Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the question, "How do I become more bold in my faith? How do I get a stronger faith?" I think this is a very admirable questions to ask, and an even more admirable task to undertake. But what I find so scary about answering such a question and pursuing such a task is that so many people do not know where to begin with such a task. We tend to think that growing in faith and becoming a bolder Christian is all about us trying harder and us trying to do more "Christian" things, but this could not be further from the truth. This kind of behavior was what Jesus found so detestable about the Pharisees. They addressed the outward behavior, but inside their hearts were still wicked and sinful. This sort of mindset is why Paul rebuked the Galatians and told them to never desert the gospel of Jesus Christ. What we have to understand as Christians is the simple truth that the gospel is just as much for Christians as it is non-Christians. It is by standing and holding fast to the gospel that we are changed to become more like Christ, and as we become more like Christ our faith becomes stronger and bolder.
So the question now becomes, "How do I stand in the gospel?" I believe there are at least four aspects to standing in the gospel, and I truly believe it is important that we remind ourselves of these things as often as possible.
We stand in the gospel by:
1) Knowing and understanding what Christ has done for us in the gospel. (2 Cor. 5:16-21, Ephesians 2:1-10, Romans 6:20-2)
We have to understand as Christians that God has done everything for us through Christ in the gospel to make us right with Himself. We were dead in our trespasses and sins before Christ, and through the sacrificial death and atoning blood of Christ we are made clean. We did not contribute to God's plan of redemption for us. The Bible even tells us that God gave us grace "in Christ Jesus before the ages began"(2 Timothy 1:9). If this is the gospel that we are called to stand in, how can we believe that becoming stronger in our faith is then all about us? We are not saved by God, and then left to our own devices to finish the job of saving ourselves and making ourselves more like Christ. Part of the freedom of the gospel is understanding that God wants to give to us, and understanding that He has already given us everything we need "that pertains to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence" (2 Peter 1:3). We cannot add to what God has done for us. We must continually remind ourselves of these truths because our hearts our so prone to wander from the gospel that saved us. Our status with God in our new identity is not predicated on our own righteousness, but it is predicated on the righteousness of Christ and his atoning death. Just like Paul says in the passage above it was not his hard work that saved him, but it was the grace of God. As we begin to daily grasp this truth, we will be amazed at how much stronger and bolder our faith becomes.
2) Knowing and understanding that God is for us. ( Romans 8:18-39, Philippians 1:6)
We also have the reassurance in the Bible that God did not just save us through the gospel, but that God is actually for us. Our heavenly Father loves us and wants us to persevere in the faith, so that we can bring the glory back to Him. God does not abandon us after He saves us through the blood of His Son. God has given us his Holy Spirit as the seal of our salvation, and He has promised to complete the work that He has started. God's love for us is steadfast, meaning that it is resolute and unwavering. And the Bible continually makes clear that God has done this in order to bring glory to Himself. He chose what was weak to shame the strong, and to show that all the glory belongs to God alone ( 1 Corinthians 1:18-31). We must also continually remind ourselves that God is for us, and we must remind ourselves why God is for us. God is for us not because we are innately good and we deserve His good pleasure, but God is for us because it brings Him glory to redeem and rescue His people (Romans 5:1-11).
To grow in faith, we have to separate ourselves from the Pharisees by addressing our heart through the gospel. The Bible teaches that the "heart is deceitful above all things," and if we do not address the deceitfulness of heart first we completely miss the point gospel. If we are properly standing in the gospel, we should always end up running to Scripture to remind ourselves of truths about who God is and who we are in light of God's redemptive plan. We must grasp that the gospel redeems us from the inside out. It's a new heart and a new identity that produces new fruit. A wicked and deceitful heart can only produce wicked and deceitful fruit. We need to study the gospel constantly in the pages of Scripture and remind ourselves of these first two truths before we move on to the next two truths.
3) Knowing that through the gospel we can choose life over death. (Romans 8:1-11, Galatians 5:16-25, Ephesians 5:1-21)
The gospel opens up our eyes to see the depth and depravity of our sin, and it makes us aware that through the power of God within us we can choose life and walk in the Spirit. To fully understand this truth, we have to have the prior knowledge of who we were before Christ redeemed us, and we have to truly understand how hideous and grievous sin is to God. We then begin to realize that we should choose life over death not to better ourselves or seem more moral, but to bring glory to God and to please our heavenly Father. We do good works because God prepared them for us to bring His name glory (Ephesians 2:10). We do not do good works to better our standing with God or to become self-righteous. Because we are not made right before God through our own righteousness, but through the righteousness of Christ. We can never lose sight of this truth as we seek to grow in holy living. God does not view us on a sliding-scale of righteousness dependent upon our holy living, but he instead views Christ's righteousness in place of ours (Galatians 2:20-21). Our motivation for holy living must be rooted firm in gospel truth and thanksgiving. It is only by the grace of God that we are given life, and we must not take that for granted.
4) Knowing that when I do choose death there is mercy and grace for me because of the cross. (Romans 8:1, Romans 7)
As Christians we are still going to sin, Paul makes this very clear in Romans 7. If we do not have a healthy view of the gospel, and we are not standing firm in the gospel then we will lose heart when we fall down. We have to understand as Christians that we are not condemned for our sin. This does not mean that there are not consequences when we mess up, and it does not mean that we continue in sin and forsake the blood of Christ. What it does mean is that we have to understand that in our failures God does not forsake us or give up on us. It brings us back to the truth that God loves us and God is for us. He knows that we are going to fail, yet He still loves us and died for us. He even died for us while we were still His enemies because of His steadfast love for us. Our failures do not negate the grace of God that has been extended to us. God works through the mess and brings about glory to His name through our sin. If you do not believe me, look at the lineage of Jesus. Jesus, our savior, comes from the lineage of David and Bathsheba. God used the sin of His servant David to help usher in the savior of the world.
We will never grow in our faith if we think every mistake we make sets us back four steps on our pursuit of holiness. Our pursuit of holiness is not a mirror image of climbing the American corporate ladder. Our pursuit of holiness and a stronger faith is grounded and rooted in a firm understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a daily attempt to stand in that gospel. A gospel that continually reminds us that everything we have been given is through the graciousness of God to bring about the glory of His name. This why I always encourage myself and others to dig in to the word. We already saw that Peter tells we have everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of Jesus. To grow in faith, we must continually remind ourselves that our lives our not our own.We were bought by the precious blood of Christ not to live a life for ourselves, but to live a life for the glory of God.
Our pursuit to grow in faith must be grounded in a pursuit to stand in the gospel and to pursue God's glory. We grow in faith because God is working within us. God is the founder and perfecter of our faith we can only grow in our faith if we look more at Him and less at ourselves.
John 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease
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