The Just Shall Live by Faith
Bob Yandian
We are saved by faith, and then we live by faith. The just, those who have been saved by faith, shall live by faith (Romans 1:17). We receive Jesus as Lord and Savior by faith, then the life of faith begins to grow. Then we find out that there are other things out there that God has for us, and it comes by simple faith in the grace of God.
After you used your faith toward God's Son Jesus Christ, did you use it to mature and become His disciple? Did you use faith toward others to lead them to Jesus and to bring them spiritual growth? Or did you use it for yourself? Did you just heap it on yourself and not use it toward the things of God? God does not want us to use our faith only on things for ourselves. Faith can be used for finances, faith can be used for our healing, but that's not the highest desire God has.
Oftentimes you meet people who only want to talk about how God is blessing their life. Don’t get me wrong, that's wonderful. But God said, the main purpose of why He left us here was to win souls. That's why Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15)." All the world means your world. When you put us all together, we can reach the entire world. This is what God's desire is. My world is my life, my family, those around me, the people I work with, that's the same way with you, we are to lead people to the Lord.
Airplane Witnessing
I love to witness on airplanes. The main reason is because they can't go anywhere. They're stuck there for a while. And I can just strike up a conversation. One day I got on the plane and the Holy Spirit spoke to me as a young man sat next to me and said, "He's ready to receive Jesus." I mean, it was just that clear. We were sitting there talking and I asked the young man where he was from and what he did. He was a student, and he said, "Now what do you do?" See, if I ask them what they do, they'll usually ask me what I do. I said, "I’m a pastor." I was a pastor at the time. "What kind of church do you have?" And I told him. His eyes just lit up. And I said, "You're ready to receive Jesus, aren't you?" He answered, "Yes!"
He told me that a couple of his friends had been telling him about Jesus. He kept telling them, “no. " Then the day before we met he realized he needed Jesus but didn’t remember how to receive Him. He said, "I woke up this morning and said, God, would you send somebody that will be able to tell me how I'm supposed to receive you?" And we sat right next to each other on the plane. God arranged the whole thing. I mean, before the plane was off the ground, he accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Supernatural Witnessing
I love to witness to people on planes and depend on the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why God gave you the Holy Spirit. "You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you to be my witnesses (Acts 1:8)." Witnessing is supernatural. It's not just you figuring out four spiritual laws or putting together a bunch of rules on how to lead somebody to Jesus. No two people are the same. Jesus never won two people the same. He depended on the gifts of the Spirit. He worked in word of knowledge.
Remember what Jesus said to Nathaniel who ended up being one of the disciples. Jesus said, "Nathaniel, I saw you sitting under a tree." Nathaniel said, "You must be the Son of God," and accepted Him.
Jesus used word of knowledge to witness to the woman at the well. He talked about her husband. She said, "Well, I don't have a husband." He said, "You're right. You don't have a husband. The one you're living with now is not your husband. You've had five husbands before this." And she said, "You must be a prophet." And she accepted Him as Savior and told a bunch of people from town and they accepted Him as Lord and Savior as well.
Filthy Rags
But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Isaiah 64:6 NKJV
If we try to come to God with our righteousness, we're coming with the wrong thing. Let me tell you what God considers your righteousness to be. Your niceness, your kindness. You've fed others, you've taken care of people. You go to church quite often, you're moral, you haven't run around on your wife. All these things that we present to God. Isaiah 64:6 says "Our righteousnesses." Notice that is plural. You might have a list of them. “Our righteousnesses in front of God are as filthy rags." God says, Your works stink. He doesn’t want them. Man's righteousness when compared to God's righteousness look yellow when compared to freshly fallen snow.
I read an interesting article one time. Before modern times, before we had color swatches, they would take something white like clothing and lay it next to snow. They said it was almost impossible for a human being to find something that was pure white. Because when you laid what looked white next to snow, it looked yellow. So, it is with the law placed next to God, it is white upon white. The law is perfect, but man's works trying to keep that law, although they may look white to you, appear yellow by comparison.
The Purpose of the Law
God didn't give us the law to save us. God gave us the law to teach us how to get saved. The law was simply a set of rules. Man said, "We want it, God. We know we can keep it." And God said, "No you can't." They said, "Yes, we can." So, God said, "Let's start with ten." They couldn't even keep those ten. He gave them hundreds of other rules after that. But to offset breaking the rules, He gave sacrifices.
What does this mean? You cannot consistently keep the law. You'll break it every single time and you’ll keep on trying and trying. You may do it for a few days, but then you're going to break them. You cannot keep them. You are not righteous. Only a righteous man can keep these laws.
The Sacrifice
Then, how do we get righteousness? That’s why God put the sacrifices in there. The sacrifices were the answers to the laws we couldn't keep. And the sacrifices showed we need a substitute that will die and shed his blood for us. That's what the lambs, and the pigeons, and the rams did. All the different types of sacrifices that they offered before the Lord. This was showing them a substitute had to come. His name was Jesus.
The law did two things. Number one, it says you're a sinner. Number two, it says you need a Savior. Carrying a Bible won't make you a Christian. Having a ton of Bibles in your house will not make you a Christian. Having your name is on the church rolls will not make you a Christian because works do not impress God before you are saved. After salvation good works impress Him because then we have the Holy Spirit living in us. We're showing the world and showing God that I truly do love You and my works now match up to my faith. Faith produces works. Works do not produce faith.
The Law Cannot Save You
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. James 2:10 KJV
Ask yourself a question. If there's a chain holding a boat to shore and has ten links in it, how many links have to break for that boat to go drifting off? Just one, and that's exactly what happens. Your life goes drifting because you can't keep the commandments of God. But God has given us a chain that cannot be broken. If we walk with God and commit a sin, we ask him to forgive us (1 John 1:9). Our chain holds us there.
The law without faith in God and His word is simply rules. Rules, even when kept, cannot save you. The law is a mirror. You can't wash the dirt off your face by looking in a mirror. The longer you look in the mirror, the more discouraged you can become. But the mirror can let you know you have dirt on your face and send you to water and soap to clean you.
The law can only give information. It's like a mirror. It can't remove the dirt off you. It just simply informs you, you're filled with dirt, and the remedy is going to the Lord Jesus Christ and asking Him to save you. Then His blood washes and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. This is salvation God's way. It's simple, it's pure. It demands nothing from us except we use the faith He gives us.
Jesus' life cannot save us. Because He kept the law, He too is like snow when we compare our lives to Him. We look yellow compared to the Lord. We are not as clean as He is. We can only be saved by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Only on the cross did Jesus take our sins and offer to us His righteousness. Then we can have the power to live the life that Jesus died for.
We're not saved by good works, but we're saved unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). God asks us once we are born again to begin to live for Him and offer good works to Him. We lay hands on sick people to see them recover. We rejoice in their healing, not the fact that it came through us. We rejoice in the fact that God has healed them. We lead other people to Jesus Christ, and we don't brag on the fact that we were the one that witnessed to them. No, we brag on the fact that we just gave them information and God saved them and they accepted Jesus.
The Bible simply tells us all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). This is all of mankind. All people on the earth have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Why? They sinned when they were born into this earth because we were born in Adam, and in Adam, all died. But one day we shifted and changed over, accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. In Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22). In other words, keep witnessing about Jesus simple. That's the way God wants it.
