not what Paul is referencing here when he says that there is this one faith, because remember each of these characteristics are expressions of the nature of unity which is enjoyed in the body of Christ. So that helps us from going off at a tangent.

Everything that he's referencing here, including baptism, uh which may become a an expression of division, actually, uh is is a foundation of unity. So the faith to which Paul is referring takes place in the realm, if you like, of that natural capacity, but it differs in this vital dimension.

That natural faith, what I've just been describing, the kind that drinks from the water faucet without uh doing research project, uh natural faith is not spiritual faith because spiritual faith is not natural faith. Well, you say, well, what is this faith? Well, then you just look in your Bible.

He's mentioned it in Ephesians 2:8. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. So if you like, natural faith comes by natural birth and spiritual faith comes from God. It is actually the gift of God.

Uh the Westminster divines gave their attention to this and provide us with a very helpful statement in section 14 of the Westminster Confession and part 1. It reads as follows. The grace of faith by which we are enabled to believe the to the saving of our souls is the work of the Spirit of Christ in our hearts and is ordinarily produced through the ministry of the word and by the same means faith is strengthened and increased.

I plan on memory memorizing that for myself. I find it uh profoundly helpful. Let me read it to you again. The grace of faith by which we are enabled to believe to the saving of our souls is the work of the Spirit of Christ in our hearts and is ordinarily produced through the ministry of the word and by that same means, i.e. the ministry of the word, faith is strengthened and increased.

All right? So in other words, it is ordinarily the case that since God has ordained preaching, even though men and women regard it as foolishness and say nobody wants to listen to it, nobody can hear it, nobody can understand it in the Twitter age, unless you're a Twitterer, you will just be irrelevant if you go and try and talk for a long time and ask people to think it can't happen.

God knew all of that when he said, I want you to actually stand up in a monologued form and and and preach the word of God. Why? Because ordinarily it is the means whereby the grace of saving faith is imparted to those who believe to the saving of their souls.

Now, when the Westminster divines wrote this in the 17th century, they were not launching off. They were simply substantiating what the Bible itself says. If you want, you just look at Romans chapter 10 where Paul makes the very same point. Romans 10, he says, "How will they call on him, that's Jesus, in whom they've not believed?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" So faith comes from hearing, verse 17 of that same section, faith through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Through the word of Christ. All right? How about in Ephesus? Well, Ephesians chapter 2, and Paul has been reminding the Ephesians believers of the amazing um dimension that has taken place amongst them where a Jew and Gentile who have been separated from one another, not only ethnically, but philosophically and in so many different ways, they've been separated from one another quite literally by a physical barrier, a barrier that represented hostility, as significant a barrier as the Berlin Wall in many ways.

That existed. That has been broken down. They have now been united in Christ. How did that happen? Ephesians 2:17. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. To whom does the he refer? Jesus. So what is Paul saying?

Paul says that Jesus came and preached to the Gentiles who were far away and to the Jews who were near by virtue of their um privileged background in the Old Testament. But of course we know that Jesus never physically came to Ephesus to preach. So why would Paul say "And he came and preached"?

Because he did come and preach. How did Jesus preach to Ephesus? In the same way that Jesus preaches to Parkside Church. He preached to Ephesus through Paul and Paul's companions. So that actually when the word is truly preached the preacher is entirely subservient maybe significantly lost sight of in the awareness of the fact that it is ordinarily the work of the spirit of God to take the word of God whereby Jesus preaches it by the Holy Spirit in and through the voice of a mere man in and through personality.

But when anything ever of significance happens, it is because Jesus came and preached. Now you go and research this on your own. You go and read for example Psalm 22, the great Messianic Psalm which is Jesus' words from the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

That's Psalm 22. Read down in Psalm 22 and and the psalmist says, "And I will proclaim your name in the assembly in the congregation of the righteous. I will sing your praise amongst your people." Okay? You go to the book of Hebrews and the writer to the Hebrews puts those words in Jesus' lips.

He says this is Jesus. So we don't actually have a quote worship leader. We have someone who helps in leading us in our praise. But the leitourgos, the minister of Hebrews chapter 8 verse 2 is Jesus. Leitourgos which which should make you think of liturgy. The liturgist is Jesus.

Jesus leads the singing. Jesus does the preaching ultimately. It is by the word of Christ. Where is the word of Christ? In scripture edited for us here. How is it to be proclaimed? Through flawed human beings doing their best to study the Bible and say, "This is what it says but you're sensible people.

See if you can get a hold of it for yourselves." And mysteriously in and through and beyond and under all of that, God is at work ordinarily bringing men and women to faith in Jesus Christ. That's why I love it in the baptisms when I'm standing or sitting somewhere and someone stands up out of the blue and says, "On the 22nd of May 7 years ago at a morning service, I believed in Jesus Christ as my savior.

I never knew a thing about it. I never had any idea about it. I I apparently had no part in it at all." Save being simply a a trumpet on which the Lord Jesus Christ chose to blow for half an hour or so. See how it See how it sets us down and sets Christ up.

See how it says it's abhorrent when people who fulfill this role are preoccupied with themselves and fascinated by their abilities or bemoaning this or that. Now it's a wonderful thing. Lastly he says was revealed to me as one untimely born, the mystery of it all. Faith. 1649, one of those Westminster divines, a fellow by the name of William Greenhill.

He said this, "Where the word of God is not expounded, preached, and applied, the people perish." Where the word of God is not expounded, preached, and applied, the people perish. Drive around the United States. Drive past churches where there is virtually not a soul in there and I can guarantee you that it is because the Bible is not expounded, preached, and applied.

Where you find the Bible being expounded, preached, and applied, whether that company is small or large, you will find life, you will find vibrancy, you will find truth, you will find evangelism. Come back to my own country in Scotland and I can take you down the streets. I can guarantee you this place will be darker than a cave.

This one will be filled with light. This one will have old three old ladies in it and an old man with a stick. This will be bursting with university students. And the person on the outside says, "What is the difference?" I'll tell you what the difference is. This is the difference.

This is the difference. Now when people like me say this, it sounds as if we're just, you know, trying to create job security for ourselves. But no, because that's that's why the How can you preach unless you're sent? It's wonderful, isn't it? Now that's enough concerning this by way of introduction.

Turn back to 1 Corinthians 15 and let's ask the question well, how then give us an illustration of what it means for the word of God then to take root in lives and in a congregation. So we could stay in Ephesians but just for a change let's go to these familiar words in 1 Corinthians 15.

He's what what he's doing in this chapter on the resurrection is he's reminding his readers at the at the head of it that they that they have a shared faith and that this faith, this gospel as he refers to it, is is um understandable and is definable and is uh there to be considered.

And I want you just simply to notice the progression. Uh I want to remind you brothers and sisters of the gospel I preached to you. I preached to you. That's the first and straightforward. He says, "I came and I preached this to you." Now if you go back to the beginning of 1 Corinthians, you remember he says, "When I came to you uh brothers and sisters, I didn't come with wise words and uh and and and impressing everybody by by these things.

I didn't employ high-sounding arguments. I didn't try to be wiser than I am. I didn't try to do science so that you would think it was spectacular." No, he says, "I actually determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." And he said, "The reason I did this is because I wanted to make sure that your faith would rest in the power of God and not in the wisdom of man."

He says, "Because if you think about it, God's God's apparent foolishness in the cross is actually wiser than man's wisdom and in the wisdom of God he has determined that it wouldn't be through human wisdom that a man or a woman would come to know God but rather through the foolishness of what we preach."

It all ties in. And so he says, "I came and I preached to you. I preached this gospel to you." And in verse 3 he says, "And I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins." This is so vitally important.

He says, "I I made sure that I explained to you that at the cross of Jesus Christ the justice of God and the love of God were made clear." He writes to the Roman church and he says, "You know, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified, declared right in God's sight, by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

So the very heart of the gospel, the very heart of the gospel, is what in theological terms we refer to as the substitutionary atonement. That God has placed upon Jesus our sins and the punishment that attaches to them. He has done so, says Paul, in accordance with the scriptures.

In other words, he says, "If you read the rest of the Bible, you will find that it points in this direction and underpins it." So you go back into the Isaiah the prophet who stands on his tiptoes writing Isaiah 53, "Surely he has borne our griefs. He's carried our sorrows.

Uh we esteemed him smitten by God and afflicted. Yet he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his stripes, wounds, we are healed." This is the gospel, you see. This is the faith.

This is the faith. So when when when when you have a congregation that is grounded in the faith, in in the the nature of regen- redemption and justification, it's not that you've put together a group of people who are interested, you know, like in faith, faith in faith.

You hear it all the time at the end of news broadcasts, "Well, we're we're sending our thoughts out." Well, that's nice. Or I'm sure our faith is whatever. Well, what does that mean? When you come to the Bible, there's nothing vague about it. When you listen to Paul, he says, "This is what I preached to you.

I preached the gospel to you." And of first importance, right in the cornerstone of it all, I said to you the issue is this great exchange. That God has made us for himself. He's created us for his glory and his purpose. He has given us gifts and abilities and intellect and everything in order that we might acknowledge him.

But we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. We have worshipped the creature rather than the creator and the implications of that have followed us. That's exchange number one. Exchange number two. We have exchanged his glory for things that crawl. He has exchanged the glory of heaven in order to take our place in punishment in order that we might enter into his glory.

This is at the heart of the Christian faith. They were brought to believe that Jesus is the son of God. That Jesus died for their sins. That Jesus was raised on the third day. That Jesus appeared. So he says, "We preached and you believed. You believed. I remind you brothers of the gospel I preached which you yourself received."

Thirdly, and in it you have taken your stand. And you have taken your stand. Here I stand, said Luther. I can do no other. Not a standing in social status or intellectual capacity or moral philosophy or religious zeal or legal rectitude or good deeds. No. They have taken their stand on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Only a perfect man could die for the sinner. An imperfect man could not die for the sinner. He would need someone to die for him. Christ kept the law in all of its perfection. This is our stand. Is this where you stand? I'm going to ask you about your faith.

They say, "Well, you are you are you a person of faith?" Say, "Oh, yes." They say, "Oh, what what is your faith?" Or you tell me, say, "Well, I can I can I'm not going to sing it to you, but I can give it to you in a song."

Okay, go ahead. So, you tell them. You say, "My faith has found a resting place not in device or creed. I trust the ever-living one. His wounds for me shall plead." They're going to go, "What?" You're going to say then you'll tell them the whole story of the Bible is about sacrifice about substitution.

You can tell them about the skins of the animals clothing the nakedness of Adam and Eve. You can tell them about the story of Abraham and Isaac. You can work your way through all the stories that you learned at Sunday school pointing to the one who was to come who would take the place of sinners.

And then you can tell them "My faith is resting in the word the living word of God." And they will say, "Well, that's fascinating." So, that that's what you mean about being saved, is it? You tell them, "Yes." Do you even use that terminology? You say, "Well, the Bible uses it."

I preached, you received, you took your stand, and by this you are being saved. You're being saved. On what basis are you being saved? On the basis of what Jesus has done. Not on the basis of what we're doing. And certainly not on the basis of how we're doing.

The answer to the question, how am I acceptable before God, is the same all day, every day. On the strength of what another has done. I am accepted in him. In the same way that you can't just walk into Augusta National, just go, "Hey, I'm Alister. Just was want to come and and and and play at Augusta."

They'd give you the bum's rush right down Primrose Avenue or whatever you call it, Magnolia Way. But I can go in with somebody who has got the green jacket. And all I have to say is "I'm with him." You understand at the gate of God's God's heaven? Are you going to are you are you going to tell them about yourself?

Not a good idea. But there is one thing you can say "I'm with him." "I'm in him." If any man is in Christ he's made new. The old is gone, the new has come. If if you hold fast to the word I preached to you unless you have believed in vain.

Whoa. Unless you believed in vain. That means you can believe in vain. That means you can think you believe and you don't believe. Remember Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7, "Many in that day will call me Lord, Lord, and they will say, 'We cast out demons in your name.

We preached. We did all kinds of stuff.'" And he'll say, "Depart from me. I never even knew you." He then goes on to say "There was a man who built his house on the sand. And when the winds and the waves hit it, it collapsed. There was another man who built his house on the rock.

When the winds and waves came it stood firm." He said, "Now, let me explain what I'm talking about. If anyone hears my words and does not actually put them into practice believe them, receive them, take their stand on them that man, that woman will be like somebody who builds a house on sand.

And as soon as the implications of life and the realities of eternity hit them, they will collapse. The distinction, you see, is not in the hearing of it, but it is in the believing of it. Anyone who hears my word and does not put it into practice, sand.

Anyone who hears my word and puts it into practice, believes it, rests in it, rock. Now, what is Paul doing here? He's doing what the writer to the Hebrews does. That is, he's a little zinger here at the end of this great affirmation. Here is the gospel I preached to you which you have received on which you have taken your stand and by which you are being saved if if if what?

If you're really being saved. Hebrews says the very same thing. The writer to the Hebrews, you can read this for your homework. Hebrews chapter 3, the writer says, "We belong to him if indeed we hold fast our confidence to the end." If we don't then it will be apparent that we don't.

He's not talking about losing your salvation. He's talking about a spurious profession of faith. He's talking about somebody who like in the in the the parable of the the seed and the sower where the seed falls down and there's an immediate reaction and it and it blooms immediately.

Wow, what a success. You come back 10 days later it's gone. There's no evidence of life at all. Read the parable for yourself. What is Jesus saying? He's saying that when the word of God is sown, there are all kinds of reactions to it. Some people actually make a great profession of believing immediately.

And it's and and there's no life there at all. There's no root. There's no reality. It never happened. Others may be sitting there chewing on it day after day after day and eventually the seed germinates. It may be tiny at first, but it's going and there's life and it brings forth fruit.

Again, in Hebrews, we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold on to our confidence firm to the end. Hebrews again, "See to it brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God." What's that in there for?

Because the inclination of my heart is sinful. I mean, we sing about it. Let's just get straight forward. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. I mean, we sing that we're quite happy about that. We should be we should be have our hankies out singing that.

See to it. In other words, as it is in your power. That's why you need this Bible. That's why you need to listen to the Bible preached as tough as it may be many times. Why? Because ordinarily, as the confession says, it is through the preaching of the word that not only is faith engendered, but faith is sustained and faith is strengthened.

So, when you have sent yourself from the teaching of the Bible from whatever source it comes, you lay yourself open to the difficulties that then are there. See to it that you don't have a sinful unbelieving heart. What is the one of the ways to do that? Make sure you're in the word.

Make sure you read your Bible. Make sure you keep short accounts with sin. Make sure you stay in touch with God. You don't want to be like You don't want to be like some of the characters in Pilgrim's Progress, do you? Pilgrim sets off from his home with his fingers over his ears.

His people are calling him back. "Don't be crazy, Pilgrim. You're nuts. You're a crazy man." "No, no, I'm going. I'm going." And he hooks up with Obstinate. Obstinate's there for, you know, like 15 minutes. As soon as Obstinate gets a gets an inkling of what's involved, he says "Tush.

Away with your book." he says. And he says to Pliable, his friend, "Come back with me. Don't go with that darn guy, Pilgrim. He's He's He's nuts." There's a company of these crazy characters. He says, "They're wiser in their own eyes than seven men that can render a reason."

And Pliable says, "No, no, you go ahead, Obstinate. I'm I'm sticking on the pathway. I'll be good." Now, it says, "Bunyan, I saw in my dream that when Obstinate was gone back, Christian and Pliable went talking over the plain. And thus they began their discourse." It's wonderful. And so, uh Pilgrim is explaining to Pliable who's asking, "Well, what's the what's this like, you know, what what do we can expect?"

And in almost uh pre-C.S. Lewis terms, he gives them this amazing picture of all the crowns and the seraphim and everything that is before them. And Pliable's really uh quite excited about it. It seems like uh you'll be transported to heaven on flowery beds of ease. This is the This is terrific.

And then all of a sudden, boom. They walk right into the Slough of Despond. Right up to their knees. Covered in mud, splattered all over their face. And Pliable goes, "Hey, wait a minute. We I thought I thought we were going to the heavenly city. I thought we had the seraphim and the kings and the royal crowns and the stuff. >> [laughter] >> What What is this about?"

And he says, "Listen. Is this the happiness you told me about? If it's this bad and we've only set out, what can we expect at the journey's end? I need to get out with my life. You go. You go profess the country. You go possess the country on your own.

And with that, he gave a desperate struggle or two, and he got out of the mire on that side of the slough, which was next to his own house, and so he went away, and Christian saw him no more. The Epistles of John. They went out from us because they were not of us.

If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. He's not talking about church membership. He's talking about those who are the genuine followers of Jesus. And you read on in the Pilgrim in the Progress, and you say, "Well, what happened to Pliable? After he got out, what did he do?"

Listen. Then I saw in my dream, by this time Pliable was got home to his house. So, his neighbors came to visit him, and some of them called him a wise man for coming back. Man, you got rid of that Christian stuff. That was smart. Couldn't believe you even even gave I can't even believe you even went.

And some of them called him a wise man for coming back. Some of them called him a fool for hazarding himself with Christian. What I can't even believe you would even hang around with that guy. He's a nut. You know, that book he's always reading the book, and he's heading for a city.

Others mocked his cowardliness saying, "Huh, if since you began the venture, why couldn't you have stayed with it? A few difficulties, and you're back already?" And Bunyan writes, "So, Pliable sat sneaking among them." But at last, he got more confidence. And then, they all turned their tails and began to deride poor Christian behind his back.

And thus much concerning Pliable. I preached it. You received it. You took your stand in it. You are being saved by it. If if you continue. The ground of our salvation is entirely outside of us in the work of Christ. That's why we sang the song, My faith has found a resting place.

The evidence of it is in our continuance. That we're still on the horse. That through many dangers, toils, and snares, ups and downs, fits and starts, fears, failures, messes, chaos, we're actually still in the game. Why? Because the grace of God that saves us keeps us. Makes us awful thankful to him.

Now, my time is gone, but I want to say two more things, and say it quickly. Ask yourself the question then, if this saving faith is imparted to me, what are the the evidences that might be apparent in in reflecting on things, and in looking to the future?

For this, for your homework, I suggest Hebrews 11. Justin has already quoted from Hebrews 11 this morning before he led us in prayer, and helpfully so, the first six verses will get you on the right track. By faith, the man of old gained approval. And so, read the story.

Think about it in these terms. Think about Moses. And you find him there in Hebrews 11 in the Hall of Fame, as it were. Moses, we're told, decides to forego the pleasures, the immediate opportunities that are before him for prominence, success, aggrandizement, and so on. And it says that the reason that he forsook these things was because he was looking to a city whose builder and maker is God.

It's a very straightforward, but wonderful statement. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. In other words, he was looking to see a Messiah who was going to come, and who did not show up for more than 1,400 years.

For the reproach of Christ, who was to come 1,400 years later, Moses ditched all this stuff, and chose to suffer affliction with the people of God. That was faith. You see, he saw what others couldn't see. You have the exact same thing. You take, for example, from another place, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

They're taken away along with Daniel and the others into the exile. Their parents have brought them up. We're going to find out how they do. Now, they're confronted by the big, visible, powerful King Nebuchadnezzar. Are they going to do what big King Nebuchadnezzar says that they can see and respond to and fear, or are they going to submit to the living God whom they have never seen?

You see, by faith, you see him who is invisible. What about Noah? Noah, we're going to have a flood. A what? We haven't even had a We haven't even had rain. No, there'll be a flood. Now, I want you to build something. A what? It's an ark. Don't worry about it.

I'll tell you how to do it. And Noah did it. Seeing him who is invisible. You see, because faith is the conviction of things not seen. We could go on. We don't need to go on. You see, because the unbeliever doesn't see. That's why we sing in the hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see.

You see, the unbeliever is like a blind man who refuses to believe that there's such a thing as light because he's never seen it. I don't believe there's light. I've never seen such a thing. Well, the fact that you don't believe it doesn't call in question the reality of it.

It just means you've never seen it. And the reason you've never seen it is because you're blind. But God opens blind eyes. God softens hard hearts. God provides men and women with the ability, whatever their background, scientific, artistic, whatever it is, for a denouement to take place, and for, if you like, a light to go on, and against even their own inclinations to say, "Goodness gracious, I think I've begun to see this."

This is faith. This is Christian faith. And people say to me, my friends say to me, "Wow, I can't believe you're involved in that stuff. Why don't [laughter] you get in the real world? You know, why don't you get in the world the the world of the rationalist? Why don't you Why don't you enjoy life, you know, and just get rid of that sort of category up there, that supernatural stuff you're you're into.

Who knows about that? Why don't you get where else we know about everything? Oh, you do?" Okay, well, then let's just let's just put it up. We could have a debate. There was no time now, so we won't. But okay, you say this is reality, I say it's absurdity.

You say I'm in the realm of absurdity, and you're in the realm of reality. Okay, let's just do it pragmatically. All right? I say to you that Christian faith answers the cries of the human heart in a way that a godless philosophy does not. We can't go through them all, but let me just take one.

Man and woman live their lives. I know this. I saw the Super Bowl. I I I read the newspaper. I see it. I have friends. I look around. Men and women are in search of meaning. They're in search of peace. They're in search of security. They're in search of significance.

They are trying to make sense of this weary struggle from birth to death. Understandably so. Don't want to hear anything about God who made the universe. Don't want to hear anything about Jesus. Don't want to hear anything about the Bible. They want to live quotes in the real world.

How's it working? Jesus answers the cry for meaning. Sartre, the great existentialist, you can imagine him sitting in one of the cafes in Paris, and he's and he looks at one of his friends, and he says, "You know, here we are, having another meal, eating and drinking to preserve our precious existence.

And there is nothing. Nothing. Absolutely no reason for our existence. Have a good day." Doesn't work. Jesus says, "I'm come that you might have life, and that you might have it in all of its fullness." The search for love. Jesus says to the woman at the well, "Why don't you go call your husband?"

She says, "I don't have a husband." He says, "Well, I know. It says, in fact, I know you've had five men. And you're living with a guy now. Honey, aren't you just looking for love in all the wrong places? Do you think there's a person on the face of this earth that can satisfy the longing of your heart in relationship to these things?

There is. You're looking at him. I'm the Messiah. The cry for freedom. For freedom. I watched two musical documentaries that depressed me horribly in the last 8 days. One, the the documentary on Harry Nilsson. I can't live with it is without you, that guy. And which is a sad, sad story.

And my girl, Janis Joplin. Epitomized by the screeching sounds, wonderfully rendered, of Kristofferson's song, Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. And freedom ain't worth nothing, but it's free. If ever there was a picture of a girl that you that knew nothing about freedom, it's got to be Janis.

She was trapped in her own designs and desires to break free from everything without ever having discovered that Jesus says you'll know the truth and the truth will make you free. Where can a person go to find forgiveness? Christianity answers the cry for forgiveness. I finish with this.

David Watson, who was an amazing evangelist, he was an Anglican minister in the '60s, '50s, '60s. I had the privilege to hear him preach when I was a student myself. He was at the best evangelistic preacher I've ever heard in my life. And he did lots of university missions.

He was always engaged with He was a clever man. He He was a Cambridge guy and he He could handle these folks, but he was He He was simple enough for a child to understand. And he records how at one of the university missions, as he's preaching, as he's looking out in the group, there's one girl's face that just stands out.

And it stands out because she just She just obviously doesn't like what he's saying. And she She's sort of rebellious. And actually, she's smoking. Those were the good old days. And And uh And he finishes his talk and he encourages people to to to embrace Jesus as our savior and a king and and he leads them in a prayer and it ends and people begin to leave and who comes forward but this girl.

She's still smoking. And he said, "She just looked so hard and so empty." And she comes up to him and she says, "Mr. Watson, I listened. I heard what you said. I believe it. I'll be back tomorrow." And she walked away. And Watson says in his book, "As she walked away, I said to myself, we'll see."

He describes how the following evening, at the end of his talk, she comes back. She is so visibly different that he doesn't even recognize her. Her face has changed. She says to Mr. Watson, "Since last evening, I have cried for virtually 24 hours." She says, "Because you see, behind all of my toughness, behind all of my bravado," she said, "for years I have felt as guilty as hell.

And it never once occurred to me that Jesus loved me, that he died for me, and that he will save me. And when you told me that last night, that brought about the change that changes everything." This, you see, is the faith in which the believers are united.

Is it your faith? It may be. Let us pray. God our Father, thank you that your word says that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all who come to you. That you are able to save to the uttermost all who come to God through Jesus. You save us from the uttermost and to the uttermost.

Only you can do this. So, I pray, Lord, that you'll help us to think these issues out. For those of us who believe that this kind of thing is just a leap into oblivion, help us to think it out. For some of us who are toying with these things, help us, Lord, so to take our stand and to rest in you.

Save us, Lord, from pliable and from obstinate, from timorous, from mistrust, from Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, from all those characters along the pathway, that narrow pathway that leads to that wicked gate, to that young under shining light, to that heavenly home. Thank you that you've given us the Bible so that we can read it, so that we can actually go away and see, "Well, let's see if what he said is actually in there."

That your word is fixed in the heavens. We take our stand here in Jesus' name. Amen. This message was brought to you from Truth For Life, where the learning is for living. To learn more about Truth For Life with Alistair Begg, visit us online at truthforlife.org.