Habakkuk 2:2-5
We have learned from Habakkuk 2:4 that our only hope for salvation is to live by faith. But what is the nature of saving faith?
“Sometimes people pray a prayer and mentally assent to the idea that Jesus is their Savior” (Dever), thinking that this is what the Bible means when it talks about faith. Yet the faith described in Habakkuk is more than that. Yes, we mentally assent to the truth that we have all sinned and that we can never justify ourselves before God by our own righteousness. We also mentally assent to the proposition that God is perfectly holy – “too pure to look on evil” (1:13) – and that our only hope for standing before God is to have the righteousness of Christ applied to our accounts. “But we must do more than mentally assent to these truths. We must trust them. We must turn away from our previous way of life that was ruled by sin, and we must follow Christ” concludes Dever.
In other words, true faith shows itself in trusting God and in living by this faith. Notice again Habakkuk says, “the righteous will live by his faith” (2:4). True Christian faith will show itself in our lives, which will be marked by repentance for sin. Mark Dever reminds us that “this point cannot be stressed enough, particularly among evangelicals who enjoy proclaiming God’s grace (as we should).” It is easy to convince ourselves that we have embraced God’s grace simply because we have assented to a set of propositions. Yet many who think they believe the truth have not really been subjects of God’s saving grace.
One way to know whether you have experienced God’s saving grace is to look at your own life. Do you see a track record of conviction for sin and repentance? Repentance, you know, involves more than feeling bad. It means turning away from the sin about which you feel bad. William Arnot, a Scottish writer, insightfully put it like this: “The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that the one has sins and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.” Do you see the difference? Dever concludes, “The non-Christian might feel bad about a sin, but ultimately, he takes his sin’s side against God and continues in it. The Christian, on the other hand, feels bad and then takes God’s side against his own sin by waging war against it.”
So, what are you struggling with today? What, then, is the difference between you and a child of the world? If you are a Christian, by faith you are living. That is, your faith (your trust, your hope) is prompting you to act against your sin. You experience the Spirit’s work of conviction in your life, and you respond to that conviction by working against your sin.
I hope you can join us this week as we consider the nature of saving faith. We will trace out the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament’s phrase ‘the just live by faith.’ Do you have saving faith?
In Faith Alone,
Pastor Wayne
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