DAILY TRUTH - Grace Is A Gift, But So Is Faith
Episode Stats
Summary
In the midst of trials and tribulations, God's grace and grace alone is the source of our trust in God. God is sovereign over all things, including our response to Him, our obedience, our trust, and our faith. God does not share glory with man, but with God alone. He is the only one who can give us the faith necessary to receive that grace, and yet even though God provides that trust, he is still within his rights and within His rights to command it.
Transcript
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In less than a year, our podcast has gone from an average of 10,000 downloads a month
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to 50,000 downloads. What made the difference? You leaving us a five-star review. The more
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positive reviews, the more the algorithm picks us up, and more people are confronted by the law
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and gospel of Jesus Christ. Help us press forward the crown rights of King Jesus by leaving us a
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five-star review on your favorite podcast platform thanks if the grace of god is like a baseball then
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faith is like the glove but god gives both he throws the perfect pitch and he gives you the
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glove god does it all we are expected to put our trust in god and not to hedge our bets but to put
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our trust in God alone but it is in the final analysis it is God himself who grants us faith
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that faith is not merely something that can be conjured up manufactured by the will and sheer
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grit of man but faith is something that God provides I believe help my unbelief God gives
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faith. God grows faith, but he does so through sanctification progressively as a process in his
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providence, in his presence. He does all of this. It's all his work. It's all his doing, which is
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why he gets all the glory. God doesn't share glory with man because not because God is petty
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or arrogant god doesn't share glory with man because he's just because he's fair
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and it would be unjust and unfair to accredit man with anything because he hasn't done
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anything god gets all the glory because god does all the work
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including not just grace but providing the faith to receive that grace and yet even though god
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provides that trust he's the one who gives it but he is still within his rights and holy and just
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to command it god commands several things throughout scripture that he ultimately provides
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God commands our obedience but if any man is faithful to obey God's commandments
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then what will we say on that final day when we stand before him and he says well done good and
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faithful servant pro tip I would respond by saying well done good and faithful leader if I followed
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you well at all it's only because you led me well it's not because I hung on to Jesus it's because
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Jesus hung on to me. It's not because I'm a good follower. It's because you're a faithful leader.
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In fact, quite the opposite. There were several times that I, like the one sheep that was led
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astray, I wandered off the beaten path. And it was not that I, because of my own wisdom, because of
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my own righteousness, found my way back to the fold. But instead, the shepherd left the 99.
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to listen to Christ, to obey the commandments of Christ.
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in theological terms, they are not mutually exclusive.
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God can command trust and obedience from his people
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and in the very same instance be the source of faith and trust and the one who girds up our
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obedience. It is him who wills and works in and through you in order to do that which is good
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and pleasing in his sight. That's Philippians. It says, work out your salvation with fear and
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trembling. That's your responsibility. That is God's just, righteous commandment to you. Do it.
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You work out your faith with fear and trembling. And if we finish the verse,
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it goes on to say, it is he who wills and works in and through. Both are true.
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simultaneously true one does not contradict the other there are a few things in scripture that
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to us may be an apparent paradox but in reality in God's reality and in the mind of God and that
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which actually is there is no contradiction at all God commands man has human agency and
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responsibility. And yet God is still meticulously sovereign over all things, including our response
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to him, our obedience, our faith, our trust in such a way that every good and perfect gift comes
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from him. And so he merits all the glory. So what we find in the first six verses of our text
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but also our obligation, although this too is his grace, our obligation to trust God.