Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Romans 3 | Date: May 15, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Turn with your Bibles with me, if you will, again to Romans chapter 3. We’ve been working our way through the doctrine of salvation and we are now dealing with the broad section of redemption applied. How does Christ’s work and the salvation that he secured come to be applied to us in our individual experience? We are dealing now particularly with the doctrine of justification by faith. Romans chapter 3, and we are familiar with this passage; we’ve been looking at it. I will read for now just verses 21 to 26:

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it—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 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. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, we are thrilled again to look at this marvelous subject and to explore the various dimensions of the way in which a holy and righteous God can justify unrighteous people. We’re thrilled by it. We are grateful to know that all that we need, we have in Jesus. Give us a clearer grasp of that today. Fix our faith more firmly in Him, we pray in His name. Amen.

All right, we have said that justification is God’s declarative judgment. It’s the declaration of the court. It’s the declaration of the judge pronouncing the accused to be righteous. That’s what justification is. It doesn’t mean he makes us righteous. We often deal with that subject under the topic of sanctification. Justification has to do with our legal standing before God. When God the judge looks at us and declares us—though accused, and though in fact sinful—he declares us to be righteous. As we saw in Romans 4 and verse 5, he justifies ungodly people.

And we’ve been working over the subject to see that justification, then, is a judicial declaration of righteousness. We saw that it’s never grounded in human merit, but it’s always grounded in grace. It comes to us by grace alone, always. And we saw, and we tried to look at this at some length—we’ve seen it several different times—that justification is always in keeping with divine justice. God will not lower the bar to save anyone. To justify, to declare anyone righteous, justice or righteousness must be met. God’s standard will not be compromised.

And we see then that is the whole reason for Christ’s coming. That is the whole necessity of the gospel. That Christ has come. He has stood in the place of sinners. He has offered his perfect life in sacrifice to God. As he says here in verse 25, God has put him forth as a propitiation for our sins. He offers himself to God, offering satisfaction to divine justice as God’s wrath is poured out on him and then averted from us. And God’s righteousness is perfectly satisfied in our substitute. Our sin becomes His. His righteousness becomes ours. And God pronounces us righteous, though we are sinners, because of the righteous demands met in the person of Jesus Christ.

And so there’s no self-merit involved in justification. No one comes to God pleading his own case but pleading only Jesus. Justification, we saw, is always then only by grace alone—not by law keeping, not by ceremonial rites like baptism or in that day circumcision, not by good deeds that are done. As he says in verse 24 here, we are justified by his grace as a gift, a free gift given to us who are sinners on the ground of a full satisfaction of God’s justice in the person and the work of Jesus. All right, we have seen that then.

Now the next question that comes up—and I said last week that we’d be dealing with this at length on its own—is: How does that righteousness of Christ become ours? He’s the righteous substitute. He is the one who took the wrath of sin. How does his righteousness become ours? God declares us righteous because of our standing in Jesus who is righteous. How does that happen? How does his righteousness become ours so that God can declare us righteous? And the answer that is given everywhere in the scripture and repeatedly in a particular way in the Apostle Paul is that justification by grace comes to us through faith. Justification is by grace through faith. Paul insists on that everywhere.

We’ve seen that already in these verses, verses 21 and following. The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there’s no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and were 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—and there it is again—to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness in his divine forbearance that he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of—there we have it again—the one who believes or has faith in Jesus.

And then we have the same thing in the following verses. Verses 27 and following, that this justification by faith alone is such that it precludes boasting. Verse 27: “What becomes then of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By law of works? No.” If you worked for it, you’d boast about it. That was an addition. “No, by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, the God of the Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

In other words, there’s something about this justification by faith that precludes boasting. If we’re justified by faith, we can’t brag about it. That’s what he’s saying here. In fact, he is saying here, not only does justification by faith maintain grace, but it also upholds the law. At the same time, justification by faith maintains that it is by grace, and at the same time upholds the law in its demands. And this is the axis of the gospel, if you will. On the one hand, it must be by grace. We cannot contribute anything. On the other hand, God’s just demands must be upheld. And Paul is saying here that justification by faith does both. It maintains grace, and it upholds the demands of the law, and therefore, it excludes boasting. At the end of saying, “I have been justified by faith alone,” I have nothing to brag about.

Now that’s the long and short of these verses. We’re going to explore that further through the message, but notice how he offers in chapter 4 Abraham as proof, and we have seen this before as well in these opening verses. “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he would have something to boast about, but not before God. But what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed’—this is Genesis 15:6—’Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.'” So Abraham also was justified by faith and not by works.

Now this is an important one for the Apostle Paul. In fact, many of the Jewish rabbis had argued that Abraham was justified by his faith or by his faithfulness and by his obedience and works. Paul pulls it out. What does Genesis say? Genesis—Moses tells us—Abraham was justified by faith. He believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. This is an important argument. If he can establish that even Abraham is justified by faith and not by works, well then surely everyone is justified only by faith and not by works. So the unanimous and the repeated, insistent answer of the New Testament writers is that justification is by faith or through faith. Actually, the biblical New Testament writers have several different expressions: through faith, by faith, on the basis of faith, out of faith—but all to the same point, that we’re justified through faith alone.

Now I want to explore that because I think this is enormously important for us to understand it precisely, and I think it has some very important practical applications at the end of it.

What Then Is Saving Faith?

Now this is a notoriously difficult question to answer. What is faith? Saved by faith alone. Charles Spurgeon makes some comments about that. You may say that it’s easy to define faith. It’s even easier to confuse people with your explanation. What is faith? We say we’re saved by faith alone. What is that? And then there’s more questions that come with that. What does it mean to believe in God to salvation? But then what is it that makes justification by faith so important? How does justification by faith maintain grace? How does justification by faith maintain the righteousness of God in justifying sinners? And to Paul, this is essential to the whole point of the gospel.

So let’s start with the question: What is faith? In the Reformed tradition, there are three elements to faith that are always emphasized. There’s knowledge, there’s assent, and there’s trust. There’s knowledge—you’ve got to know what it is you believe or you can’t believe it—and actually that has some historical significance at the time of the Reformation, battling with the Roman Catholic doctrine of implicit faith (whether you know it or not, you believe it). Knowledge is important to faith. Assent, that is agreeing to it, acknowledging it as true, that’s important to faith. But the emphasis falls on the third. Faith is trust. This is the heart of the matter. And all of that’s very analytical. But the emphasis falls on this matter of trust. Saving faith is trust.

When I was a little boy in Sunday school, one of the Sunday school teachers taught us an acronym. Faith: F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking All, I Take Him. Now, theologians always want to tinker with things and make nuances, but I have a hard time improving on that. Forsaking all, I take Him. That emphasizes, in saying it that way, the matter of trust, reliance, dependence, a whole-souled abandonment to Jesus. I don’t look at any other hopes. I look at Jesus alone. Forsaking all, I take him. And that is the gospel demand: that we trustingly abandon ourselves to Jesus. Trust him to do for us what we can’t do ourselves.

Now the Old Testament has many ways, not only to tell us of faith precisely, but ways of illustrating faith. And it has a wide vocabulary of faith and various illustrations of faith that are helpful. And I think in the big view of things, this Old Testament vocabulary and terminology is setting us up to understand what saving faith is when it comes to its full revelation in Christ in the New Testament.

For example, in the Psalms we have it particularly common that God is pictured as a rock, a fortress, a high tower in which David can take refuge. That’s a wonderful illustration of faith. Some of the language of faith in the Old Testament is that of waiting for God, waiting for him. Often this matter of waiting for God is in military contexts in the Old Testament. And so for example, in Isaiah chapter 30, Israel is tempted to go into a military alliance with Egypt. And the prophets come along and they tell you, “You’re going to find out that Egypt is not trustworthy. God alone is trustworthy. Put your faith in him. Wait on him. Wait on God. Wait for him. Trust him.”

We have one wonderful illustration of this in 2 Chronicles chapter 14 with King Asa, one of the few, relatively few godly kings in Israel. He enacted some reforms and Israel prospered under him. And there was a military threat from the Ethiopian army and Asa took Israel’s army out to meet them and Israel is hopelessly outnumbered. The Ethiopian army is going to run him over. And the key, the critical moment in the battle happens actually the night before. And that is when King Asa is in his tent in 2 Chronicles 14 verses 11 and 12. This is the deciding moment. Asa cried to the Lord his God: “O Lord, there is none like you to help between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you. And in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God. Let not man prevail against you.”

And so here is Asa and his army against hopeless odds, without sufficient resources, resting entirely on God alone. And we read in the next verse, “So the Lord defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled.” Wonderful illustration. Faith as trust, faith as utter dependence upon God. It is exclusive; it is forsaking all others. I take him, I’m trusting him, I’m putting all of my eggs in that basket, so to speak. God will save me or I’ll die. All of my hope is in him. And that is what saving faith is exactly. We go to God trusting in Jesus that because of him, God will accept us. And we turn away from every other hope. We rest utterly in Jesus and abandon everything else. And we say, “Jesus is our only hope before God.” That’s saving faith. It’s trust.

The New Testament has several metaphors to describe saving faith. Actually, I would like to take a good half hour or so and just explore all of these metaphors. Much of my time has been taken already this morning, so let me just highlight some of them, the way the New Testament speaks of faith or pictures faith. One expression for faith in the New Testament is that of receiving Christ. Faith is receiving Christ. “As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.” Or having Christ. Faith is having Christ. “He that has the Son has life. He that does not have the Son is condemned.” The idea in all of that is that Jesus is the Savior, and so if we have him, or if we receive him, we have the salvation that he embodies. He is the one who has accomplished it, and if we are going to have salvation, we must have him, trust in him, or have him.

Closely associated with this is some language that we’ve used. We have it in our hymns, we have it in sermons and theological literature ever since the New Testament: the idea of embracing Christ or grabbing hold of Christ. Or I think it was Martin Luther’s expression: to close with Christ. To take him, to hold fast to Christ. All of this emphasizing the idea of trust. I must have him or I’ll perish.

Another common metaphor for faith in the New Testament is coming to Christ. “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” “All that the Father gives me shall come to me.” Coming to Christ. And again, the idea is that running to Christ to have in him the salvation that he embodies. And again, the idea is that of trust. If we have Jesus, if we run to Jesus, if we come to Jesus, we have the one who has accomplished the salvation that we need.

One wonderful illustration of coming to Christ as faith we find in Hebrews chapter 6, where the writer there makes reference back to the book of Numbers and in the Pentateuch, several places where we have these mentions of the cities of refuge. You remember what they were about. A man has committed accidental homicide. The next of kin has a right to take his life, but if that man who has committed the accidental homicide can make his way quickly to a city of refuge, there he’s safe, and there the case can be heard and adjudicated. But in the city of refuge, he’s safe, and the next of kin cannot touch him. In the book of Hebrews, it uses that language of those of us who have fled for refuge to Christ. It’s a wonderful illustration of faith. Here’s a man who’s become aware of his sin. He sees his guilt. He sees that he deserves condemnation. He’s like the pilgrim in Pilgrim’s Progress who, running from the city of destruction, has to find a way to be safe, and he runs for refuge to Jesus. And so we have the language of hiding in Christ. Our hymns are filled with that. Hiding in Jesus. Here the avenger of blood is coming, and in fact in this case it is God himself in judgment who is coming. Where in the world could you find a place to be safe from God’s judgment? Answer: only Jesus. You’ve got to run to him for refuge. You’ve got to hide in him. All of that is stressing this idea of faith as trust, utter reliance upon Jesus, an abandonment of our souls to him. We rest on him to be our safe hiding place.

While we have others, looking to Christ is an important one. We find that in the book of John in particular—seeing Christ, looking to him. We have that illustrated in the book of Numbers with the incident of the serpents that had infected the camp and people were being bitten and dying, and Moses put up the pole; look to that and be saved. This is the appointed means of deliverance, and so Jesus says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes on Him will have eternal life.” So He, like that serpent erected on the pole in the wilderness, He is the appointed means of deliverance, and we are safe only as we look to Him. You can look everywhere else; it won’t help. You’ve got to look to the right place, to the appointed means of deliverance.

One of my favorite, I think one of the most graphic illustrations of faith or metaphors for faith in the New Testament, is in the Gospels, where Jesus speaks of it as becoming like a little child. “Except you turn or except you humble yourself and become like a little child, you will not see the kingdom of God.” And you’ve struggled over that passage. What does it mean? Is God commending humility there? I don’t think that’s the point at all. The idea is that of utter abandonment to Christ. The mark, the characteristic of a little child—he’s speaking of little children; the mark of little children, picking them up into his arms—the mark of a little child is he’s helpless. He can’t do it himself. Whatever it is, he can’t feed himself, he can’t take care of himself. Left to himself, he’ll die. He’s helpless. He’s completely dependent on his parents for everything. And Jesus says, unless you come to me like that, helpless and utterly dependent upon him, you’ll not enter the kingdom. Again, the ideas are of utter reliance and trust and rest, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, and in our helplessness, running to Him with complete dependence upon Him to give us the safety that we seek.

There are many others in the New Testament: calling on the name of the Lord. Picture of a man in distress, crying out for help. It’s an expression of faith. We have others in the New Testament: hoping in Christ, even matters of rejoicing in Christ, exalting in Christ, boasting in Christ. All of these are expressions that reflect a sense of trust and dependence upon Christ alone to save us. That’s the language of faith. Trust, dependence, abandonment to Christ, resting in him. You recognize that you can’t save yourself. You recognize that you’re in danger of divine judgment. And you run to Christ, placing all the hope of eternal destiny in his hands. That’s saving faith. It is trust. Like that song that we sing: “Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on thee.” Saving faith is trust and utter reliance upon Jesus to save us.

Now that’s important for us to see for this next point that I want to emphasize then.

What Is The Value Of Saving Faith?

And some important distinctions are important here. What is the value of saving faith? On one level, that’s an easy question. Everywhere in the Bible, faith is said to be the means by which we are justified. We have read that now in Romans 3. We see it in Romans 4. We see it all over the New Testament. We see it particularly emphasized in Paul. Believe and be saved. Believe and be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. The value of justification by faith, the value of faith, is that it is the means of justification.

But now, as I said, there’s some important distinctions here that are very important with some enormously practical ramifications that we understand it. When we speak of faith as the means of justification, we’ve got to be careful—or the cause of justification. Because on one level, faith is not the means of justification; Jesus is. And when we say we are justified by faith, we are not saying that faith, our faith, has become some kind of good work that God rewards us for. “God’s happy now that you believe, and so he’ll justify you.” That’s not the point. Christ is the meritorious cause of faith. It is on the ground of what he has done we are justified. It’s not on the ground of our faith; it’s on the ground of Christ. But faith is the instrumental means of justification in that through faith, we receive Jesus, who is for us the righteousness that God requires.

Now these are fine distinctions, but they’re very important. Because it’s important for us to understand that on one level you can say it is faith that saves, but on the narrowest level, it is Christ who saves, and we have Christ through faith. That’s an important distinction. Why is that important? It’s important because we understand that what is necessary for salvation is Christ. And the value of faith is not found in faith itself. The value of faith is found in its object.

We live in a world today with all of its spirituality, and it’s wide open for spirituality today. You can believe anything. Faith is very much in vogue. You can believe. The question is—you see it on billboards—you’ve got to believe. In what? Trust. In what? Trust in what? And the whole emphasis of the New Testament is that your faith is the instrumental means of salvation, justification, not because your faith itself has value, but because of the object of your faith: Christ.

Many years ago when I was in seminary, one day I was browsing through the periodical room of the library. You come across all kinds of ideas in the library, particularly in the periodical room. Some good, some bad, some very bad. But you’re there for training; you’re there to acquaint yourself, no sense hiding from these things. Spending some time looking through the theological journals and whatnot, I came across an article dealing with a subject that has become quite the subject again in our day, and that’s the question of what we call inclusivism or exclusivism. Is the gospel exclusive? Is it through Christ alone? Or can sincere people in other religions be saved also? Many of us felt like it was a particular betrayal of the gospel when Billy Graham, a number of years ago, being interviewed with Robert Schuller, said that people in other religions who don’t know about Jesus and they’re sincere would be in heaven as well. Christians have never taught that. There’s one appointed Savior. There’s one promised Savior. There’s one qualified Savior. He has come. He’s God incarnate. He has lived the perfect life. He’s offered himself as a propitiation to God. He’s the only way.

Well, this article was dealing with that question. It was coming up on the other side of it, and he argued his case through it. And at the toward the very end of the article, he gave what was not a strong argument, but a very strong emotional argument. He made references—this is back from some years ago—he made reference to a war criminal from Japan from World War II. He was up for war crimes, and he was going to be executed. After he was executed, they went back into his cell, and they found a drawn-out story—and it’s very emotive. They look on the cell, and he’s etched a poem on the wall of his cell. And the last line of the poem reads, “I’m resting in the arms of Buddha.” And the guy writing the article says, “How is his faith any better than yours?”

You see, it’s the wrong question. That’s a very strong faith. The question is not what is the quality of the faith. The question is the quality of the object of the faith. Buddha can’t save. Buddha isn’t the appointed savior. Jesus is the appointed savior, the promised savior, the God incarnate who has come and lived a perfect life and offered himself in our place. He is the appointed savior. And you can have the best faith in the world, but if it’s not in a worthy and a saving object of faith, that faith is worthless. You can trust in yourself, you can trust in this preacher, you can trust in church and your religious activities—it won’t do you any good. What makes faith valuable is its object. And if our faith is not in an object that is able to save, however, whatever quality that faith may have, it is useless.

Now this answers, as I said, this is important with practical ramifications. This is very important to answer a question that’s commonly asked by Christians. You may be one who’s asked it: “I know that I’m a sinner. I know that I’m condemned without Jesus and I’m trusting in Jesus, but I wonder if my faith is strong enough.” You ever ask that? And you see, again, it’s the wrong question. The question is not: Is your faith strong enough? The question is: Is the one in whom you are trusting able to save? And a very strong faith in a weak Savior won’t do you anything. But even a weak faith in a strong Savior is all you need. The value of faith is its object.

This whole series of messages that we’ve been preaching from beginning to end—beginning with redemption planned in eternity past, and God’s electing grace, to redemption accomplished in the work of Jesus, now to redemption applied—this whole series has been an attempt to drive us to see the utter and the singular reliability of Jesus Christ as the Savior, as the one who alone is worthy of trust. And all throughout, we have seen that the call of all of it is for us to trust in him, to go to him, to call to him, to grab hold of him, to run to him for refuge. Express it as you will. Forsake all others and take him and him alone.

This is the unique suitability then of faith as the instrumental means of salvation. When Paul says we are justified by faith alone, he’s saying we’re now—when we say we’re justified by faith alone, we are now maintaining grace and upholding the law and upholding righteousness. Because when we say we are saved by faith, we’re saying we’ve done nothing. God has done it all by grace through Jesus on the ground of a perfect fulfilling of righteousness for us.

Now I want you to see how Paul reasons that way in Romans 4 verse 16. “That is why it depends”—this is Romans 4:16—”that is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace.” You see that? You see the logic? It depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace. It depends on faith, so that it may depend on grace. His point here has to do with the nature of saving faith. It’s by faith, so that it may be by grace. So faith is the suitable means because it’s consistent with grace. Faith is the suitable means because it maintains that Christ has done the work. It’s not a work. Faith is not a work for which we’ve been rewarded. God doesn’t look at us and say, “Well, they’re good believers. Let’s save them.” Faith is not a doing. Faith is just trusting in what God has done. And in that sense, faith both maintains grace and upholds God’s righteous demands that are met in the object of our faith, Jesus.

J.C. Ryle, an Anglican bishop in the 19th century, writes this. I think it’s very helpful: “True faith has nothing whatever of merit about it, and in the highest sense cannot be called a work. It is but laying hold of a Savior’s hand. It brings with it nothing to Christ but a sinful man’s soul. It gives nothing. It contributes nothing. It pays nothing. It performs nothing. It only receives, takes, accepts, grasps, and embraces the glorious gift of justification which Christ bestows.”

In other words, faith—it’s just trust. Trust in someone else. A dependence, an abandonment, a resting in Christ, a receiving of Christ, a treasuring of Christ in that sense, recognizing that he is the one and the only one who can save. And so, when we say that we are justified by faith, it’s not only consistent with grace; it’s affirming grace. When we say we’re justified by faith, we’re saying that we have become like little helpless children, bringing nothing and simply receiving from Christ what God requires of us. Faith as trust is an explicit confession of our helplessness before God. And faith is an explicit affirmation of the sole adequacy of Jesus.

When we go to God in faith, we’re confessing that we have nothing to offer. We’re confessing all that we have is Jesus. When we go to God in faith, what we are saying is that, “God, I have nothing to give you. All I have is your promise in Jesus, who has done for sinners what you require of them.” And that’s why it is so important to the Apostle Paul to insist that justification is through faith alone. It maintains grace and upholds the justice of God. To put it in terms of the slogans of the Reformation that you’re familiar with: by faith alone, by grace alone, by Christ alone, to God alone be the glory.

Do you see how Paul reasons that here in Romans 4:16? It depends on faith in order that the promise may be of grace. He’s saying it’s by faith alone because it is by grace alone. And it is by grace alone because it is by Christ alone. And in that way, God alone receives the glory. And that’s why in chapter 3, verses 27 and following, Paul goes on this brief explanation of how faith silences boasting. If you could approach God based on your performance—anything you’ve contributed to it—you’d have room for boasting. Paul says not even Abraham could do that. God will never be obliged to anyone. God is never indebted. We come to him as paupers.

We come to God and we say we’re justified by faith alone. We’re saying we have nothing, and Jesus is our only hope; that’s it. And this is both the glory and the scandal of the gospel. When we insist that justification is through faith alone and you can’t contribute anything—well, if you’re sitting there full of yourself, and you feel self-sufficient, and you think that you’ve got something to offer, then this is insulting. It’s scandalous. I’ve preached in those congregations. It makes us feel like we’re worms. But if you’re a sinner, and you know you are helpless, and you feel desperate, then this is glorious news: that there is a Savior, and He can be had by faith alone, as God requires nothing of us. And this is then how we exalt and rejoice in Jesus.

And this then is the suitability of justification by faith. Faith is the instrumental means of justification. And when we say that we are justified by faith alone, we are confessing that I have nothing to bring to the table. I’m confessing my helplessness. “Lord, I have nothing.” And at the same time, we are affirming the whole adequacy of Jesus—that all the work that saves, he’s done it. And I have it because I have him. But the whole ground of my acceptance before God is what Jesus has done, not what I’ve done. He’s my only hope. He’s my only plea. He’s all I have.

And the kicker is he’s enough. It’s all I need. If I have Jesus, I have enough. And that’s why we sing, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.” “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.” And this message of justification by faith alone rubs you, makes you feel like a worm. I’m okay with that. What you need more than anything is to sense your helplessness. What you need more than anything is to see that your feelings of self-sufficiency will not do you well in the long run. What you need is to see that Jesus is the only way.

And if, on the other hand, you are a believer, what we ought to do every day of our lives is reaffirm and reaffirm and remind ourselves over and over again: Jesus is enough. That’s all I need. There was a chorus that we sang in Sunday school when I was a kid. We sang it in church some, too. It’s one of those choruses that probably could be criticized because it only says one thing. But the one thing that it says, it’s just wonderful. We sing it all the time:

“Christ is all I need. Christ is all I need. All, all I need. Christ is all I need. Christ is all I need. All, all I need.”

That was the song. And we ought to reaffirm and remind ourselves of that every day. We say we’re justified by faith alone. This is not some party spirit. This is our confession. And I have nothing, Jesus has everything, and I have him. Amen.