Knowing God Well Enough to Believe Him
Knowing God Well Enough to Believe Him (Expressing your Faith)
March 27th and 28th, 2004
Review:
We talked about discipleship and beginning in Christ. We mentioned that discipleship is publicly identifying with Jesus and learning to obey Him. We looked at authority and how our response to that should be then finally we looked at your authority. You are sent as an ambassador of Christ to represent Him. Who we are in Him as new creations is so astounding that it takes a revelation to understand it. The revelation is understanding who we are now in Christ by understanding who He is in us. We have His authority.
-I once heard a story about a missionary family that lived overseas and had a small child. The mother looked out in the back yard and that child was walking up on a coiled snake (cobra or something). The mother called out for the child to come. Without hesitating that child came to its mother. Its obedience saved its life.
-Obedience is the result of knowing and trusting someone.
Hebrews 11
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.
By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
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Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, “Your descendants shall come from Isaac.” Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that’s what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.
By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.
By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph’s sons in turn, blessing them with God’s blessing, not his own—as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.
By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.
By an act of faith, Moses’ parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child’s beauty, and they braved the king’s decree.
By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God’s people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah’s camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king’s blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn’t touch them.
By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.
By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.
By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.
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I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets? … Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
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-Obviously the theme of that Scripture is “faith”.
1. Faith is an expression of your knowledge and understanding of God
Hebrews 11
8 /By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. [2] /
-We need to notice that the emphasis of this verse is what Abraham did not know.
-Yet He knew God had spoken. His faith expressed that God’s plan was good or made sense. He didn’t know what it was.
-All He had to cling to was faith in God Himself.
-The object of faith has sometimes been our faith, Biblical principles, or something else.
-The object of faith is GOD HIMSELF.
Mark 11
22 “Have a faith in God,” Jesus answered.
-About Noah Hebrews 11 says, “His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.”
-About Sarah it says, “/By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said.”[3]/
Jeremiah 30
21 Their leader will be one of their own;
their ruler will arise from among them.
I will bring him near and he will come close to me,
for who is he who will devote himself
to be close to me?’
declares the Lord.
[4]
-We can tell if we are having a struggle in our faith when we simply try to BELIEVE HARDER.
-Faith is an expression of what you believe about God.
-Faith is your heart’s response to the grace of God.
-These people were acting because they trusted God, not just a principle.
-In order to have your faith increased you have to spend time with God hearing Him and discovering what He is really like.
Romans 10 (Message)
/“Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is, Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.[5] /
2. Faith is expressed by your response to God’s Revealed Will
-Faith begins where the will of God is known.
-Faith comes when God speaks. His words are filled with faith and that faith is deposited in your heart when you are sure God spoke to you from His Word or Spirit.
Hebrews 11
/Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.[6] /
1 John 5
13 /I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. [7] /
-The Bible is a leather bound edition of God’s will. I said last week, it is a legal document.
-Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to administrate the will.
-I heard a story about a Christian during the cold war in an oppressive country that was stopped once on her way to church. She didn’t want to tell them where she was going or to lie so she said, MY OLDER BROTHER LEFT ME AN INHERITANCE AND I AM GOING TO A READING OF THE WILL.
-This may be from reading a Scripture or it might be the Holy Spirit making something come alive to you.
-For instance; we built this building after seeing a need, discussing it, toying with ideas, and finally because we were sure it was God’s will.
-I didn’t see a vision, see an angel, hear a voice or anything like that.
-It was more like the result of a relationship.
-The council in Acts said “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”
3. Faith is expressed by your actions
-We all believe the part of God’s Word that we are willing to act on.
James 2
14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless a? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” b and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
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-In other words, sitting in a room and feeling faith doesn’t help. Faith needs to be expressed in an action.
-If you believe Jesus wants to save you, you will act like it and respond to the altar and water baptism.
-If you believe God will take care of you it is an act of faith to write a check and drop it in the bucket.
-Abraham obeyed and WENT.
-Noah trusted and BUILT.
-How is God asking you to express your faith in Him?
4. Faith is expressed by love and concern for others
Hebrews 11
Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
Galatians 5
/6 For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, it makes no difference to God whether we are circumcised or not circumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.[9] /
-Faith got a bad rap for years because people tried to use God instead of use it for God’s purposes.
-God is good, He wants to help you but He also wants to help others.
-We are part of the Hebrews 11 story. They are incomplete without the whole family benefiting.
-They need us to be a part of the story.
-The Hebrew mindset wasn’t individual as much as it was for the community.
-We sometimes think that this church thing is practice so we can go off and do our thing individually.
-This is the real thing.
-Oftentimes people can’t find God’s will for their lives because they are looking for it apart from the people of God.
-If He has given direction and purpose to a people, your purpose is to add your contribution to further His purpose.
-True faith is expressed in love for God and others.
We have authority and a great call in God.
We need you to express your faith with us.
We all need to take some responsibility to believe bigger.
This is a result of knowing Him better.
I am the leader but this is not the Terry show.
I need you to be a person of prayer and bold faith.
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[1]Peterson, E. H. (1995). The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs (Heb 11:1). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.
[2]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Heb 11:8). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Some early manuscripts If you have
[3]Peterson, E. H. (1995). The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs (Heb 11:1). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.
[4]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Je 30:21). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[5]Peterson, E. H. (1995). The message : New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs (Ro 10:1). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.
[6]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Heb 11:1). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[7]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (1 Jn 5:13). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Some early manuscripts dead
b Gen. 15:6
[8]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Jas 2:14). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[9]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ga 5:5). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House.