Faith Connects One With the Mediator

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