#79 - The Three Angles of Saving Faith: Trusting Christ Alone
In this episode of Gospel Talks, George Binoka sits down with Jeff Musgrave, founder of The Exchange, to explore one of the most powerful tools in relational evangelism: helping people understand and embrace true saving faith. Drawing from Chapter 4 of The Exchange Bible study, they unpack the three essential elements of saving faith—understanding, agreeing, and personally trusting in Jesus Christ.
George and Jeff discuss why grace is often so difficult to accept, why humans tend to trust themselves instead of God, and how religious “works-based” thinking can obscure the simplicity of the gospel. Through vivid illustrations—from walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls to transferring faith from works to Christ—they reveal how believers can clearly communicate the gospel to friends, neighbors, and even those coming out of other religions.
Whether you’re discipling, evangelizing, or simply wanting to deepen your own faith, this episode equips you to see how people move from intellectual agreement to personal trust in Christ, and how the Holy Spirit works through the Word to transform lives.
Transcript
Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world
become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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:My name is George Binoka and with me is my dear friend and brother in Christ, Jeff
Musgrave.
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:He's the author, founder of The Exchange and we're excited to be with you guys.
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:We're gonna be talking about what I think is one of the most helpful tools, especially
during my time in Africa as a missionary.
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:I found this to especially be helpful when witnessing to folks that are coming out of a
religion.
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:that uses similar terms to biblical Christianity and all those things.
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:But there is a triangle at the end of, or I think the middle of chapter four, Jeff, of the
Exchange Bible study.
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:It's the three elements of saving faith.
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:you know, we talk about what is faith.
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:And I think that's such an important question to answer, especially for our friends who
are religious, but
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:don't have a relationship with Jesus.
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:This is so important to not creating confusion in their life because so many people define
faith differently.
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:what would you, as you put together this chapter, Jeff, what was the logic behind that
section?
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:back all the way up to the beginning of the of the lesson.
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:helping people understand grace, because grace is not something I earn.
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:mean, by it very nature by its very definition, grace is a gift that can only be received
as a gift.
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:It's not something I deserve.
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:And it's not something that I that I even can can earn.
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:it is literally a gift and helping person start with that.
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:So we start with the recognition that God is gracious.
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:And so we kind of point to some verses that help us see his graciousness, but then begin
to help people recognize that that grace means that God is giving to us what we don't
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:deserve.
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:And in fact, we use a definition, bit of an oversimplification.
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:grace is God giving me what I don't deserve.
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:And mercy is God not giving me what I do deserve.
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:But but helping people to recognize that God's grace and mercy is is really from him.
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:It's based on his nature, just like God is holy comes from his nature, and that God is
just comes from his nature.
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:And it got his loving it.
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:He doesn't love me because I'm so lovable.
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:He loves me because his love nature demands that he reach out to me.
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:He loves me.
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:I mean, it's not it's his nature to love.
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:What's God's nature to be gracious.
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:And I love the Ephesians three where it tells us the purpose of the church is to
demonstrate to the angels, the beauty and it uses this word that kind of comes
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:from variegated beauty of his grace, that literally God had to have something worthless
and rebellious to redeem, to be able to show the angels an aspect of his character that
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:would never have shown up in a perfect heaven.
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:It had to have a sinful earth with sinful people to for God to be able to pour out grace
and mercy on.
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:Mmm, I love that You know grace is is so beautiful.
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:It's so rich it also for some reason I don't know why you could help me answer this Is so
uncomfortable a concept to so many people that would maybe be called religious I don't I
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:don't know why grace as Simple as it is is so hard to accept
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:Yeah, I think that it all comes back to recognizing the fullness of our sinfulness.
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:So I mean, that's why we have to start all the way back at holiness.
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:When we don't get grace, it's because we think we could earn it.
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:We think we could get close enough to God if we're just good enough and that God should
love me and be okay with me just the way I am.
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:And we don't realize the awfulness of our sin to the holiness of God.
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:And that's why grace doesn't jump out at us because we don't, I actually think that as we
downplay that the horrors of hell, we downplays the beauty and the glory of grace.
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:Yeah, think grace is so important.
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:that's logically where you start grace and what do you go to next?
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:Well, I...
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:the phrase saving faith is where we illustrate the triangles to helping people see the
three different angles or elements of saving faith.
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:And this came from, at least to me, a book called the title of it went away from me just
now.
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:thinking only of the title of the chapter he wrote.
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:But all of grace, that's I'm sorry, I just remembered it's by Charles Spurgeon.
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:And it was an 8289 page gospel tract that he wrote.
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:And he had different chapters.
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:And in one of the chapters is a contrast between what he calls common faith, and saving
faith.
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:Common faith would be that I understand these concepts, and I agree with them.
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:And what I find is that most religious people, when they get to this point, okay, I
believe that.
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:mean, what everything you've been telling me, I believe that that's common faith, common
faith is understanding it and agreeing with it.
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:But then what what Spurgeon did was he added a third element.
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:In fact, all he's doing is extracting this truth from Scripture.
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:And the third element is that I personally am going to choose to
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:trust or to depend on what God has done.
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:So that's the that's the element of saving faith that most people miss.
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:So if you could imagine that triangle, one element being I understand the second being I
agree.
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:But that third angle being I'm going to personally trust I'm going to personally put my
dependence on what Jesus Christ did for me.
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:I love that.
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:You know, it's really interesting considering the question I just asked you a moment ago,
you know, why grace is so tough to accept.
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:So then, you you think about this as well.
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:is it easier for us to trust ourselves and try to, you know, kind of earn our salvation,
so to speak, than it is to trust God?
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:Because if that's really the key, is this third angle, I guess you could say,
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:besides understand and agree, which a lot of the world might actually do understand and
agree.
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:But I found in Africa, so many people on the street will tell you, yeah, no, believe me, I
understand and I agree with you because they were even taught in school in Africa, in
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:Kenya, that this is the gospel, okay?
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:But then this trust and depend is really tough.
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:And...
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:Why do we trust ourselves?
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:Why don't we trust God?
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:Well, don't you think that number one, we have all been let down by every single human in
the world.
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:There's not a human that is completely trustworthy.
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:And I think that it's hard for people to recognize the full trust worthiness of of God.
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:So I think that it's almost by default, there's no one else to trust.
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:And if I just keep trying harder, if I just keep, you know, a little bit more,
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:I don't have anybody else to trust.
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:Yeah, and I mean, there's part of me that's got to believe too that there has to be a
pride element in, you I trust myself with it.
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:mean, it's, it's, you know, there's a sense in which Satan was saying was, you know,
trying to do something himself when he rebelled against God and trusted himself more than
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:he trusted God.
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:And so this is what kind of led up to that rebellion.
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:And so I got to imagine that it's another way of rebelling against God is saying, you
know, I can do it.
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:It's okay.
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:Or I'll help you.
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:You know.
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:which is kind of interesting because what that means is that the religions of work are
actually religions of rebellion.
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:I will do it my way.
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:Which the reason that rebellion is so easy is because we there is another enemy in this
world who has been for years speaking into the
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:hearts and minds of humans and telling them there's another way.
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:And this way lifts you and and all of the self love and all of the self worth and the self
ability that we see in the world.
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:That that voice is not coming from the Bible that voice is not coming from God.
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:And there is another voice in this world.
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:And I think that that voice, you know, it
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:even in the very garden before Adam and Eve fell, what really appealed to Eve was that
voice telling her, hey, you could be like God, you know, you could elevate yourself.
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:So yes, that other voice is really strong in this world.
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:You know, what's interesting about that is, you know, we know Satan had a desire to be
God.
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:We know he had a desire to usurp him, right?
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:Take his place.
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:And that that was the same lie he sold Adam and Eve.
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:And I think that when we decide we want to help with our salvation, kind of sort of save
ourselves, we in a sense are saying like Satan did or Adam and Eve did, we want to be like
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:God.
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:not just like Him in quality, like we want to be Him in a sense.
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:And so I think it's very important for people to understand.
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:I think that's what I love about this chapter too, chapter four of the Exchange Bible
study.
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:You can't.
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:You're not.
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:That's not who you are.
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:That's not who we are.
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:We are not God.
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:And only God can do this thing.
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:I think that's...
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:have based on what you just said, I want to back up just a little bit.
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:And when we do the exchange Bible study with unbelievers, we need to remember that those
are those are the underlying philosophies that drive this.
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:But the fact is, your average Joe on the street is just trying to do the right thing.
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:He's just trying.
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:mean, I learned in church that I'm supposed to be good.
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:I learned in church that I'm supposed to say these
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:words that are good.
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:And they really don't know.
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:And so we we have to be careful saying everything we know about them.
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:They're just trying the best.
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:And I have found many times when I show people this three angles of saving faith, it's
like, oh, that that that kind of makes sense.
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:And so what we do then
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:is we we the the Bible study here starts multiple illustrations that help a person
understand.
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:Charles Spurgeon also said, illustrations are windows into the truth.
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:So if you could just imagine what these illustrations in the Bible study do, is they
literally are are letting people come right up to the truth and gaze into the windows so
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:that they're Oh,
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:Oh, I understand.
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:And the problem with most unbelievers is not that they are, I want to be rebellious, I
want to do it myself.
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:There's a there's a piece of that in every human, but they're not thinking that what
they're thinking is, that's what I'm supposed to do.
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:I'm trying my best.
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:And what we want to do is give them illustrations to help them see no, here's what God
said.
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:So if that makes sense.
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:Yes, absolutely.
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:Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, these are, these are lies.
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:mean, they didn't manufacture the lies, right?
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:But these are lies that are underlying, like you said, that they, they might not even be
able to verbalize.
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:This is the philosophy I'm buying into, right?
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:They're just, they're going based off of, this is what I've always heard.
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:and this, this why the truth is such a light to people.
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:It just opens their eyes, like you said.
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:it really is.
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:It's it's kind of cool when people see the truth.
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:I and you and I have said this before, too.
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:The best way to show a crooked line is to draw a straight line.
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:And so rather than for me to say, well, your religion said this and your religion said
this, if I can just help them see the straight line of truth, it's like, yeah, that makes
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:sense to me.
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:So I love and you've seen me use this over and over.
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:I know you've used it.
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:The Blondine illustration, by the way, I didn't, I didn't create that I borrowed that I
think everything that I know I borrowed somewhere.
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:But Blondine stretched a tightrope across the Niagara Falls.
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:He actually did this two summers in a row 19 or excuse me, 1858 and 1860.
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:And he walked across it multiple times and two different times.
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:he carried his manager across on his back.
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:I mean, he was an amazing guy.
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:But he had a wheelbarrow that he would put on the rope and push across.
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:And he would do all kinds of tricks with the wheelbarrow and people would come from miles
to see it.
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:One day, he asked the crowd and if he could put a human in the wheelbarrow if they thought
he could and
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:The crowd said, yes, yes.
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:And the story is told that he said to a man in the front row with his hand in the air
saying, I believe you can do that.
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:So let's just stop for a moment.
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:We're going back to the three angles.
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:I understand it and I agree that you can do it.
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:Those are the two things.
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:That's what he meant when he had his hand in the air and blonde Dean looked at him and
said, you, sir, come get in the wheelbarrow.
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:And again,
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:the guy ran him the other direction.
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:I mean, bolted out of there.
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:And, and so what was wrong?
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:Well, he believed that blonding could put someone someone else in that wheelbarrow, but he
wasn't willing to trust blonding to take him across.
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:And what a beautiful illustration to help a person recognize it is one thing to say, I
believe Jesus can.
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:And it is another thing to say, okay, Jesus,
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:I'm going to trust you with my life.
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:I want to trust you to save myself, to forgive my sins, to cleanse my heart.
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:That's the beauty of that illustration, just helping a person to be able to see it.
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:I get it.
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:That's where I haven't stepped that far yet.
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:Yeah, yeah, and I've been using these illustrations since I was 18 years old.
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:I've preached them to thousands of kids in camp.
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:I've preached them to thousands of young people in schools in Africa.
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:I've used them hundreds of times in preaching and podcasts and whatever.
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:so these, I think one of my favorite ones is coming up next.
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:I think we're gonna go to the river, right?
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:We're gonna talk about.
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:there's another illustration between here and the river.
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:Yeah, but I mean, I just, love these because, yeah, I forget about that one.
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:There's other ones too, by the way.
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:I mean, if you ever get a GPS, a gospel presentation system, it's like a little track that
you can flip through.
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:You practice in a seminar.
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:You practice, there's an illustration about a flag pole, an illustration about a Grand
Canyon jump, all those things.
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:And they are perfect.
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:And by the way, one of the things I realized, they're perfect for all age groups.
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:Kids get them, adults get them, teenagers get them.
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:Gen Z gets them, Gen X gets them, know, whatever, millennials get them, baby boomers get
them.
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:And so these illustrations are powerful because I think when you've taught something over
and over again and you've always thought, okay, if I just do this, it'll be enough, like I
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:hope it'll outweigh whatever God thinks about me.
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:You start to think across those lines.
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:Well, sometimes you need an illustration like this to just kind of
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:dislodge you a little bit I guess like unjar all that you know so
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:what I have done on the Bible study right at this page is I go at what people have heard
over and over and over.
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:And I don't do it from my own words.
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:I do it from the Bible.
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:And so there's about five questions here on these pages dealing with the Blondine
illustration and the next illustration that asks the question about can we add
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:to our faith by working?
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:Is that something that's possible?
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:And in all five of these verses, it the answer is no.
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:So I mean, literally, there's five questions and the answer every single time is the same
answer.
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:But it's five different verses helping a person recognize this is not faith plus works.
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:This is literally faith without works, I'm going to trust in Jesus alone.
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:So with that in mind,
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:we need an illustration to be able to help a person see it.
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:And the illustration is two chairs sitting side by side.
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:One chair represents a person's works.
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:And the other chair represents the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
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:And when a person is sitting in the works chair, they begin to recognize at this point, my
works are not going to get me to heaven.
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:It's not enough.
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:And so they recognize that that Jesus chair, that's the one I need to be sitting in.
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:But I always stop and ask them, so what do you have to do to the chair?
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:And I put two chairs and I actually sit in one.
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:What do I have to do to the chair I'm sitting in?
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:And before I can sit in the chair representing Jesus and his finished work, you know,
that's kind of stupid.
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:And they look at me, well, you have to get out of it.
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:You can't you can't sit in that chair when you're sitting in this chair.
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:So I literally get up and then I use the word transfer.
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:So what I'm going to do is I'm going to transfer my faith from what I have been trying to
do to what Jesus has already accomplished, what he finished, what he did.
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:And then people look at it and say, Oh, oh, yeah, that that makes sense.
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:Well, then I just added a little bit more to it.
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:I sit in between the two chairs.
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:What if?
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:What if I decided
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:that I know my sins aren't enough, but just in case Jesus isn't enough, I'm gonna trust
both my good works and Jesus.
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:Am I really trusting my good works?
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:Do I think my good works are enough?
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:No, I have to have Jesus.
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:Am I really trusting Jesus?
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:No, I have to have my good works.
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:So sitting in the middle of those two chairs, which is where many, many religious people
are.
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:Hmm.
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:trusting Jesus.
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:They know it's important.
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:They know that Jesus died.
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:They get it, but they believe they have to still be good.
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:They believe they have to still give their money to church.
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:They have to be baptized or whatever else it is that's in the list.
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:they're adding to, and really what they're saying is, I don't think Jesus is enough.
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:What God wants us to do is to get out of the chair of works.
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:and sit in the chair with Jesus alone.
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:And I love this.
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:I go straight from that illustration to the river.
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:And so you heard George talking about the river.
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:Niagara River is just above the Niagara Falls, and the current is so swift that there's a
place on it that if a person gets past it, they're going to be drawn over.
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:They're going to be pulled over that the current gets too strong.
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:They call it the point of no return.
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:Hmm.
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:so I asked my friend to imagine what if you were in a rowboat and you absentmindedly got
your point, got your place yourself past that point and you begin to realize it, you turn
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:your boat around and you start rowing away from the waterfall as hard as you can.
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:But you realize the water is too strong.
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:And even though you're rowing away from the waterfall, you're actually still being pulled
towards the waterfall.
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:someone from the shore sees your problem and throws a rope right across your boat and it's
in your lap.
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:Now you have a choice to make.
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:You can keep trying to rescue yourself and die or you can grab the rope.
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:And I always stop right here and I say to my friends, so if you were in that situation,
what would you do?
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:And of course they say I'd grab the rope and then I start making it personal.
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:I say that that water is like your sin.
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:It's pulling you to destruction.
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:And those oars are like your good works, your religious activity.
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:You're trying hard, but it's not enough.
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:And that rope is like Jesus.
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:And what God wants you to do right now is to stop trusting in what you can do and put your
trust in Jesus Christ alone.
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:And I like it because it helps a person actually see it.
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:Hmm.
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:Yeah, it's one of the reasons I know no illustration is foolproof, but I know I love that
illustration because it's it's never failed me what you know when when I've used it and
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:and I think it's such a introspective illustrate it causes you to be introspective because
then you think once you make it personal to them and you go
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:Now that's you.
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:mean, that's where you're at.
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:You're in the boat.
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:You're past the point of no return.
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:You will exert, exert, exert, but it's not going to change what the current's going to do.
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:And you can't overpower the current.
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:It's coming.
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:The end is coming.
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:The rope is now in the boat and you have to make a decision.
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:You're going to keep rowing.
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:You're going to grab the boat.
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:It is, I mean, it hits, it hits like right here, you know, it hits right in the middle of
the chest.
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:People, you bring them to that point of crisis that we talk about all the time in giving
the exchange.
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:This is the point of crisis right here.
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:What are you gonna do?
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:You have to turn left or right.
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:This is not a mile post.
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:It's a fork in the road.
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:You gotta make a decision because what's at stake is your eternity.
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:Yeah.
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:And one of the things that maybe we ought to do a episode on uh natural invitation,
because I believe that there are a couple of things that people have to recognize is
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:number one, I have sinned, I am guilty.
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:And number two, Jesus is the solution.
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:And so you have this
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:faith and repentance concept that both are important.
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:And I don't know that we have time to get into that again today.
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:But but before I would draw that net and help a person to really be able to make a
decision, I would want them to be able to see the whole of the decision they're making.
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:Maybe that can be the next episode, inviting people to the gospel.
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:So there's a lot of people who feel like invites don't work anymore.
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:You should just kind of leave it open-ended and not really, and we make a big deal out of
bringing people to a decision is an important thing.
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:By the way, let me just say this about that.
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:If a person decides I need time, we want to give them that that's why we developed other
tools.
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:What we do want them to see is that there is a decision to be made.
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:So in other words, if I don't give an invitation, if I don't say to them, would you like
to trust Jesus, then I haven't I haven't helped them to see the whole picture.
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:um So we're not going to push anybody to do anything.
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:The Holy Spirit is the one who has to draw someone.
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:But we do want them to know here is the point at which you interact with the gospel.
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:Yeah, yeah, and in 2 Peter 3, it tells us that God has a tremendous amount of patience,
which is why he's long suffering, which is why he's giving time right now.
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:And we ought to have a tremendous amount of patience when we're working with people,
because they might not be ready.
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:But I mean, what's that story at Tina in Texas?
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:You know, 10 years to win somebody to Christ, but it's worth it, you know?
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:That takes a tremendous amount of patience, but that doesn't even begin to capture the
amount of patience that God has with us.
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:So we can have it.
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:that one of things we want to be able to do is trust the Holy Spirit.
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:We're not the ones who make people make decisions.
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:We can trust the Holy Spirit.
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:We do, we are the ones who give information.
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:We're helping people see the fullness of the Bible message.
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:And so we're going to give the whole message, but we're going to trust the Holy Spirit to
do the work in a person's heart.
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:Yeah, yeah, 100%.
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:Anything else before we jump out?
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:This has been a great episode.
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:I love this portion of the Exchange Bible study.
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:Part of the reason I love this portion is because I have just watched over and over and
over.
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:At this point, someone say no, I want to put my trust in Jesus right now.
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:And it's just so exciting to be able to help.
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:I love the Exchange Bible study because it
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:It kind of walks your friend through it.
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:It's not something I have to teach.
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:We like to think of it as inductive.
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:And it draws that invitation, that decision by itself.
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:I don't have to make it happen.
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:The Bible study makes it happen.
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:And I just have enjoyed being able to know I can trust the Holy Spirit and I can trust the
power of the Word of God to just keep doing its work.
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:And so from all the way from I don't know if I believe this is true to I want to trust
Christ.
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:It's taken us probably I mean, depending on who the person is a month to get through this
Bible study.
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:But in the process of doing so God does an amazing work.
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:And and people's lives are genuinely transformed.
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:We watched them walk from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light literally from
the family of Satan to
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:this transfer into the family of God.
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:It's beautiful.
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:It's wonderful.
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:I every time I do it, I think I just want to go do it again.
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:Right, yep, amen.
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:Yeah, I'm getting that itch right now myself being in a new place.
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:It's time to go make some relationships with unbelievers and my neighbors and start to go
down this road.
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:m
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:isn't it easy?
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:It's interesting, even in the middle of ministry, it's easy for us to get so swamped with
with duties with responsibilities that we just don't have time in our lives for
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:unbelievers.
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:And I we just have to remind ourselves on a regular basis, I need to go connect with
someone who needs Jesus.
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:Yep.
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:Yes.
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:I've been guilty of that for about two months.
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:So I think I'm now at a point where I've said to myself, you know what?
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:We're busy.
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:Everybody's busy.
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:Life is busy.
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:It can wait, but this can't wait.
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:And that's where we have to make decisions as believers and say, you know, I'm not going
to let busyness drown out important things.
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:I'm not going to let the urgent things drown out the important things.
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:And we're going to do the important.
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:things intentionally.
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:And that's, I think our whole lives as believers, we have to make that decision over and
over and over again for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of Jesus.
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:We have to go in and be laborers in the harvest.
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:So we ask you guys to pray with us as we pray to God and ask him for laborers so that he
could send laborers into ours because we know that the harvest is plenteous but the
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:laborers are few.
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:So we urge you to keep praying to God that he'd raise up laborers.
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:We love you guys.
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:We'll see you next week.
