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Our Theme is “Rebuilding the House of God”
Do you remember who you are?
Is your spirit stirred?
Are you ready to rebuild the house of God?
Today we will be laying the foundation.
This evening I will speak on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.
The church is build on the foundation of Apostles and Prophets.
Some people say that the Prophets are the old testament and the Apostles are the new testament.
But it is still true that in these last days we have Apostles and we have Prophet who, if they can work together, will restore the foundations of the church.
But before we can talk about that, there is another foundation that is deeper and even more important.
It is the foundation of faith.
Before anything else, you must have faith.
Paul writes to the Romans that faith is power and faith is life.
It is how we know God.
It is the basis for our covenant with God.
Yes our covenant is by Jesus’ blood, but it is received through faith.
It is what compels us to live for God.
“What does it mean to live by faith?”
In fact, this might be the most important question in all of scripture.
Do you realize that this question and specifically Romans 1:16-17 is historically, one of the most studied and most debated passages in all of scripture for all time?
Consider that when Martin Luther read these verses in the original Greek rather that the typical Latin, it sparked a revelation which led to the reformation.
If you were to do an academic research this topic and these verses today, it would take years to read through literally thousands of books and papers which have been written on the subject.
For the purpose of this message, I’m going to have to try to somehow make this simple.
I’m going to give three possible answers to the question (what does it mean to live by faith?), but in the end we are going to find that the answer is “all of the above”.
Faith is believing, belonging and obeying.
That is, none of these answers is adequate, exclusive of the others.
If you had to sum it up in just one word, a good word might be “trusting”.
But the word, “trust” has a number of different meanings, at least in English, which is why it works so well.
So lets look at them separately to get the whole picture.
Faith as believing
Believing is knowing what is true.
We see all through the New Testament that faith is described as believing.
John 3:16 is probably the most common scripture that we use to tell people about becoming a Christian.
But what are people supposed to think it means to believe?
At face value, it would seem to mean that they simply accept what you are saying as true.
“Sure, I believe in Jesus,” they might say.
But then you want to be sure that they really understand what they are saying so you might use scripture or ask them to tell their testimony.
You want to find out what they know to be true.
Do they understand that they are a sinner in need of God?
Do they know that Jesus died on the cross for their sin?
Have they repented and turned from sin toward God?
Are they continuing to move toward God and to grow spiritually?
There are may ways to share explain the gospel and may ways in which people come to know Christ.
But the point is that they come to know Christ.
Faith begins with a realization about your need for God, God’s love for you and that Jesus made it possible for you to know God.
How that happens, the words that you use, may be different for different people.
Believing is responding - it requires more than an answer - it requires action.
It may seem like a simple thing to believe in Jesus, but there is so much going on on multiple levels.
You mind is connecting the dots about who Jesus is and what he has done for you.
You emotions are feeling gratitude and responding to God’s love.
Spiritually, you are getting revelation; the lights are coming on and your coming alive.
In the natural, your confession, actually speaking with your mouth has creative power to change the atmosphere.
Oh yes, and there is spiritual battle and resistance happening too, so keep it up!
God is working through the Holy Spirit to bring you to salvation, but you have to respond - do something in answer to what God is doing in you.
Believing is the beginning of a relationship with God.
One of the important aspects of believing is that it is a personal individual response.
You can’t believe for anyone else, and no one can make you believe.
This was one of the most powerful results of the reformation - the idea that each person needs to have their own faith.
God doesn’t have any grand-children; only children.
You may have had faith modeled by a friend, a parent or grandparent, but at some point you have to decide to have your own relationship with God.
Believing is more than just knowledge, it is trusting.
It is because of relationship you can know about someone, but you will not trust them until you know them and have a relationship.
Why are you inclined to believe one person and not another?
Because you either know them or you don’t know them.
You determine whether or not you can trust them by what you know.
And if you trust them, you will also believe them or believe in them.
That’s relational language and it demonstrates that faith is not just believing doctrine or agreeing to a creed, but it is a relational walk with God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
For a lot of Christians, that pretty much sums it up, but you’ll notice that I have two thirds of an outline left.
I don’t think we have fully defined faith.
And the Bible has more to say.
Faith as belonging
Have you ever noticed that when you talk to people about matters of faith the first thing they want to know is what group you belong to:
What church are you from?
What denomination?
What does your church believe (usually means what are you allowed to do or not allowed to do)?
In some settings your religion is tied to tribal or family background?
Some places where I have travelled, calling yourself a Christian has little or nothing to do with faith; it’s a social category.
In Evangelical churches we place the greatest emphasis on a person’s own decision to follow Christ.
However, historically, through most of time and in most of Christianity the emphasis has been on covenant - belonging to God.
We belong to God.
Peter is writing to believers in Christ, but he is using the language of the Old Testament to draw a parallel.
Israel was God’s chosen people.
Out of all of the nations of the earth, God chose a people for Himself.
He rescued them from Egypt and brought them into the promised land.
He made covenant with them and they became the people of God.
But they were also preparing the way for Christ who would open the way for more people to know God.
Those who are in Christ are now also God’s covenant people.
He has rescued us from spiritual darkness and brought us into light and truth.
We relate to God as our Father; that’s another way of saying that we belong to His family.
We have an inseparable bond like that of blood, DNA and life itself that ties us to God and to one another.
I’m a Kolb.
Where I am pastor, that mean’s something.
My family has lived in the place for more than a hundred years.
Usually I find, that being part of a family earns respect.
But there are also some of my family, that I might try to distance myself from.
The bottom line is, for better or for worse, I belong to a family.
As a Christian, you belong to a family too.
You may not like all of the things that people believe about you because of it, but its true.
It’s not a matter of personal choice; you are part of something much bigger than you.
You belong.
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