Introduction - Four Aspects of Faith
Hebrews 11; Romans 8 · Hal Molloy · Jun 10, 2001
Biblical Faith, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262211277890

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As we come to Scripture, and as we read Scripture, we have a frame of reference. And our frame of reference comes from things that we've read, comes from things that we've heard, taught, etc. If I were to ask you about love, you would immediately, in your frame of reference, have an understanding in your own mind in terms of what love is. And if I asked you the same thing about grace, or righteousness, or faith, any one of those things, you have in your mind a frame of reference that you would speak from. So, if I take an example, like love, and the key word in the New Testament, and this key word in Christianity, is the word agape, or agapeo, which is the verb form of agape.

We know that as we read scripture in 1 John, says that God is love. If we go to John chapter 3 verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And if we went over to Romans chapter 8 verse 35, it says that nothing, nothing in this entire universe can ever separate us from the love of Christ, the agape of Christ. So, if you would ask me, my frame of reference about love, I would say something like, my frame of reference about love is the fact that it's an essence of God, and God being the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and they all have the same essence, which is infinite, and it manifests itself in infinite goodness, infinite grace, infinite mercy, infinite kindness towards man. Would you say that would be an acceptable definition of love, which is the word agape?

The answer is no. Turn to John chapter 3 verse 18. He that believes on him is not condemned. That he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the passage of scripture that convicted me that I was all that God said I was, a sinner lost in my sins.

My reasoning was this, who got to love the world? Yeah, he was. But I'm not going to reject him, but neither am I going to accept him. So I was walking this line, am I going to accept him? But I'm not going to reject him. And then somebody shared this passage of scripture with me, and it convicted me on the spot. that there is no line that you can walk.

Go to verse 19 and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. The word love there is agapeo. Men love darkness rather than light. So as you go through scripture and you look at this word love, agape, you always think of it in a very positive sense. God's love, Christ's love for us, our love for one another.

But yet, it's used here in a very negative sense. So that in our definition of love, we've got to account for this love of darkness rather than light. The same can be said of the word righteousness. because Scripture talks about the righteousness of God, but it also talks about the righteousness of man, and it uses it in a negative sense. And when it talks about the righteousness of man in a negative sense, it's talking about his unrighteousness, diametrically opposed to the righteousness of God.

So, depending upon the context in the passage of Scripture we're reading, we have to determine what that word means. Now, how about Faith. The word faith. And that's the word we're going to be concentrating on. Faith. What's the first thing that comes to your mind about faith? Like if I asked you, what does agape mean? What does love mean? What's the first thing that comes to your mind about faith?

Belief. Trust. Confidence. Dependence. Rest. Proof. Okay. Now, when we talk about trust, rest, dependence, whose trust, whose rest, whose dependence are we talking about? Ours. So, when we talk about faith, we usually think of faith in terms of our faith, us. Focus is on personal faith. Nothing wrong about that, and nothing wrong about any one of those definitions. What I want to do is take a look at some passages of scripture and see if the definition that you just gave me matches the definition that the passage teaches us. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 8, verse 5.

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy. previously tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy."

Look at the mental attitude of this centurion soldier. Now, who was in charge? Were the Romans in charge? I mean, they were in charge. Centurion, he's a leader of a hundred men. He's a leader in the Roman army. He's got jurisdiction over the people there. Jurisdiction over the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I am not worthy.

What a correct assessment that you should come under my roof but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, Go, and he goes, and to another, Come, and he comes, and to my servant, Do this, and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. as the Lord Jesus Christ, from his frame of reference, looks at all of Israel, he hasn't found that kind of faith, and he looks outside of Israel to those who are outside of the seat of Abraham, and he says, I have not found so great faith. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as you have believed, so be it done unto thee. And the servant was healed in the very same hour."

Question, this centurion's faith, was it trust, dependence, reliance, and all of the things that you've mentioned? All of the above. True. So our definition, our understanding of faith, so far it holds. Now I want you to turn to one more. Just turn over to the book of Hebrews in chapter 11. What I like to call the Hall of Famers of faith. God has his own Hall of Fame. And he puts believers in his Hall of Fame.

And so you start out with verse 4. First, by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Then you go to verse 5. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death. And then verse 7. By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear and prepared an ark for the saving of his house. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing where he went." Verse 20, By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning the things to come. Verse 21, By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed the sons of Joseph.

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents. Verse 24. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Verse 30. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, and they were compassed about seven days.

31. By faith the harlot Rahab perished, not with them that believed not, when she received the spies with peace. verse 32, "...and what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, and of David, and of Samuel, and of the prophets. They all walk by faith."

And you know, God gives a commentary about man, whether it's unbelieving man or believing man. He has his frame of reference about man. And the wonderful thing is this, that he shares it with us, whether it be negative or whether it be positive. And look at God's primal reference on those who walk by faith. And we're asked to walk by faith. Here's God's commentary about walking by faith.

Look at verse 38, "...of whom the world was not worthy." They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, but those swords there, of whom the world was not worthy." What is interesting is this, as we walk by faith, and that's all the Lord ever asks us to do, is to walk by faith, moment by moment, in our lives. And God will say about us, and the world is not worthy of us.

Isn't that a wonderful commentary? Don't you want to be in this Hall of Fame with all of these others? I do. I would love to have the Lord say of me that the world was not worthy of me, but it's the Lord Jesus Christ in me. It's not me, but it's the Lord Jesus Christ in me.

I'm going to close here, but I want to tell you where we're going and what we're going to be doing in the next couple of weeks. We're going to be looking at faith, and next week I'm going to show you that there are many aspects of what I've indicated here as biblical faith. And understand, there's a whole category of non-biblical faith which is also listed in scripture. And as we look at biblical faith, we're going to find this, that faith has an essence, and we'll look at the very essence of faith.

And when we look at the essence of faith, we're going to find out it has nothing to do with us. Zero. Nothing to do with us. And when we think that faith is trust, dependence, reliance, etc., that's good. But that has nothing to do with faith and its essence.

We're going to look at faith where, as you go through scripture, there's a definite article that talks about THE faith. And if you come into a passage of scripture like that, and if you're thinking about your trust, your dependence, your reliance, your belief, the passage doesn't make sense. And so you hit these passages of scripture where your frame of reference about faith doesn't make any sense.

So we're going to be looking at that. But when we come to passages like we just read in Matthew and in Hebrews 11, where it talks about personal faith, our faith, then our frame of reference, our understanding in terms of trust, dependence, and reliance, and all of that, that's a good definition. Then there's another aspect of faith as a principle, because Scripture talks about the law of faith. So now if you put the law of trust, reliance, and dependence, it doesn't quite fit. So the question is, When we try to understand the word faith, there's major aspects of how it's used in Scripture.

And it's not always used meaning our personal faith. That's where we're going. As I've been sitting in studies and talking to people, people have all these questions. And so I've been logging questions for the last month. Not all of these come from logging, but My question to you would be, is faith always positive, like love? Or is faith always biblical? There is a non-biblical faith.

Question, is faith a gift? In terms of you believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, the first time that you heard the gospel about the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order for you to believe, did God give you a gift of faith to believe? The question is faith at work.

Are you going to get merit badges because of your faith? Are faith and belief the same? One of your definitions of faith was belief. Can I always substitute belief in terms of the word faith? Are there degrees of faith? Little faith? More faith? A lot of faith? Does our faith increase and grow?

What's the difference between faith and knowledge? Is there a difference between the two? Does God test our faith? Believers who go through trials, could that trial be from God? Does God test our faith? Does faith determine our walk? What energizes our faith? Is there something that energizes our faith?

I was talking to a young couple. The husband said, you know, there must be more to church than always being bombarded by financial projection and growth and how many people that we need to get into this fellowship in order to meet our financial prediction, in order to meet our budget and to build new stuff and to start new programs.

And he says, You know, that's all we get bombarded with. And his wife said, you know, I never get to know about the Lord. In terms of, here's the word she used, in terms of intimacy with the Lord. I said, well, let's talk about intimacy with the Lord. We spent a half hour talking about many subjects. So that's where we're going. And those are the questions that we're going to try and answer.