Faith for Faithfulness
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“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.
We are going to start with three exercises this morning. I want some congregational participation here.
First exercise: Raise your hand if you have enough faith? If you can say: “I have all the faith I need - it’s strong enough and good enough” raise your hand.
Now, I want you to turn to the person next to you, and on the count of three, I want you to give them a concise and accurate definition of faith. Because you can’t really do the first exercise if you don’t know what faith is.
All of you do it at the same time. I’m serious here, don’t whisper, give your definition of faith to the brother or sister sitting next to you.
Ready? 1 - 2 -3...
Now, raise your hand if you just very confidently gave a concise, Biblical definition of faith.
OK, that was not an easy ask, I know. Because faith is very hard to define, isn’t it? It’s kinda believing in some facts, some of which we can’t really verify, and it’s kinda trust, and it’s partially a feeling that we really can’t explain - but more than a feeling - it’s kinda this mystical thing within us that doesn’t lend itself to an easy definition, right?
But if that’s the case - if we can’t really define it - how do we know we have it?
And why would God call us to have faith if it’s something that can’t be defined, and therefore we can’t know that we have?
I mean, imagine if in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “why are you worried about what to wear, if God clothes the grass, how much more will He clothe you, o people of little kinda-trusting-belief-mystical-feeling-thing?”
But He didn’t. Because the Bible doesn’t share that definition of faith.
But here’s the problem. We are so far removed from the Biblical meaning of faith. Why? We are so far removed time-wise - the Biblical idea of faith is an idea from 2,000 years ago.
We are so far removed from it culturally - the Bible’s definition was from from a culture that did not question the existence or authority of higher powers or our responsibility to them. On top of that, it was a culture where “individualism” was a dirty word. Why is that important? Because today when someone is having a “crisis of faith” - that usually means "I am having trouble trusting God because of what has happened to ME.” That would never even cross the mind of a first century Christian.
We are so far removed in language. Never mind the fact that our word for faith comes through French from Latin, which was not the original language of the Bible, but even our English word “faith” doesn’t mean what it meant 500 years ago. Then, “belief” meant “the conviction or certainty which accompanies knowledge” and “faith” meant “loyalty based on promise or duty.” They were two different things. Today, faith kinda means both of these, and much more.
And to be honest, in Christian circles it’s even worse, because we have added in this mystical element to faith that makes it so hard to pin down what real faith is. But the Bible doesn’t do that.
So what does the Bible say about faith? That is what I want to explore this morning. Understand up front that the Bible does not talk about faith as a feeling, or some mystical, ethereal, inner event that happens.
Simply put, faith in the Bible is trust leading to action. We trust in God and what He has revealed to us in His Word and most importantly in Christ. And we trust in Him and His truth enough to do what He calls us to do. That’s faith.
And in the Bible, these two aspects - the trust and the action - are inseparable. That’s the point James makes in his epistle - he says faith without works is dead. He means that faith that does not result in works is not real faith. Why? Because you can’t have one without the other.
Or, as Martin Luther said: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
That’s what the Bible teaches. And to see that, we are going to look at a few different passages, but I want to start the most important passage on faith in the Old Testament.
Explain the context - Habakkuk’s complaint about Babylon - this is God’s answer: He says “write this down”
And God says about Babylon:
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.
Babylon is going to be judged too, just like Judah is being judged. But the righteous person - whether of Judah or Babylon or whoever - the righteous, God says, will live by his faith.
Now, why is this such an important passage on faith in the Old Testament. Well, there are two reasons.
First, this is quoted three times in the New Testament.
It is quoted in the letter to the Galatians where Paul is trying to explain the difference between works of the law and faith, where he says:
Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
It is used by the writer of Hebrews where he calls for endurance through suffering and quotes God, saying:
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
And it is used by Paul again in the book of Romans when Paul is greeting the church in Rome and telling them that he wants to come to Rome to preach the Gospel, and he says this of the Gospel:
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
This verse started the protestant reformation! This is the “faith alone” that so struck Martin Luther that he had to do something about it!
But he understood, as we just saw, that faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone.
That’s why the New Testament writers seized on this idea of living by faith and exhorted people to do just that. Live by faith. Faith doesn’t sit idly by. Faith doesn’t leave you as you always were.
Faith makes us alive. And faith is how we are to live.
So what’s the second reason this Habakkuk verse about faith is so important in my opinion? Well, this passage isn’t speaking about “faith” as we would understand it. In fact, I would argue that this passage is not talking about “faith” at all, if by “faith” we mean the simple act of believing in God, or agreeing with what He has said.
Because the word God uses here doesn’t mean the same thing as the English word “faith”
In Hebrew, the word for “faith” is the same word as “faithfulness”. For the Jew, there was no such thing as faith apart from faithfulness. No way to have faith in God without being faithful to God. They didn’t even have a word for that. And for them, the purpose of their faith was always the faithfulness.
So a better translation of this verse would be:
Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)
Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.
And some Bible translations even translate it this way. If you’re an NIV person, this is what your Bible says.
And in the other translations, this word is only translated “faith” here in this verse. This is the one time that the translators chose “faith” for this Hebrew word.
Everywhere else in the Bible - and outside the Bible - the word means:
steadiness
reliability
duty
conscientiousness
faithfulness - which is how it is usually translated
The verb equivalent of this word means literally to “be firm,” “be reliable,” “confirm,” or “prove oneself.”
Now, before we go any further, let me clarify what I am not saying. I am not saying that faithfulness saves us, as we understand faithfulness in modern English. Faith saves us. We are not saved by works, we are saved by faith alone.
But we are saved unto works. Our faith, if it saves, results in faithfulness to God and His calling on us.
Faith without works is dead.
But works without faith is deadly. The Bible does not teach that we have to do anything to be saved. In fact, it teaches that we have to do nothing to be saved, because we have to be fully reliant on what God has done.
And when we are, it’s because we are made new creatures by the Spirit, and with that comes faith. And faithfulness is what that faith inevitably leads to. The action is what that trust produces.
If we work for our salvation and have no faith, we aren’t even working to please God. We’re really working to please ourselves. Because you must have faith to please God. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.
And that’s what Paul is saying when he borrows that Habakkuk verse in Galatians.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Paul is saying in no uncertain terms that works cannot save. No matter how “good” they may be by worldly or religious standards. He is saying that the “faith” that God is talking about in Habakkuk is not works that lead to salvation.
You have to have the belief - the trust in God to be saved, and you have to have that alone. But when you have it, it won’t be alone.
Our faith, if it is a Biblical faith, will lead to action. It will lead to obedience. It will lead to a life lived in faithfulness to God. It will lead to righteousness both inwardly and outwardly.
That is what Habakkuk meant by faith. That is what the Old Testament says about faith.
And so does the New Testament.
Let’s look at that Hebrews passage again. Remember, he is talking about needing endurance, but he tells us why we need that endurance.
Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,
“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
His idea of the righteous living by faith is doing the will of God in this life so that we receive what is promised. In other words, if our faith does not lead to action, what assurance - what confidence - do we have that we are receiving what we think we are.
What confidence to we have that the faith - the belief or the trust - that we have is the faith God tells us saves?
Let’s take a closer look at that passage in Romans:
Romans 1:16–17 (ESV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
In the Greek, just like in the Hebrew, there were not separate words for “faith” and “faithfulness”. They were the same the word.
I mean, you can literally switch those two English words out in any passage in the New Testament and you are still being faithful - no pun intended - to the text. Because the word carried the full meaning of both "faith” and “faithfulness” as we would understand them.
What if we understood this word as Paul would have or his first readers would have? Perhaps we would read this passage as:
Romans 1:16–17 (ESV)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faithfulness, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faithfulness.”
From faith, for faithfulness - this trust that leads to action - “The righteous shall live by faith leading to faithfulness.”
The righteousness that God grants to us is revealed to us through faith - without faith we can’t even comprehend it. But if we do, that faith leads to faithfulness. That trust leads to action.
For a Jew like Paul, and for the Christians he was writing to, it would have been both: trust and action. And for Paul and the Roman Christians, trust without action was not trust. Faith without faithfulness, was not faith.
And this shouldn’t be difficult for us to understand, because even in our culture today, we believe that in certain cases, to profess something without certain resulting actions means the profession is false.
Here is an example. What if I said: I love my wife. I am devoted to her. The most important thing to me is her happiness, and I want to make her happy. Because she deserves only the best.
But when I come home every night…I eat the dinner she made - I don’t thank her but she knows I appreciate it. Then I pretty much sit and watch TV while she cleans up dinner and takes care of the kids. And…I forgot her birthday this year, but she knows I love her. And I’ve only cheated on her twice.
How would you feel about my profession of love? What would you say about my faithfulness?
So to, with faith in God, if there is no faithfulness, how much faith is there?
Now, there is an aspect of faith that requires believing in what God says. You need you know what He says and believe what He says if you’re going to trust what He says. And you need to trust what He says if your going to act on what He says.
So this belief, let’s call this the “What?” of faith. What do I have faith in? What do I believe?
Because to have faith, first we need to believe that what God says is true. The very next thing the writer of Hebrews says after that passage we just looked at is:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
This is “belief in”. This is talking about knowing - being convinced - of the truths the Bible teaches. And this is very important. We need to know and understand what God has revealed to us and believe it’s all true. That is part of our faith.
But, as I said, this is the next verse after the passage where he talks about DOING the will of God, and then he uses the rest of this chapter to talk about the faith of the Old Testament saints by giving examples of what they DID!
This verse is often used alone, but always remember it is in the middle of two passages about doing for God.
Because we don’t just need to know God’s Word and believe it’s true, that’s just the first part of this. We need to trust it - this is saving faith. Demons know God’s Word and believe it’s true. Trust that leads to action is what separates their belief from our belief.
Like in Matthew 21, Jesus curses the fig tree for having no fruit, and it withers and he says to His Apostles:
And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen.
Jesus is talking about trust. Faith is trusting God instead of doubting God.
But trust requires action. I can tell my daughter that I trust her enough to lend her my car. But if I don’t hand her the keys, that trust is irrelevant. It hasn’t done anything.
Guy falls off the cliff onto the branch
And how many times have we all prayed and looked to God to lead us - to show us what His will is in any particular situation, but because the outcome doesn’t appear so sure to us, we don’t act.
That isn’t trusting God. That is trusting ourselves. Faith acts because of our trust in Him and nothing else.
And notice, even here where Jesus tells the Apostles not to doubt but to have faith, He tells them that this faith will allow them to DO something amazing. Even if Jesus is using hyperbole or metaphor here when He says we can move mountains, the point still stands - with faith - with trust that leads to action - we can do amazing things.
But we have to do them. Faith is trust that leads to action.
Faith leads to faithfulness.
Faith doesn’t just answer that “what?” What do I need to believe? There is also a “so what” to faith. I know. I believe. I trust.
So what?
Well, the only way to answer that is by that trust leading to action. Otherwise, there is no answer to the “so what?”. I never let go of the branch. I never hand over the keys.
But I trust? So what?
You have heard me say many many times: the inward will always reveal itself in the outward. Faith, true faith - Biblical faith - will always reveal itself through action. Because the Bible knows of no faith in God without faithfulness to God.
Simply put: faith does.
It does. It acts.
When Christ calls out the religious leaders for what they weren’t doing, among them was that New Testament word for faith. That is one of the few times it is translated “faithfulness,” but remember: it is one and the same idea. So Jesus told them: they needed to do justice, to show mercy, and have faith - that is trust in God that leads to action.
Or when Paul tells us what the Spirit produces in us - the fruit of the Spirit - included is our word for faith. And then he tells us after that to both crucify the flesh and live by the Spirit. He tells us what faith needs to do.
When the paralytic is brought to Jesus, and his friends lower him down to Jesus because they had faith - they believed He would heal him. And we’re told Jesus did…when He saw their faith. Did He see a feeling? Did He see some mystical, ethereal, inner reality?
Or did He see their actions?
When Jesus heals the ten lepers, and only one comes back to thank Jesus, what does Jesus tell this one man? “Your faith has made you well.” Because his faith was faith in action.
When Peter heals the paralytic at the entrance of the Temple in the book of Acts, and all the crowd gathers around and are astounded, what does Peter say? Talking about Christ he says:
And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
According to Peter, faith made something, and faith gave something. Faith did, according to Peter.
Peter says “his name” - and then, as if to be more specific so they all understand - he says “by faith in His name” this man was healed. Then he says it again: the faith that is through Jesus healed him.
The man was healed - Peter took action - through faith in Christ. And he did something amazing.
When Paul greets the Roman church, He speaks of Christ and says:
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
Paul equates faith with obedience. This is faith in action based on what they said they knew and believed and trusted. The obedience of faith.
You see, the Bible doesn’t teach a passive faith, that just sits and believes certain propositions. I said a few weeks ago, we need to remember that our faith is not about us. My faith is not about me. It is about Christ and His kingdom and the reason that we’re here.
And no amount of certainty on my part of the truth of the Bible does anything if it stops there. No amount of inactive trust on my part can do anything to advance the kingdom of God.
Perhaps the greatest example I can offer you is from the lips of Jesus Himself. Luke records Jesus teaching His disciples in Luke 17:
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Jesus tells His disciples that they should prefer death over leading another Christian into sin. And not only that, they have a responsibility to call out sin in each other, and to forgive each other without limit.
What is the Apostles’ response?
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
Why would they ask Jesus to increase their faith?
Resisting temptation, is it easy?
Rebuking a brother or sister for their sin: easy?
Forgiving someone who sins against us: easy? How much less someone who sins against us seven times a day??
You see, the Apostles knew they couldn’t do any of this without faith, without believing the truth of God with their whole heart and without the faithfulness to God that comes along with it!
And what is interesting to me, is that I have heard this verse and the next verse quoted together a million times:
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
And the context of this is completely lost when we pull this small part out of the passage. We don’t even know why the Apostles want a greater faith.
And then our idea of modern mystical faith plays in, and we get an idea in our heads that Jesus is describing something closer to the force that to faith - “I’m gonna move trees and even mountains with my faith.”
But this Luke’s last name wasn’t Skywalker. A different Luke wrote this Gospel. A Luke that understood what faith is.
Who understood that Jesus is telling the Apostles that nothing will be impossible to DO with faith. That faith is active and DOES, and even a little faith can do amazing things for God.
And the worst part of this, is that I have never heard the rest of what Jesus says included in this. Don’t let the headings in your Bible separate one conversation into three different passages with three different points. Please ignore the headings or get a Bible that doesn’t have them. They sell those, and I recommend getting one.
Because Jesus didn’t stop here, and we should be glad, because this alone doesn’t really help.
If we stop here, then the Apostles say “increase our faith” and Jesus’s answer is “well if you guys had more of what you were asking for you could move trees.” OK, thanks Jesus.
His answer was that if you have even a little faith, you can DO amazing things - you can do what you are called to do. But then He goes on to explain what they are called to do.
This is Jesus’s response to “Lord, increase our faith”:
Luke 17:6–10 (ESV)
“If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
This is Jesus increasing their faith. This is Jesus explaining true faith. Faith is not some mystical power that believes the right things and gets certain benefits. Faith is trusting the “what?”, and then answering the “so what?” through our actions.
Faith means faithfully doing what we are called to do. It is being faithful to God through our actions because we believe Him and trust Him. And just like we can never raise our hand and say “I have enough faith” - neither can we ever say “I have been faithful enough.”
Jesus, increase our faithfulness - OK, when you have done all that you were commanded, say “we are unworthy servants, we have only done what was our duty.”
And while that may sound so harsh to our modern sensibilities, this is what the Bible means when it talks about faith. It is trust that leads to action. Faith does. And we can never say we’ve done enough until we stand before Him and hear those words: “well done, good and faithful servant.”
And what this means is that, when it comes to faith, God did not leave us wondering.
He did not leave us with no way to know if we have saving faith. Because if it is nothing more than some personal, inner feeling or if it simply speaks to how much we believe the truth, then there is a lot of subjectivity there, and probably a lot of confusion, and maybe some doubt. And maybe even some discouragement.
Do I feel it strong enough? Do I trust enough? Do I know enough of what I’m supposed to trust to have enough trust to have a strong faith? Do I have saving faith?
But the Bible - indeed, Christ Himself - tells us how to answer that question. He tells us: faith does. Faith and faithfulness are inseparable.
So instead of wondering about our faith, we should ask ourselves this: has what I call “faith” resulted in faithfulness to Christ?
Does my trust in God lead to action for God?
I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand. We’re done with the exercises.
But what each of us needs to do, is decide if our faith is what the Bible says it should be. And remember, Jesus said that our faith only needs to be like the grain of a mustard seed. But what you do with that mustard seed of faith matters very much.
And based on Jesus’s illustration of the servant, that after you do what you’re called to, you’ve only done your duty and remain an unworthy servant - that means nobody is excluded from this, no matter the calling God places on their lives.
The new Christian, the Christian of 25 years, the person in the pew, the pastors and elders - nobody is excluded from this.
And like the Apostles, we should all want our Lord to increase our faith. To be ever increasing our faith. None of us should be happy to stop with the mustard seed.
So what we all need to do - everyone in here - is take a good, long look - at Jesus.
Because looking to ourselves will gain us nothing. It is only through Christ that our faith can grow.
As Peter said, it is faith that is through Jesus that does. That acts.
And that’s the good news. That’s the Gospel.
Because the first thing that faith acts on, is us. It turns our eyes from ourselves and onto Jesus. It opens our tightly clenched hands and releases all we have to Jesus.
It makes us completely new.
It makes us want to so, and it makes us able to do.
That is what happens when we look to Jesus.
Because our trust that leads to action, is based on what He has done.
Our faith that leads to faithfulness, is based on Who He is, a God Who is perfectly faithful to us.
As David said, even as he ran for his life:
For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
God’s faithfulness to us is immeasurable.
As the prophet Jeremiah said, even after his nation had been taken over by Babylon:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
God’s faithfulness is never ending.
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
This is our God.
God is faithful, by Whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is our God.
He is so faithful, that to keep His promises He stepped down into time as one of us.
He is so faithful, that He took on the likeness of sinful flesh, and lived as any other man, but like no other man.
Because He is so faithful that He faced the same temptations we do and even more - and yet, because of His faithfulness He never sinned.
He never sinned. He was perfectly holy. He never performed a sinful action. Never said a sinful word. He never had a sinful thought. Never proud. Never selfish. His eyes never came off His God.
And He did all of this because He chose to be faithful to…me? Proud, selfish, me? Even with the things I’ve done, that He knows? The things I’ve said, that He knows. The things I’ve thought, that He knows!
Yes, He was faithful to me.
He was faithful to you. To the point of suffering for you. To the point of being crucified for you. So faithful that He died to make it so only what He did mattered for you - and nothing you’ve done matter anymore.
And then - so we could know it was true and believe it was true and trust Him - He rose back to life. And He ascended to His throne in heaven. And He sent His Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of faith in you that you might have faith in Him, and be faithful to Him.
His faithfulness to us, led Him to do all this for us.
How can our faith not lead us to do for Him?
What of faith, so what of faithfulness - now what?
Rich for “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”
If you have never placed your faith in Christ, He is calling you this morning. Place your faith in Christ. Based on all He has done, trust Him. Forget what you have or haven’t done. That has nothing to do with it. It is all about what He’s done.
Because if your confidence is anywhere else, your confidence is misplaced. Because even if you trust in you and what you know and what you can do - the object of your faith will fail. It has before.
But faith in Christ is faith in the One Who has done it all, and Who will never fail. Confidence, assurance, trust in God and Who He is and what He’s done, that is the first and most important step to being made alive. That is faith.
And then, if you want to be confident that your faith is the faith God calls us to - all you have to do is continue to trust Him. Continue to have confidence in Him. Continue to believe in Him and believe Him enough to be faithful to Him. Respond to His faithfulness, with faithfulness.
And if you do know Christ, if your faith is in Him, then continue to trust Him, by doing for Him. Let go of the branch. Hand Him the keys. Respond to His faithfulness, with faithfulness.
Because, realize, what you are most faithful to, is what your faith is really in.
If you are faithful to any person in this world more than you are faithful to Christ, then your faith is in that person.
If you are faithful to your ways, and your ideas, and your will more than you are faithful to Christ, then your faith is you.
If you are faithful to your job more than you are faithful to Christ, then your faith is in your job more than in Christ.
But there is salvation in no one else but Christ.
So look to Him. Take a long, hard look. See the Savior Who was faithful unto death, Whom you have placed your faith in, and place your faithfulness in Him.
When the man of a possessed child cried out to Jesus “I believe, help my unbelief” - Jesus acted. Jesus did for the man because Jesus is faithful.
And this is the same word we have been talking about. It could just as easily be translated: “I have faith, help my unfaithfulness.” That’s a prayer we all need to pray at times. If that is your prayer this morning, right where you are, pray that God would help you be faithful to Him.
Brothers and sisters as I said, we can’t be satisfied with the mustard seed. We should want God to increase our faith. And if you want your faith increased - if you want to grow in faith - and you don’t do anything about it…
…you need to change your definition of faith.
And you need to look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. That means, He endured the cross for you if your faith is in Him.
So if you want to do great things for God, ask Him to increase your faith.
Then be faithful, and take action, and you will see your faith increase. You know all the things you can do. Seek Him in the Bible. Pray. Serve.
I stood here eight months ago and challenged you all to read through the Bible with me this year, start going to the weekly prayer meeting once a month, and to start serving in a ministry.
Well, it’s not too late. You can still do all of these things. Join us in our reading plan. Come to the prayer meeting on Thursday. See me about getting involved.
These are all things the Bible calls us to. Trust God and His Word enough to take action.
Do these things so that your eyes will be on Jesus, the faithful One Who calls us to faith, and Who says that the righteous shall live by that faith.