Next Steps: Finding Faith and Community- Believe

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To disciple and empower believers to transform the world for Christ.​

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To cultivate a selfless community of believers transformed by the message of Christ. ​

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Introduction to the Series

Premise: The blessings of God—both eternal and immediate—are granted to those who walk in a faithful covenant relationship with God.

This means, we are no more blessed than when we are walking in a faithful relationship with God. This grants us access to God’s presence, His blessing, and His deliverance [what we call salvation].

This year, we are focusing on a theme entitled Live by the Word. My aim this year is to cover every major aspect of our lives with the word of God. However, in order to improve our life, we must target our soul.

Principle 1: My life prospers as my soul prospers.

3 John 2 KJV 1900

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

Mark 8:36 NLT

And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?

So it is incredibly important to understand our life is only as good as our souls. When we refer to our souls we are referring to:

The condition of living or the state of being alive with healthiness, happiness, exuberance, energy, and vitality.

The Greek word is psyche, which means breath of life. This is the root word from which we get the term psychology. To be direct, it is the part of you that lives forever! While the body may decay and corrupt, the soul [the seat of my feelings, desires, affections, and emotions] lives forever.

So, to fix my life, I must first fix my soul—the thinking, feeling, desiring part of me; the internal part of me.

External habits vs. Internal convictions

Now, many people think they should do something to address the soul by attacking the external aspect of their lives.

Save more money

Adopt a better diet

Get another degree

Find a better network

All of these things are commendable. However, they are not addressing the eternal and internal component of our existence. As a result, many people are stuck in the grind and life is still not getting any better.

Philip Ng is one of the wealthiest people in Singapore, with a net worth of $7.2 billion. He is the chairman of a private property developer company in Singapore and has seen a tremendous amount of success, which was supported by a family of successful leaders. However, this is what he said, “I was always in search of a better life, a better purpose, a better me, a better everything. But I found that [better everything] when I realized that there is no better me or better things without Jesus.”

Principle 2: External/temporary habits/ activities [for success, happiness, and a better life] should be preceded by an internal/ eternal conviction of Jesus Christ.

Save more money = Leave a lasting impact on family and community

Adopt a better diet = live healthy and empowered to exercise the energy to serve others

Get another degree = Equip myself to lead in an industry or lead others

Find a better network = Partner with like-minded people to maximize impact and effort

Every external decision should be provoked by an internal conviction, which means our first step at improving our lives is making a spiritual decision. Christians don’t have good lives, because they work hard at having a good life. They have good lives, because they commit to a spiritual discipline that propels them to a place of goodness. And this godly exaltation is sustainable, while other attempts are temporal.

Four Steps in our Journey with Jesus:

Believe on Jesus

Commit to Jesus

Settle in Jesus

Grow with Jesus

Today we are going to focus on belief and we will discover the other steps/ actions over the next three weeks. However, today, I want you to evaluate which step you are on and what is the next step for you. By the end of this series, I am going to challenge you to make a decision on how you move forward with Jesus.

What is Faith?

As we begin our first step of the series, please turn with me to Romans 10:9-14

Romans 10:9–14 NLT

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?

If you notice in our passage for today, the overarching activity a person is to take in their relationship with God is belief.

What is belief/ faith/ believing? Belief is the acceptance of something that is true and the exercise of trust, confidence, reliance, and dependence in that which is true. It is the thing we can comfortably place our weight on.

How does belief work? Belief must be designated and must be placed. This is why we see the preposition matters [on or in].

John G. Paton, pioneer missionary to the New Hebrides in the Pacific, was hard put to find a word for “believe,” in the sense of trust, in the language of the South Sea Islanders, for whom he was translating the New Testament.

Finally he found the solution, by thus translating the answer of Paul and Silas to the question of the Philippian jailer, “What must I do to be saved?”: “Lean your whole weight upon the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.”Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 185). Bible Communications, Inc.

Illustration: the miniature step ladder faith and chair faith.

So, faith must be placed in or on something that is reliable and dependable enough to support my soul! There are two things we believe:

We believe the gospel

We believe on Jesus

Principle 3: We believe the gospel and on Jesus, because it’s the only thing reliable enough to support our souls.

What is the gospel?

The word gospel is simply means good news or glad tidings. Therefore, when we refer to the gospel, we are referring to the good news about Jesus and His kingdom.

The first message that was preached in the New Testament was the gospel of the kingdom of God.

Mark 1:14–15 NLT

Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”

Notice, there are two things expected from the audience hearing this message:

Repentance- turning

Belief- trusting

The question we should answer is why were they challenged to repent [turn] and belief [trust]? It is because their lives had been deeply marred by sin and there was a natural proclivity to depend on self for the blessings and promises only God can give. The nation of Israel was in a backslidden state and they were trying to work their way out of their chastisement. God was saying to them you must come my way.

Here is the challenge for us: we are fallen creatures. We are full of sin. And as beautiful of a life God wants for us, we cannot have it until we are freed from the slavery of sin, received by God and adopted into His family.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 NLT

Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What is the kingdom? It is the place where Jesus rules and God’s people are accepted to live in total blessings of God.

Why Believe in Jesus?

Two reasons to believe in Jesus:

He is biblically reliable

He is historically reliable

Biblically Reliable:

The Bible tells a story about God’s plan to make of all humanity a family for Himself. However, we were all impacted by the sin of our father, Adam, who, before we did anything, compelled us into sin and death. This is why we indulge in sin. However, Jesus came and rescued us from this bondage.

Romans 5:6–11 NLT

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave is the hallmark event that proves He is reliable enough to place our faith in Him.

And we know He was raised from the grave, because Scripture is reliable and it attests to His resurrection:

Mary Magdalene (John 20:10-18) saw an empty tomb

Mary/ women (Matthew 28:1-10) saw an empty tomb

Peter (1 Corinthians 15:5) saw an empty tomb

Two disciples (Luke 24:13-35) ate with him after his resurrection

Ten disciples (Luke 24:36-49; John 20:19-23) saw wounds and ate with him after his resurrection

Eleven disciples (John 20:24-31) saw his wounds

Seven disciples (John 21) ate with him after his resurrection

All disciples (Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-18) were commissioned by Him after His resurrection

500 men (1 Corinthians 15:6) saw Him

James (1 Corinthians 15:7) saw Him

All the apostles (Acts 1:4-8) saw Him ascend into heaven

Paul (Acts 9:1-9; 1 Corinthians 15:8) saw Him

How do we know the New Testament is reliable? It has an earliest dated copied manuscripts and the most copied manuscripts than any other document of its time.

Caesar’s, Gallic War: 10 manuscripts

Plato’s, Works: 7 manuscripts

Tacitus’ Annals of History: 20 manuscripts

Homer’s, Illiad: 643 manuscripts

The New Testament: 5,000+ Greek; 10,000+ Latin; 10,000+ in other languages

Ceasar’s, Gallic War Written: 100 BC; Earliest Copy: AD 900; Gap: 1,000 years

Plato, Works Written: 400 BC; Earliest Copy: AD 900; Gap: 1,300 years

Tacitus, Annals of History Written: 100 BC; Earliest Copy: AD 1,100; Gap: 1,000 years

Homer, Iliad Written: 900 BC; Earliest Copy: 400 BC; Gap: 500 years

The New Testament Written: AD 45-96; Earliest Copy: c. AD 125 (“P52” fragment of John’s Gospel [AD 85]), Gap: A little as 35 years, the rest less than 500 years

Historically Reliable:

Other sources of the time wrote about Jesus:

Tacitus, 1st century historian wrote, “Christ, the found of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reigning of Tiberius.”

The Babylonian Talmud, a powerful rabbinical text refers to Jesus’s leading of the Jews astray and His crucifixion for such things.

Josephus, 1st century historian, “At this time, there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.”

Pliny the Younger wrote a letter in 112 AD stating, Christians “sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.”

There’s evidence everywhere—both in Scripture and otherwise confirmed historical records. Jesus existed, He did what the Bible said He did—He has risen, and it’s our choice to believe the gospel.

Conclusion

Here’s is the ultimate reason we should believe:

John 3:16 NLT

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

There’s only one way—through Jesus.

Our life does not end here. It lasts forever, and if we want to inherit a good forever life—we should believe in Jesus.