been a little bit more focused
on simply explaining things from a perspective of how we should
rest, how we should sit, how we should establish ourselves
in our faith. Paul tells the Thessalonians
to keep yourself in the love of God. And I mentioned that last week,
and sometimes we hear this instruction and we go, oh wow, How do I do
these things? And if we just continue to read
the Bible in the context, we realize that it's not us doing
these things, but it is God doing these things in us. And that
the greatest damage to our faith, to our Christian life, to our
peace, to our foundation, to our fulfillment, is when we try
to take the reins in any way. In any way. Now that is not saying
that we don't have responsibilities, that we don't have obligations,
that we don't have things that we must be doing that are prudent
and fruitful. But these things are not tied
to our salvation, not tied to our justification, not tied to
what God has accomplished through Christ already. It's a finished
work. And these things are also not tied to any way our security. However, they do help. They do
grow. They are, in some way, when you
read the Bible, the means of grace through which God has promised
His presence is established in us. So if we're not reading the
Bible while we are not separated from God, we will feel that way,
you see. When we obey the simple instructions
to love one another and we strive unto that end and we put our
needs as our other people's needs as equal as our own, it's not
like it's going to give us brownie points with God. It's not going
to establish us to be this more pious or holy person because
we are righteous in the righteousness of Christ alone. But it does
avoid the trap of thinking either I'm doing pretty good and I'm
all right or I need to do better or God's not gonna love me. It
doesn't change who we are. Before our father, just as our
children, for those of us that have children, would do things
that we don't like or not do things we ask them to, it doesn't
mean that we love them any less or that we will seek to destroy
them. I have very close people that
I love, very close people who have left the faith through the
years. Family and friends, men who I used to call deeply brother,
in the faith, and now they deny it. And I understand that in these
times, that our culture puts a red flag up, puts a fire on,
gets a blowtorch out, and tries to melt everything down because
it is the end of the world. It's not the end of the world
to be in the will of God. While it may be detrimental,
while it may be horrifying, while it may be terrifying, no matter
what it is, if it's not unbelief, it's death. If it's not death,
it's divorce. If it's not divorce, it's destruction
or some other deed that could be bad. Deviled eggs. But nothing changes. Nothing
really changes in the scope of life as people who are found
in the grace of God and the love of God because nothing can separate
us from that love. So when people leave the faith,
we love them still. When people struggle, we love
them more. When people get wrong doctrine, we love them deeply,
more deeply. That's the instruction of the
Bible. But yet, when I talk to people, when I talk to people
who leave the faith, a lot of times what I get, now this is
anecdotal, this is my two and a half decades of interaction
with people in a professional way. Professional meaning vocationally
as a pastor. I can't say that there's been
but two instances where this wasn't the case. People leaving
the faith. In other words, I don't believe there's a God anymore
or some level of that. Here's the crux of their decision. Notice I said their decision
to not believe. Is that they can't put together the oppressive,
judgmental, really unloving, twisted way in which the Christian
culture and the God of the Bible as they read it hates people. Because they're not the way we
think they should be. And I'd say that in the, oh,
one, two, I don't know, few churches that I've pastored, through the
years. That's been the case, too, in
the congregation. There's a group of people that we hate. There's
a type of person that we hate. But we don't hate them, we love
them, so we keep it real and we speak the truth in love. It's
loving, you know. No, loving is about the approach,
the attitude. Loving is about the intention. And love is never calling someone
to the carpet about their unbelief. Is that what Jesus did on the
cross? Don't you make me get up here. Don't you make me die
for you. If you'd just get your act together,
I wouldn't have to do this. Evangelism, and I'm gonna say
some strong things here, because it's just the way I am in my
poetry. Evangelism is probably one of the most demonic expressions
of Christian culture in the world today, the way it is, by and
large, holistically. So you unpack that. I can't repeat
it. It came out of nowhere. So you unpack that how you want,
and I'll correct it if I need to, but here's what I mean. The
way we see people sharing what they think the faith is and the
way people oversee those who say they're in the faith, and
there's air quotes for those who are listening, Not those who are listening in
the Elk Roads, but the faith is not biblical in its construction
and its application. The Bible doesn't tell us we
must be the way things, the way most people are. How are most
people? Well, most people fall into one
of these categories, but of the people that I'm thinking of,
most of them, okay? are like this. What do you believe
about propitiation? Pro who what? Is that a type
of meat? No, that's proscata. Propitiation. Is that a disease? No. You don't
know what propitiation is? Have you ever read your Bible?
If you don't understand propitiation, you're probably not saved. Oh,
Christ didn't die on the cross? He didn't say it was finished?
That's how I'm saved. I was saved when he said, it
is finished. I was saved in his decree before the foundation
of the world. See, we've even got language issues. Language
issues that Paul and James and John and Matthew and Luke and
the rest of them don't use. Peter, when we say things like
that, we're really putting an emphasis that culture has massaged
into this tiny little box. Say, okay, we know that you are
indeed in Christ if x, y, z, x, y, z, x, y, z. Now we can
say we know that you understand these things if you understand
these things. And then when someone doesn't
give the right report, let's just say it's on justification. Some people
have watered down justification to mean just as if I'd never
sinned. That's justified. That's not
even the point. It's not even the place. Justification
is so deep and it's so rich and the Bible doesn't really, you
can't go to the book of Justified and look under the headings and
figure it all out. You have to read, you have to
live in it, you have to breathe in it. Beloved, the Christian
experience is a manifold experience. It's an experience of divine
interaction. It's an experience of a spiritual
thing that's happening and we're unconsciously aware of it. It's
an experience where when we do typical, practical, earthly things
like read some letters, God the Holy Spirit does a supernatural
work in us that we're not even aware of until one day we look
into the mirror of our soul and go, oh my goodness, the Lord
is good. Look what I've come to know.
Look what I've come to realize. And there are some people who,
when they think about faith, They can never find assurance
because of the constant nagging, the constant pressure, the constant,
oh, just the constant hatred within themselves and from others. I mean, you think about it. Look
at all the different, if I were to say to you, what's a cult
that you know, you can name them, right? If I could say to you,
what's a false gospel that's popular? You know, there's not
any new ones in my lifetime. They're all just repurposed,
warmed over old ones that's always been around. They were around
in the time of Jesus, philosophically and theologically, and they're
around now. It's just, eh, you see this table? We're gonna turn
it into something else. Well, the foundation's still
a table. You see what I'm saying? There's nothing new under the
sun. So if you find a new heresy, if you find a new false doctrine,
if you find, there's usually a historical place for it. You
say, well, it's the 12th century or it's the 15th century. Well,
you know what? Let's go on back. I bet the Gnostics had a version
of it somewhere. I bet the Judaizers had some implications of it.
Everything grows on something else. And the truth of the matter
is, is that the Bible was written to reveal to us the grace of
God and his love for us. The Bible was written to correct
our misunderstandings and to un- what? Deceive God's people. The New Testament letters almost
without fail talk about some level of undeceiving the people
of God, either in principle, practice, or promise. And so if we're not looking at
our faith in that way, as a journey, as an experience, that includes
truth, and when I say truth, I'm meaning literal, propositional
truth. Jesus is the Son of God, this
is what that means, this is how he came, this is the promise,
this is what he accomplished, this is what happened. The story,
the good report, the God-speak, the God-spell, the gospel. There's
a thousand years there. So when we think about faith,
You hear me use the phrase resting almost holistically when I talk
about believing or faith. Why? Because it is the essence
of the revealed Word of God from the beginning to the end. The
reason God talks about creation is to show that only he can do
the work of creating life and order. And if he does that in
the nothing into everything, he can surely do that in the
context of righteousness to create a people for himself and declare
them righteous with all righteousness. It means nobody's getting away
with anything. Every sin, every evil, every error, every failing,
every thought, every word, every deed, every desire that has fallen
short of his holiness is paid for. justice is satisfied. Every debt
is paid. See, that's the narrative of
Scripture. But we are so smart, and we really
are, I'm not saying that sarcastically, we're smart. Human beings are
very intelligent. Even the dumbest ones I know
have incredible intelligence. I've spoken to some of you, I'm
sure. And in that intelligence we have
the freedom to think and infer and derive and expand and we
get to the place where all of a sudden we start thinking about
some really cool stuff and it makes good sense. But we have
to filter that sense through what is clearly taught to us
in the scripture. That the Bible is the final arbitration
of everything we think and do. And we do so in the context. We do so holistically. We don't
find contradictions in scripture until we begin to parse it out
in pretexts. And what that means, we tear
it apart and create all sorts of different things in little
parts rather than looking at the whole. And I use this illustration
a lot by talking about a, what do you call that thing? A cookbook.
I was going to say the thing you can find food things in.
A cookbook. That would be a menu too, right? And we just can't
go in there and put our finger on this page and put that out
and four or five pages later and 25 pages later and just get
a whole bunch of stuff and all these ingredients and throw it
on the table and say, now we're going to cook whatever. What are we going to
cook? And we go back to the very first page and go, OK, bacon. And there's
not even any pork meat on the table. And that's what we do
sometimes with the Bible. That's what we do in our minds. And we're not even aware of it.
We just do it. And we come to these conclusions.
Some of us think through, like me, I have inner dialogue continually,
always, all the time. I've done better with that because
now I do it outwardly. I talk to myself outwardly. Why?
Because when I hear the nonsense, I can rebuke it. I'm not kidding,
it works. You get up, you go, man, this
is gonna be a terrible day. It sure is. Now this is a great day. Why?
For the Lord has made it. I'm not lying to myself. I'm
proclaiming what God has said. Now you might think that's funny,
but that's the whole point of the Psalms. We sing the praises
and the promises of God. We're honest about these things.
We sing the Word of God. We proclaim the Word of God.
We hear the Word of God. We speak the Word of God. And
what we say, we believe. renew our minds in that context.
Faith. So when it comes to faith, what
is faith? Hebrews chapter 11 starting in verse 1. I'm not
going to do a whole lot here, but I want to draw on the essence
that resting faith is an anchor to the immovable. Years ago when
I started my pulpit ministry I called it anchoring faith. Catchy name. Why? Because it
really is the the centerpiece of my heart, the centerpiece
of my soul and mind, that I am anchored to the faithfulness
of Christ. So today I'm gonna explore how
faith is rooted in the divine work of God for our assurance
and establishes a restful and steadfast journey in any circumstance. Now faith, verse one, Hebrews
11. Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for. the conviction of things not
seen. For by faith, the people of old
receive their commendation. By faith, we understand that
the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen
was not made out of things that are visible. Let's stop there. Now I don't know when it was,
it feels like just a few weeks ago, but And I'm thinking about
the timeline, it was probably 2018 when I preached this text,
2019. And we spent a lot of time in
chapter 11 of Hebrews. I need to go back and listen
to what I said and make sure I agree with it. But faith, we spent
a lot of time talking about it, we spent a long time sharing
it, we spent a lot of time trying to live it, but do we really
know what it is? Well, it's multi, it has many
definitions, it's manifold. The faith, sometimes in the New
Testament, refers to just the gospel proclamation. The faith
also refers to living out together in a community. The faith also
can refer to, in the New Testament, the essence of what we hold to,
our hope, our belief. The faith is also, what? The
truth of Jesus Christ, the gospel, and so on and so forth. But there
is an essence of which the faith is a resting place. The faith
is a divine disposition. I want to say to you, and I submit
to you, and I've spent years doing this, you don't believe
me, just do the work yourself, don't take my word for it, but
the idea of a changed disposition of the mind, which we call repentance,
is indeed faith. a resting place in the promises
of God. That's the simple reality of
faith. And faith is not something that
we see or that we can go buy at the store, that we can go
attach ourselves to in any real way. Faith is not effectual. In other words, if we believe
hard enough, then we'll be saved strongly. Faith isn't what connects
us to salvation in any tangible sense. Faith is what helps us
rest in salvation in a real sense. And why is this important? Because,
beloved, I think it all boils down to this. Everything that
I've gone through in the last three years, every single little
thing that I've gone through in life, for my entire life,
but specifically in the last three years, has centered around
my faith. All of it. Whether it's economics,
whether it's health, whether it's marriage, whether it's children,
whether it's the church, whether it's relationships or friendships,
whether it's theology, or whatever it might be, it's all matters
of faith. Because I'm a believer, I'm a
child of God. You, by the Spirit of God, have been adopted. You
are also in the family of faith. So everything that we do is in
some way attached to our faith. attached to our worship, attached
to whose we are and who we are in Christ. And so all of that
then, and I see the trials internally, the trials externally, the trials
in some of you in your lives, and they've all been attached
to your understanding and to the strength of your faith. Because what we all want and
what everything that I've seen is that we're in a search for
stability. We're in a search for rest. We're
in a search for peace. Most people say, I just want
peace. Most people just want to rest. You ever had passive
suicidal ideation? You know what that is? It's not
going to be bad when I die. At least I'll get to sleep. Most
working people go, oh, you know, death, it's not the worst. It's
not like you wanna die, but you go, man, when I die, it's just
gonna be, I'm gonna get some sleep. That'd be the heck of
the note, you know, if God was a little humorous, and we stand
before him in our ethereal form, and he's got a rake. Here you
go. Nah. We're not working, beloved. But it's not passing out of this
life that gives us rest. It's being in Christ. Our hope
is not escaping this. Our hope is knowing we're established
in Him. And that when we stand before
Him, it's finished. And then one day we will stand
before Him in a new flesh, in that finished place. And so it's
not, faith is not to be seen as this search for security.
Faith is security. Having faith is resting in the
security, in the stability, in the rest. But beloved, it's not
going to be without storms, without trials, without suffering. That
is one of the greatest errands of fools in the Christian culture,
is that we think that being in Christ and having the right faith
will establish us in a way where we never worry, where we never
doubt, and where we never suffer. That is not gonna happen. We
are going to suffer. If Christ suffered, we will suffer.
If Christ was in angst, we will be in angst. If Christ cried
out for mercy, we will cry out for mercy. So, seven points I think, starting
with this text. Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for. As we see there very simply,
assurance. Assurance. The conviction of
things not seen. So right there we already know
that faith is in every way a resting assurance, a resting hope, a
resting rest. Something that we don't have
yet and that's what all of chapter 11 of Hebrews begins to say by
faith They received their commendation. They got it later Moses never
entered the promised land Abraham had to wait for a long long time
He never saw it all all these over in verse 13 died in faith
having not received the things promised but having seen them
and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they
were strangers and exiles on earth and Well, God never made His promise.
He's made His promises, yes and amen, right now, but they are
not to be misunderstood as present, temporal, earthly, fleshly, living
promises. There are some, but they ebb
and flow. So faith is an anchor. Resting
is an anchor that gives us the stability. Faith is not belief
in, not just belief in the unseen. Let's unpack this for just a
second, because I've got a lot here. It's an act of assurance. It's
a confident expectation. It's akin to knowing that the
sun will come up in the middle of the night. And beloved, I
believe having true resting faith is absolutely, almost at all
times, a spiritual thing. It's an internal disposition.
And as I've stated, there are external things and disciplines
that influence our focus and our hope and our assurance, but
they do not change our place before our Father. In practice, having this type
of assurance is living a life marked by a hopeful outlook. even in great uncertainty. Why?
Because our hope is anchored not in the shifting sands of
our circumstances, but our hope is anchored in the steadfast
nature of God Himself, who, as Paul writes to the Christian
Hebrews, cannot lie. Now see, when I say those things,
sometimes I feel, because I read, I read you. I read the idea. I read the unseen. I read those
who aren't in the room. And I think, this is what they're
thinking. It's a terrible, terrible, terrible disease. And sometimes
I believe that people think, well, you know, that didn't really
help me. And so I think, okay, I've got to help more. I've got
to find more. It's not on me to help you. except
to show you, to reveal to you, to give you the truth of God's
promises, to continue to help you see that the nature of your
faith is going to be directly relative to the discipline of
your holding the Word of God in your hand and reading it,
to be reminded of it. And the way you feel about your
assurance, the way you feel about your rest is going to ebb and
flow depending on the world around you and the world inside of you.
So it is okay that you doubt. It is okay for you to say to
me and to anybody else in this church, I don't believe this
doctrine or this doctrine because I've been thinking this way.
It's okay for you to be wrong. It's okay for you to be mad.
It's okay for you to curse and scream in your spirit because
God seems so far away, but we're together and together we will
resolve to rest. Quit putting on a show, beloved.
Nobody's, nobody's deceived but you when you pretend. I remember conversations I had
with mentors through the years and one of them talked about
how David got it wrong in his Psalms. And his premise was this, that
David whined and complained and fussed and, you know, most of
it was his own doings and he wanted God to intervene. And
so, yeah, David's attitude was wrong in the context of what
we should see in glory, but David's attitude was absolutely right
because he's human and he was actually displaying the very
nature that every one of us carry and hold and how we should live
and how we should approach our Father in heaven with boldness
to come bold before the throne of grace in our time of need.
even when we're sinful? Because are we not ever, are
we never not sinful when we approach God in reality? And the answer
is yes and no. We know ourselves, but in reality,
before our Father, we are sinless. Why? Because Christ has satisfied
God's righteousness. And see, what does that leave
us? Sitting still, going, You know, sitting still
with nothing to think about, but how? That's the conundrum. That's the wow of truly being
born again, is that we're like, now what am I supposed to do? Exactly. Walk in a manner worthy of such
rest. Walk in a manner worthy of such
hope. Walk in a manner worthy of such
love. Oh boy, I was at rest until you said those three things.
You see, God's character. At its core,
the nature of faith remains a divine mystery. As elusive in my mind
and intangible as the air we breathe, yet as essential as
the gravity that holds us to the earth. Faith has been the quiet assurance
in God's sovereign work. Faith is not an intellectual
attainment or doctrinal precision. Faith is not the outcome of rigorous
study, but a restful disposition granted by the divine. I said
it this way in my own writing. Faith is a repose in the efficacy
of a salvation fully wrought by Christ. So where does that put us? Faith
is confident assurance in things hoped for. Our attitude and our
mind and our focus. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2
and in many other places, put our mind not on that which is
temporal, but on that which is what? Eternal. That is not a struggle. That
is not a problem. That's a war. And that's why
being together in this context to hear these things is so important.
You can turn to Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. You probably know them
by heart. Point number two this morning will help us to see that
faith rests in God's promises, not in our own understanding.
Lean not. Trust in the Lord with all your
heart. And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your
ways, acknowledge Him. and He will make your path straight.
Or some of your versions say He will direct your paths. See, embracing faith's rest involves,
and I've already said this, you know me, I preach ahead of where
I'm going, and I look at my notes and go, oh, I've already said
that. But embracing faith's rest involves acknowledging that our
understanding is limited. I'm gonna say that again. Resting
in faith acknowledges that our understanding is limited. The mysteries of God are beyond
our full comprehension. We are not able to know everything
and understand and approach everything we even know about God. And so we have to just rest in
the sufficiency of who He is, not in our understanding of Him.
Oh, what about John 17 3? Absolutely. I'm glad you asked
that question. This is eternal life, Jesus says, that you know
the one true God in the Son whom he has sent. Does that mean that
we must know the theological principles of the character of
God and His holiness and all of His attributes? No, it's not!
It does not exist in the narrative and the prescription of Scripture.
Does it mean we must know all the ideas and what so many people
call the doctrines of Christ? We must know such rich theology
that we are able to espouse and spew out with great defense all
of the theological positions of the last 2,000 years? No! It means that we must know that
God has promised to know us, and the intimacy of knowing us,
akin to the husband and the wife becoming one flesh, is absolutely
a divine mystery, and it's supposed to make us go, wow, and just
sit down and take a deep breath and be drowned in the efficacy
of the Lord Jesus. And then we grow to know some
things, too, in our minds, but that knowledge is not what tethers
us to our hope. That knowledge gives us, I don't
even wanna say ammunition, because
that's not it. More morsels, more flavor, more sweetness,
an overflowing, if you will, of an already established presence. to know and go, wow, but it's
not for everybody and God doesn't call everybody to it. Embracing faith in the promises
of God and not our own understanding is a humble admission that we
can only see a part of the vast tapestry of His plan. And what's
been revealed to us is extremely small in scope, but yet so deep
and so wide and so far that we would never ever be able to apprehend
it. But there's comfort in this rest. It's not resignation to ignorance,
but it's a peaceful trust in the one who knows all things.
This is why I say John chapter five is an evangelistic tool. Number one is that the writer
tells us that. He tells us that. He tells us
that these things are written that you may know that you have
eternal life. I meant John chapter four. and all the theological
arguments, and all the historical arguments, and all the moral
arguments, and all of the different things that the woman from Sychar
begins to describe to Jesus, and Jesus does this very intentionally
to tear down a lot of things in our mind as we read this for
what it is, and then she comes to a resolution and says what? She says these words. The woman said to him, I know
that Messiah is coming. And when he comes, he will tell
us all things. And Jesus says to her, the one to whom you speak, I
am. Why are we worried about getting
it all right? And the irony behind all that,
for sometimes in our lives when we feel like it has to be all
right, we spend more time on the what is not the gospel than
we do what is the gospel, because the gospel in its simplicity
is sufficient enough. So we have to, in order to have
time to fill the 24-hour weather channel of theology, we have
to continually talk about what is not, which is absolutely,
pardon my French, asinine. and I believe stands on a ladder
of great hubris. In other words, it's just prideful
and arrogant. And oh boy, have I been guilty
of that and will be again, but that's okay. Maybe you all will
say, hey, where are you going with all that? Simmer down now. We don't have to have all the
answers to have faith, to have a strong faith. We just have
to trust in the one who does. It's a pilgrimage to the heart
of divine trust. Resting. And when we return to
the pristine scriptural revelations of God, He will illuminate the
path to life. Not study it with a pencil and
a paper. I used to teach that stuff. You know how you really
study the Bible? You get a pad and a pencil. I don't even know where I heard
that from. It's okay. You don't need 12 colors and
a highlighter and nine notebooks with 15 sections each. to read
God's Word. You just need to open your ears
and hear it. I mean, that'd be like getting
a love letter from your spouse. And doing a diagram of every
sentence, parsing out the definition of every word, underscoring everything. That's not exegesis. That's insanity. I guess if it was written in
a language you didn't know and you had to do that, that's fine. But
then when you get to the meaning, write it out and live in it. Let's
do it. Faith is a gift from God. It
is a gift from God, a serene confidence that he who began
a good work in us will carry it on to the day of completion.
True rest in faith comes not from understanding the depths,
but from trusting, trusting the one who holds the depths in his
hands. These little turns help me really
solidify what I'm trying to say every day. In the surrender of our understanding,
we find the peace of faith anchored not in our knowledge, but in
his wisdom. In the tapestry of faith, each thread of uncertainty
is interwoven with the strong cords of divine promise. Faith invites us to rest in a
knowledge greater than our own, where divine promises become
the bedrock of our peace. And I could go on, I have 75
of those for today. They're not for you, they were
for me. In Ephesians 2, 8, 9, I've alluded
to it. This is point three. I've already said it, that faith
is a gift. Faith is a gift from God. For
by grace you have been saved. Through faith, which and faith
and this, is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. It is not a result of works. So that no one can boast. You
know, the boasting of the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.
Remember the boasting of the Pharisee? What was the boasting?
See, sometimes we think boasting is like, man, look what I came
up with, look what I discovered, look what I know, look at me,
look at me, pick me, hey, everybody, pay attention to me, I've got
all the answers, woohoo! No, boasting is also thank you
God. for what you've done in me. Thank
you God that I know this. Thank you God that I'm this way. Thank you God I'm not like that.
Thank you God I'm not ignorant over here. That is arrogance.
Why do you say that? Because that's what Jesus says
is arrogance. Because that's not resting in
the divine promises of God's character in the Messiah. That
is resting in God transforming us to be self-righteous. And God doesn't do that. Matter
of fact, speaking in the area of knowledge, speaking in the
area where we have grown to understand things cognitively or academically
or intellectually, that's great. But those things, according to
Paul's writing to Timothy, often puff people up to the point they
leave the faith and don't even know it. They're preaching the
precepts, preaching the propositions, but don't live the precepts. Faith is a gift from God. We
cannot achieve it through our efforts. We cannot achieve it
through our knowledge, nor can we achieve it and then say, oh,
when I came to this or that or this or that, when I came to
understand election, then I was born again. That's a lie. And that's a misplaced faith.
That is no different than putting faith in your own faith, or faith
in a decision that you made, or faith in the way you've changed,
or faith in the fact that you're not an alcoholic anymore, or
faith in the fact that you're faithful to your wife or your
husband. Faith in the fact that you don't
get angry. Okay. I know a lot of unbelievers
who are... Faith in the one who is faithful.
Knowing that it is a gift. The genesis of our faith is the
grace of God, not human effort or intellect. It is divine endowment. freely given as God wills. This truth should bring relief
and this truth should bring joy. This truth should bring satisfaction
and fulfillment. It lifts the burden of trying
to muster faith on our own and places the focus of God's generous
nature at the center of our hope. In daily life, this means our
faith journey is less about striving and more about receiving. Less about proving and more about
resting in the ample grace of God. This exploration of faith is
not academic. It's a pilgrimage to the heart
of divine trust, the heart of the work of God. In every act of faith and every
time we live it out, we see the brushstrokes of grace, painting
our journey with the hues of God's gifts. James chapter one, point number
four, what does faith do? That faith in trials produces
steadfastness. I've said it already, remember,
having faith doesn't mean that we're going to approach things
without fear, frustration, or we're going to avoid pain and
suffering, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to have
trials. James chapter one, verse two,
counted all joy my brothers and sisters. When you meet trials
of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith,
what does that mean, to test the faith? Okay? I used to rock climb. Robin
and I used to climb, you know, the little thing. Then I learned
to boulder, and I could do that and fall and not get hurt because
it's short. But when you're climbing up 30, 40, 50 feet, you're tethered. You're anchored. Someone's belaying
you. So there's a person over here
that's roped in and got this thing in. And as you climb, they
take up your slack so that when you slip, you dangle and don't
pop. So there's a lot there to put
to the test. The rope, the harness, the way it's put on, the harness
the other person's wearing, and their competence. First time
you let loose, you better be trusting. You better be trusting. You test it. Now you don't just
jump off the mountain, I'm gonna test it. You don't just run out
into things. God said he'd protect me, let
me jump off into this fire. But trials test our faith, why?
Because it puts in our way an opportunity for us to either
remember the promises of God and rest in them while we circumnavigate
this horror, terror, or pain, changing and continually recreating
our, or not recreating, but redirecting our already new disposition to
hope in Him no matter what happens here. Or we take it upon ourselves
and we push Him out the side. We do both, right? We're reactionary, and we respond, but we always
remain. Trials are challenging. but they
are part of our faith and its growth. I want you to hear that
again. Pain, suffering, trials, whether
it be external or internal. And I keep saying that because
we have ignored as a church, as a culture, for as long as
I've lived, internal trials. And we've made them, we've mocked
them. And it's sad. And it's unloving. So that's why I keep emphasizing
internal, external. Because the majority of our pain is in here. Fear. While trials and suffering
are challenging, they are instrumental in strengthening and deepening
our faith. They're not just obstacles to be endured, but they're opportunities
for growth. Faith, when tested, becomes more
resilient, like a tree strengthened by the wind. The steadfastness,
let's keep reading. I didn't finish reading. Count
it all joys, my siblings, when you meet trials of various kinds,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its
full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking
in nothing. If anyone lacks wisdom, they just need ask God, who gives
generously to all without reproach, and it'll be given. But let them
ask. in faith, resting in the assurance
of knowing God's Word is sufficient. Even though I don't understand
it, I don't really know how to apply it, I'm not really sure
I believe it, but I'm going to rest in it. I know that it is true, but that
doesn't mean that you believe it. We'll get to that next week. Knowing something is true is
not faith. Knowing something is true is
not belief. And I want to try to parse that out carefully in
a sermon, not a point. Without doubting, for the one
who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed
by the wind. And when we doubt what God has promised, we're
not going to receive what we're looking for. Double-minded, unstable. We're
looking for peace. We have to rest. In practical terms, this means
that when we face suffering and trials and pain, we do so with
an attitude of growing, not despairing. Knowing that these challenges
are shaping us into more steadfast believers, not stoics. Oh God, if that were just only
the way, I could do it. It's not the way. Poetically, I think about a garden,
I think about a sculptor and the garden metaphor, trials of
the rain that nurtures our trust, bringing forth the flowers of
steadfastness. In the context of sculpting,
the trials we endure abut the chisel in the sculptor's hand,
shaping our faith into a form of beauty and strength. James
chapter 2. We get this little place down
here, and for those of you who are hobby theologians, you get
to verse 14 of chapter 2 and go, ha ha, we see the conundrum.
I remember I had to do an entire paper on that in one of my master's
degrees, where we had to look at what James was saying versus
what Paul is saying and see where the problem is. And there's no
problem at all, because there's a context, there's a point to
what both of them are saying. They are saying the exact same
things, different audiences, different context, different
instruction. What James is saying is that
faith is expressed through service, works, and love. Doesn't John
say the same thing in 1 John? Doesn't Jesus say the same thing
to his disciples? And what was happening in James's tribe, if you will, churches,
is that people were showing favoritism, they were unloving. They were
loving this group over here because of what they could do for them
rather than just being loving. They were serving this group
over here because they were dignitaries rather than serving the smelly
guy on the back row. They were trying to clothe natives
rather than just love them in their own culture. Ridiculous stuff. I mean, you
start thinking about it. But the expression of faith,
point five, is through love and actions. And so we get down to
verse 14. What good is it, my brothers,
if someone says he has faith but he doesn't have works? precious first world problem
culture as Christians, we get all these things that are not
said. We love to go to what is not
being said, and then we impose that it is being said, and we
don't want to hear anybody say otherwise. So we say, what is
he talking about? What works? Well, he asks another
question. Can that faith save him? Oh,
faith saves me. See, there's two aspects here.
The truth of Christ. Trusting if a brother then he
explains that verse 15 if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and
lacking in daily food And someone one of you says just go in peace
and be warm be full Without giving them the things needed for the
body, what good is that? So also faith by itself If it does not
have works is dead. Now, what does that mean dead?
Does that mean lost? That means unconverted? No. Brothers
and sisters, count it all joy when you meet trials. Brothers
and sisters, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, brothers
and sisters, brothers and sisters, hey my siblings, hey my precious
siblings in Christ, hey the regenerate, awesome, holy, anointed ones
who share the glory of Christ, you have dead faith if you're
not working. Here's the illustration that
we give, we see in Paul talking to the Ephesians and the Colossians.
We see also Peter in some sense. It's like having a marriage that
doesn't talk, that doesn't work, doesn't strive. It's dead. Still
there. It's dead. It's like getting up every day
and just making sure your children are alive, but you see them. Hey, you're still alive in here
when it's bedtime. Okay, glad. You know, you find
them a couple of months later and they're eating Cheez Whiz
and crackers in the back of the closet. I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
I'm just saying it's a dead parenting issue. As long as the closet door's
not locked. Love through actions. Genuine
faith naturally manifests in our actions. If we rest in the
grace and the love of God for us, it will overflow in our lives. To what degree? We can't say.
And in these people's lives, it had backed up and was non-existent.
So what happens? James says, hey, get alive in
your faith. Put teeth to your faith. Put
shoe lever to your faith. Put some action in there. Don't
live dead before the Lord. Let your life be a testament. And why do our lives go there?
Why are so many people so academic in their faith and understanding,
saying that it is their faith, but yet they have no real pressing
because they have settled in an understanding rather than
living an experience? They're holding on to what God
gave them years ago rather than experiencing what God is giving
them today. Serving others and loving others
is how our belief is seen most clearly. It's the tangible expression
of what we believe, the hands and the feet of our faith journey.
Practically, this means our daily interactions are opportunities
to demonstrate What we really say we rest in, kindness to a
stranger, patience in adversity. I'm writing a little booklet
on patience right now. I want it done now. Generosity to those
in need. You didn't catch the joke. Our deeds in some sense are echoes
of our faith reverberating through the chambers of our daily encounters.
In the symphony of our faith, our actions are like the notes
in the medley that bring the love of God to life. 1 Peter
chapter 1, flip over. I tell you, we get to Hebrews,
James, and Peter. Point six. Faith has endurance,
the hope of eternal life. Starting in verse 3. I cannot
read this text. I want to get to verse 8 and
9, but I cannot read this text without reading from the beginning
of verse 3. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, who has,
excuse me, according to His great mercy, has caused us to be born
again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled,
and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who you, by God's power,
being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time. In this you rejoice, obviously, though now
for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various
trials. Why? So that the genuine testedness,
excuse me, the tested genuineness of your faith, which is more
precious than gold, which also perishes by fire, may be found
to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. The point I want to make today, verse eight. Though
you have not seen him, Jesus, you love him. Though you do not
now see him, You trust in Him and rejoice with joy that is
inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome
of your faith, which is the salvation of your souls." And then Peter goes in there
and starts talking about the prophets and the angels and their
whole purpose in life was to look forward to and to watch
this come about. Imagine your whole purpose in
life was just to tell about what was going to take place one day
and you never saw it. And then your only other purpose in life
was to just celebrate what you did see. It'd have to be really awesome.
It'd have to be the most amazing thing that could ever, ever exist.
The most amazing reality that could ever be known for us to
waste our lives and our existence celebrating and looking forward
to something that we'd never see. And according to the promises
and the character and the nature of God it is. And that's the starting and the
ending point of what really resting in the promises of God is all
about. The enduring nature of faith
is anchored in the promise of eternal life. Hope that is not fleeting. It's not just a wish, but it's
a secure expectation that is guaranteed because of the faithfulness
of God. It transcends the temporal and
it anchors us to the eternal. So as we live out our daily lives,
this means that our perspective is and should be shaped not just
by the immediate, but by the eternal, giving us a hope that
is steadfast and endures beyond the momentary trials and troubles
of life. I believe in this embrace of
faith, what God has granted for us and its enduring power, that
we touch eternity, holding onto a hope that outlasts
the very cosmos that displays it. The final point. living out our
faith. These should have been seven
sermons, but oh well. A daily journey. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, it's hard to read that without going through the
entire chapter 4, and then in order not to set that up correctly,
you have to read the first three chapters of 2 Corinthians. So,
I encourage you to read 2 Corinthians. I know it's not, John, but read
it anyway. Just read it. In chapter 4, we see Paul's resolution
to expressly tell this really infantile church that the ministry
that he has is by the grace of God, by the mercy of God, and
because of that, no matter what he's experienced, listen to this
now, no matter what he's experienced, and everything that's come against
him, and all the people that hate him, and everybody that's maligned
him, and everything that's happened, all the loss that he's had, everything
that's gone on with Paul, he said, I'm not losing hope, and
we can't lose hope, and you can't lose hope. Why? Because it's
by the mercy of God. Our ministry, our lives, our
very breath is by the mercy of God, and it has a greater purpose
than just this mundane, oh, 100 years, I'm gone. And we've renounced disgraceful,
underhanded ways. We don't practice cunning. We
refuse to be cunning. We refuse to tamper with God's
Word. But by the open statement of the truth, we just say what
God has said, we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the
sight of God. And when other people don't hear
the good report, when other people go, that's ridiculous. Other
people say, I can't rest like that. You understand that this
was not a, I don't believe in the divine, or I don't believe
that Jesus could be raised from the dead. In Paul's day, especially
in Corinth, it was an issue of, I am not believing that I can
just sit on my butt and sit in the presence of God's grace and
hope that I am okay. Yes you can, and you must, and
you will if you're reminded to do so. Otherwise it's going to
be a very, very trying life and we're going to live as imposters
and not even know who we really are. But if our gospel's veiled and
people aren't coming to believe in Christ and rest in Him, it's
not our problem, it's not our mission to make people see, it's
our mission to just proclaim simply It's evangelism. Sharing the faith. Because if it's veiled, it's
only veiled to those who are perishing, who God has blinded their eyes
to keep them from seeing what? The light of the gospel and the
glory of Christ. Oh my goodness! Then what's their hope? What's
the hope? Where is it? Well, what we proclaim
is not of ourselves, but as Christ our Lord, with ourselves as your
slaves for the sake of Christ. For God who said, let light shine
out of darkness. You see, this is where we get
the illusion, the looking back to the creation account, which
is the point that it was written that we may see that only God
can call light out of darkness. And then John undergirds that
by saying that the light that's called out of darkness is the
light coming into the darkness, who is Jesus Christ. And then
the people of Christ, as they live out their life, not as separatists,
not as Puritans, but as individuals and then collectively as a whole,
people who are different, people who are upset, people who are
ugly, people who are nice, and we work together by the grace
of God to to be a light unto the world. Not to transform the
world into our desire and our likeness, but to proclaim to
the world the person of Jesus Christ. Simply. Simple grace. God said, let light shine on
darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And this treasure
are in jars of clay, us, we're jars of clay, so that it shows
us our passing power belongs to God and not to us. Why? We're living a very afflicted
life. We're hurting, we're suffering
in every way, but we are not crushed. We're confused and perplexed. We don't know what's going on,
but we are not driven to despair. People hate us and they want
to kill us. We're persecuted, but we are
not alone. We've been struck down, we've
been beaten, we've been arrested, but we have not been destroyed.
Because we are always carrying in our body the death of Jesus
Christ. Why? So that the life of Jesus
may also be manifested in our bodies, in our lives. For we
who live are always being given over to death for Christ's sake.
So that the life of Christ may also be manifested in our mortal
flesh. So death is at work in us. And we rejoice so that life
may be at work in you. See, it's not a come-to situation,
it's being in Christ. So we believe and we know that
God is going to be raising us from the dead and He's going
to bring you with us into His presence. It's all for your sake,
so that as grace increases, extends to more and more and more people,
it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God, to see God
for who He really is, so we don't lose heart. Verse 16 of 2 Corinthians
5. Our outer self was wasting away, our inner self was renewed
day by day for this light momentary, this simple little tiny pain
is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
As we look, and I've already talked about this, that's why
I read it, to the things that are unseen, not to the things
that are seen. For the things that are seen
are just passing through, but the things that are unseen will
last forever. So now we know that this little life that we
live This little tent we live in is dying, it's going to be
destroyed, and we have a building from God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, oh,
we long to put on our heavenly dwelling. We talked about that
earlier, right? If indeed by putting on it we may not be found
naked. For while we are still in this tent we groan, being
burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would
be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up
by life. He has prepared us for this very thing as God who has
given us the spirit as a guarantee. So we are always the point today
of good courage. We know that while we are at
home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by
faith, not by what we see. We walk by resting in the promises
and the character of God. And this is a journey. It is
not something that's just going to happen and then we're settled
in it. It's every day. It's multiple times a day. We're
going to ebb. We're going to flow. We're going
to unbelieve. We're going to believe. We're
going to be deceived. We're going to be undeceived.
We're going to be challenged, we're going to find security,
we're going to be persecuted, we're going to be afflicted,
we're going to be perplexed, we're going to be struck down,
but we're not going to be destroyed, we're not going to be left alone,
we're not going to be driven to despair, we're going to rejoice
and we're going to do so because we know that the power of God
and the promises of God are in the person of Jesus Christ for
His people and there is no escape from such love. Period. And that's the end of it. So walking in faith is a daily
endeavor. It's not about grand gestures like I said last week.
It's not about grand gestures and doing things and getting
on the front of the magazines and getting to be known from all
the different people. The people that did most of the work in
the New Testament aren't even listed in there. Just the people
that wrote about it. Why? Because we've got their
names recorded. If they didn't write it down, we wouldn't know
who they were because they weren't that important. They weren't that
known. And after we die, we're just really not known anyway.
We're not here to be known, to make a difference that we can
see. We're here to be a glory reflection of Christ. A glorious reflection of Christ. Faith and walking daily by faith
is not about grand gestures. It's not about social media presence.
It's not about this great belief, but it's about consistent steps
of trusting and resting in the promises of God. It involves
making choices each day that reflect our faith. Finding God
in the ordinary and seeing the extraordinary in the mundane. This daily journey of faith means
that every aspect of our lives, beloved, from the mundane to
the monumental, it is an opportunity to exhibit, to live, to hope,
to rest and trust in God's faithfulness and sovereignty. It is this rest, and it is in
this rest that any transformation occurs. You want to know what
it means to be transformed from one degree of glory to another?
It's about being restful. I need to tell you about that
more clearly. Progression from glory to glory
is not an ascent into personal holiness, an ascent into personal
Christ-likeness in any way except where Christ trusted and rested
in the one who's faithful. And simply in the mundane found
the miraculous. It's a journey deeper into the
rest provided by Christ's work. Faith is a tranquil state of
our lives, whereas believers, we do things and we become who we
are not to gain salvation, but it's a natural outflow of a life
anchored, anchored in the certainty of Christ's victory. So faith is not just what we
know. Faith is not just what we say
is true. Faith is not just saying believe,
but it's resting. And that resting is a journey
of grand proportions that never has continuity except rest and
restlessness. One doesn't exist without the
other. But there is a promise that keeps us from going off
the cliff. And that is that the restfulness
will one day be replaced the restlessness forever. And now
we can sing and thank God for it. Now we can take this table
and remember how and why it's true. Because the body of Christ
was broken and the blood of Christ was spilled. And He said it was
finished, and it is. And He was raised to life to
bring us to Him. Let's pray. Father, I pray, Lord,
that You would help us to be committed to this understanding,
to this teaching. Lord, not in our own way, but
in Your divine giftedness and Your Spirit working in us and
through us. Father, I pray that You strengthen
our faith as a family. as a church, individually, to
help us to trust in your promises, to help us understand how to
lead a life of a journey rather than just hoping for what is
not going to be. But Lord, in all of that, resting
and being encouraged. to be anchored into your divine
presence, resting in the assurance that you, as our God, are with
us through every storm and through every calm. And as we take your
table today, Father, help us to remember the cost. Jesus Christ, in whose name we
pray, amen.