Original subtitles

there's a story in the New Testament in

Acts chapter 16 where Paul and Silas are

in prison and

there's a violent

earthquake and prisoners are escaping

and there's a jailer there and a jailer

wakes up and he's absolutely dismayed

that everyone is running off and he

finds Paul and he's about to kill

himself the jailer is and Paul stops him

and then the jailer asked this very

famous question to sirs what must I do

to be saved and Paul gives him the short

sweet biblical absolutely beautiful

answer believe in the Lord Jesus Christ

and you will be saved you in your

household to believe in the Lord Jesus

Christ that question what must I do to

be saved there's no more important

question in this life or for the next

life than that question and what we find

here is a wonderful summary of what it

means to have faith in Christ a sort of

faith that saves and how God saves

through faith there are really two key

words here the first is that it's very

first word only only faith in Jesus

Christ see it wouldn't be terribly

controversial to talk about faith people

are into faith and believing something

but when you say only faith is not faith

plus something else is not faith in

addition to your background faith plus

your family of origin faith plus how

many good things you can do for social

justice or faith how many time plus how

many times you can pray it's only faith

and it's faith in Jesus Christ that

there is an object to it many people

will wax on and on about faith and

belief and I'm a person of faith and

you've got to have faith but faith by

itself doesn't mean anything it is the

object of faith which saves us it's not

just being a person who has strong

beliefs a person who's sincere a person

who has a mystical belief in spiritual

things what's faith in Jesus Christ he's

the object it's the object of our faith

which saves us faith

is only an instrument it's not the one

good deed that God says well you don't

have much going for you but you have

faith and I really like that no faith is

what joins us to Christ and then he

saves us it's the object that matters so

if you think about you know I grew up in

a cold a part of the country and so we

would go ice skating and we try to play

and we play hockey and you tiptoe out

onto that first freeze of the year and

you're sort of wondering is this ice

thick enough and you may be on the ice

and somebody may be zipping around

skating with great freedom and they have

a lot of faith in the ice and someone

else is tiptoeing very gingerly and they

have just enough faith to get out on the

ice but what makes both people secure

it's not the level of faith though you

would like to have the strong faith that

zipping around there but it's it's the

thickness of the ice it's the object on

which you're standing that that saves

you and that's that's Jesus Christ so

it's only faith in him and in the other

word which is so crucial here is the

word imputes now that's a maybe a new

word but that is absolutely essential to

the gospel into the Christian faith that

the righteous life that Christ lived is

imputed to us that means it's reckoned

to us it's counted to us it's sort of a

wire transfer of funds and there's a

difference between a righteousness that

is inherent in us infused in us a kind

of righteousness that well look at me

I'm righteous I do righteous things that

that's not what this is talking about

this is talking about the righteousness

of Christ outside of us but because

we're joined to Jesus by faith that gets

counted as our righteousness so that God

can be both the just and the justifier

of the wicked that's the problem in

Romans 3 and that's the good news of the

gospel that though we are still sinners

God justifies us and he is just to do so

not because he waves a magic wand or

says you know sins not a big deal wink

wink but because we belong to Christ and

His righteousness is our righteousness

God can

just and we can be justified