Faith Connects One With the Mediator
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
9/16/2018 AM
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Text:
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John 15;
Lord's Day 7
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Psalters: |
45, 392, 221, 356 |
- Faith’s power.
- The Catechism takes Jesus’ idea (John 15) of believers being grafted into Him and of receiving Him (not accepting Him).
- The figure of grafting.
- Applied: God takes the elect branches from the dead tree of Adam and grafts them into the vine of Christ.
- Faith is given when God implants Christ’s life in the elect at regeneration.
- The figure implies:
- The power (ability) is the ability to believe, which enables the brand to produce good fruit (James 2:17,20,26).
- Faith is not sight (II Cor. 5:7; Romans 8:24,25; Heb. 11:1).
- The essential activity of faith is that of knowing Jesus to be God’s begotten Son (John 3:16-18,36).
- Faith is knowing Whom we have believed (the One with Whom faith unites us, II Tim. 1:12), so we abide in Christ.
- Living branches (on this side of the grave) need pruning and purging, so we produce more and better fruit.
- The activity of faith is like anything living, namely, it should be growing, but sometimes it wanes.
- Bound together with Christ, we have an assured confidence of their salvation.
- The nature of our faith is that we have a certain intellectual knowledge of all that God has revealed in His Word.
- What believers know makes them confident and sure.
- Confidence is a part of friendship and is rooted in the knowledge that we are unchangeably loved (as children with parents).
- Our assurance usually corresponds to the activity of faith.
- This gives us a consciousness of and a sorrow for sin, so we repent, and find forgiveness and peace in Christ.
- The assurance of faith returns, so we know we are more than conquerors through Him.