Faith Lesson 21

So what we're doing today, lesson 21, we're in the last part of what we're going to teach. And we're going to focus on this last part on personal faith. But in regards to that, we're going to spend some time, hopefully, pointing out some issues that could be an error and would maybe change your thought process about what personal faith is.

So probably the best place to start is, let's go through the four aspects of faith. So what are the four aspects of biblical faith? What's the first one? Essence of faith. And what's the essence of faith? I'm going to do question one and two. Well, let's just stay with one. I'm going to do question two first and then back to one. So the essence of faith is, what was the verse that we used? So we're working on question two. Faith in its essence.

Hebrews 11.1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. Simply put, if you want to see the things of God, the only way to see them is by faith. That's it. So the essence had a lot to do with how you feel about it, right? It had nothing to do with how you think or feel or your input. We just talked about objectively what faith is.

So Hebrews 11.1, faith is the assurance, assurance is a really important word, of the things hoped for. Whose hope is it? God's hope, which means absolute certainty, and it's a conviction, a persuasion of the things not seen. You cannot see them without faith, okay?

What's the next one? The faith. So when you're reading in the scripture, and it's really interesting as we go through the next couple of weeks, we're going to see the definite article stuck in some places that the English doesn't show it, but if it's there, it changes the whole concept of what we're studying, okay? So when you see like in the word that the word indefinite articles in front of faith, what does that mean? The only one? Well, it can be. It can be. Refresh my memory, what's a definite article? What's that? Refresh my memory, what's a definite article? T-H-E. What it does is it specifies. If I said there's 45 houses on South Holly Street, And then I said, there is the house, I'm pointing to a specific house.

So when you say the faith, there's two things we could be pointing to. Isn't it all the things of God? Yeah, and that would fit with what you're saying. All of the word of God, or a specific part of the word of God, such as the gospel. You could say the faith is just the gospel, which would be 1 Corinthians 15, 1-5. That's the gospel pointing to the faith. We talked about Romans 10-17, so faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The definite article is in this verse, it says, for the faith comes by hearing, and hearing. The specificity of the information that has to do with salvation comes specifically by the Word of God.

Okay? Third one. Principle. Principle of faith. What's a principle? Somebody who heads a high school, right? What's a principle? Something like unchanging and stable and constant and Can it be a set of beliefs? It's not a set of beliefs. It's not? No. It's how something functions or operates. As an example. Being an engineer ought to know that.

A lot of times you can read in the word where they use the word law and what they mean is principle. It's like Romans 8, 2 says there's a new, most of your translations will say, There's a new law of life in Christ Jesus that has set me free from the law of sin and death. That word law should be principle. There's a new principle of life in Christ Jesus that has set me free from the principle of sin and death. So when I say a principle is something that works the same way every time, what am I talking about? I'm talking about how something works. If I'm saying faith works the same way every time, what do I mean?

You can count on it. I can count on it. I can count on faith being the ability to see the things of God. I can understand that if I function and live by faith, there's an operating principle about how I function. I'm a man or a woman of faith. I believe what God tells me. And when I do that, I get to walk with him and I see things that I don't see otherwise. It works every time.

And I've noticed Romans 3.27 says that where then is boasting, it is excluded by what kind of principle of works? No, but by the principle of faith. talking about salvation. You can't get saved by the principle of law. It has to be by the principle of faith.

What I've noticed in Christianity, and as I read I find that it's probably been true forever, is the biggest problem within the body of Christ is the lack of faith. People do not believe what they read in the Word. Their experience and how they feel about it supersedes what God says. And as soon as that happens, the principle goes out the window.

Because you're now walking by the principle of self. And the principle of self operates or functions the same way every time. I find myself doing that when I sort of pray, God help me. Help me to do what I want. You know? It's like, not help me to follow what you want. Like, come on in and make things go the way I want them to. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly what happened.

Eve stopped living by faith. And look what it got her. Look what it got you. So, as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, you know, the question keeps coming, what do I do with the information that I find in the Word? What do I do with that information? You know, it seems to me it's an entirely different switch from your personal self. Yes, it is. And that's death, right? Death to self.

When the Lord Jesus said to Peter, I have prayed that your faith wouldn't fail. See, he knew that Peter's functioning in the environment he was going to be in had to be by faith, or Peter was in huge trouble. See, that's the same with us. You know, we pray for Kurt Jenkins and Bob Eccle and that kind of thing. What are we really asking God to do?

That their faith not fail. That they would trust you. That the circumstances that they're involved in are, as we've learned over the last month, are orchestrated and ordained by you to cause you to grow spiritually. I'm not giving Bob Eccle a new knee so he can be a Rudy Gazzuti guy. Whatever comes down your way, we found out that there's a principle involved in that. Romans 5, 1-5, what does trials and tribulation bring us? It brings us tribe character and hope. Whose character and hope is it? It's God's. So that we won't be ashamed because the love of God is shed upon our heart.

How does one go from, as a child, let me do it, learning to tie strings, I want to do it myself, to switch over to depending on... Yeah, that's a great question. I think that you can't do it. We are so self-centered as young believers and even growing believers and we have been taught in most Christian circles to be self-centered and by soliciting God as a big screwdriver in the sky to come and fix whatever is our problem.

So God comes along through the principle of trials and suffering and he puts us uniquely, every one of us uniquely in a position where we can't handle it and we beg him and he won't intercede. Why? Because he wants us to, in the middle of all of the noise and all of the tribulation, just to trust him and not me. Miles Stanford's greatest saying was, we have to trust the Lord. It's come to that. And oh, by the way, it's got to come to that. See? That's the principle. And I think that's how he does it. say a personal one?

Because I think I just went through it, or I'm going through it. Because it's like with my job, and all my jobs, I end up like not liking them because I like don't like all the politics going on and I find out that I start like not like being critical of people and so then it's like I'm in these jobs that that always happens and So now I finally figured out the problem is with other people, the problem is with me, because I am, and I kind of like, as I came to that realization, I kind of started looking around for things, and I came across this thing that said, you know, you don't necessarily have to like other people to love them, you know, and it kind of was a lesson in that, that I'm always going to be in that situation until I, you know, figure that out. I learned that lesson from Courtney. You know how I learned it?

Fifteen years ago when Halim Alois said, how would you like to be an elder? I thought, that would be kind of cool. He said to me, you're going to find that those sheep are real stinky. He's been right. Exactly, and it's like if you get involved in the stink, you know, all the time, you're going to get worn out. So it's like, you just got to say, it's going to stink. And the other thing is, if you get involved, if your focus is the success of the stinky sheep, you're going to be disappointed the rest of your life. Or even if you try to clean up the stink. You can't even clean it up.

Good luck with that. So the focus has to be on the Lord Jesus for your faith to operate the way it should. So the last one is what? Personal faith. So back to question one. Remember when we started we asked what is faith and most of the answers had to do with personal faith. What is personal faith? How would you describe it? How would you define it? Okay. Personal. Okay. Belief? It's what I believe. That's my personal faith. Yours is what you believe, and they're not identical.

Okay. Would you say that, you know, in Hebrews 11 it goes on to talk about Abraham and Isaac. Right. The Hall of Fame. And then, you know, that would be their personal faith. That's right. Would you say that personal faith is something that we choose? Absolutely. You know what? It's the only thing you choose. In your life, you think about it, you've got this will. I've got a will. Some people think it's free. It ain't free. So you have a will. I think that the entire reason that we have wills is to either believe God or believe something else.

Because whatever we believe in, that's the path we follow. Unless you're in the military. But even then, you know, that's what boot camp's about, is to get your will right. Would you repeat that sentence that you just said, faith is the only thing in life that you can decide about, make a decision about.

In other words, here comes, as an example, here comes the word of God to Eve, and here comes an opposing view. She gets to exercise her will. What? Who is she going to believe? Is she going to believe and trust God? Or is she going to believe what's right in front of her? That's what the will is for. I'm convinced that's what she... The only reason, an old brethren guy, Trumbull, I read that paragraph one time, he said, We have a will only to believe. It's the only reason we have it.

To believe God or to believe something other than God. Definition. Personal faith is rest and trust in what is revealed to us through the word of God. In the essence of faith or of the faith. So biblical faith, biblical personal faith, is a rest in trust in what has been revealed to us in the Word of God regards the things of God.

Now a lot of times, as you've experienced, there's an awful lot of times that the Word of God will say something that's totally opposite to what your experience is. or how you feel about something. Who's right? You can say in a class like this, oh God is absolutely right. But the next time you get in that box, which way are you going to go? Are you going to trust him and what he says or not?

Like we spent 5-6 weeks going through Romans chapter 5 verses 1-5. What tribulation and trials are designed to do? Is that the way you're going to look at and trust God about the next trial that comes in your life? If you don't, you're like on the rogue river without a paddle in the boat.

It's really tough. But designed for you to... He's always increasing our faith. Always. And he does it by putting a challenge out in front of us. Do we trust him or not? How does a person believe? How do you do that? It's like asking you, how do you make a decision? You just decide. I think the best way to describe it is you just rest in God's facts.

Okay, Lord, I don't understand this. Or maybe I do understand it, and I don't like it. But I'm going to trust you, because I have nowhere else to go. Because you've taught me I have nowhere else to go. It's part of the tribulation because it can be painful to know that you're wrong. That death part, you know?

I'm going to compare it to when they were in the boat and there was a storm and they're all freaking out. I wonder if afterwards they're like, I can't believe I freaked out. I bet that they were freaking out. These guys are fishermen and they've been out on that Sea of Galilee a lot. They've been in storms before. They know. I think what freaked them is what the Lord Jesus did. They must have been looking at each other and looking at Him and thinking, we've got to have Him with us every time. But then also that embarrassment and kind of painfulness of like, here I am, super fisherman, and I peed my pants.

You know? Yeah. So jump in the water. Yeah. Jesus was sleeping. Yeah, he was sleeping, sure. Did he trust him? Oh yeah. His father? I'm reading, was it last night? I'm reading about Peter when they throw him in jail. What's the first thing he did? I like it. Guide walking by faith. I'm going to take my hat off. I better get a napkin. But you know, it doesn't mean you don't do anything about things. I think that the Bible said, having done all to stand, are you required to do so? Oh, that's good. That's a good question. What are you required to do? What does God require of you?

I would think what you can religiously do and then to stand on faith. How about reversing the order? And faith. How about you stand on faith? But you've got to do something sometimes. If there's a fire and you can help people get out, you're not going to stand there. Now think about this.

What did the Lord Jesus say was the work of God? He said it's that you might believe. When Paul's epistles and Peter, James and John tell you to obey, what are they telling you? What are you supposed to obey? You're supposed to believe. Doesn't obey mean agree with God? Listen under.

That's what it means. The activity comes after the belief. Because once you rest by faith in the things of God, then you see the things of God and then you see what's required. It just is next. It's not difficult. It's not, oh I've got to do this to be free. No. I see what God is doing. I trust him.

I'm resting in that and oh yeah, I can go put my arm around that person or I can you know, just endure, or I can do whatever God would lead me to do next. But if I get the work in front of the faith, I don't have the vision I need. You see that? I don't see what God is doing, because I don't see His stuff, His things. Does that make sense? So isn't that the first thing, if the building is burning down? You don't start like, oh, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this. Isn't the first thing it's like kind of God. Well, show me what you want me to do now.

Donna tried to tell my joke that she screwed up the other night. You know, the story about the guy that was the floods are rising. Yeah. The guy shows up at the boat and says, hop in. He said, no, no, I'm trusting God. Yeah. And the next boat came by. He's on the peak of the roof. And the third is a helicopter that lands down the rope. He says, no, I'm trusting God. And the next thing you know, the guy shows up in heaven. And he says to Peter, he says to God, why didn't you save me? He said, I sent you two boats and a helicopter where you want. Doesn't that go to source too, what you're talking about? Yeah, explain. In the sense that we have the opportunity to have our source be in Christ. There's always that choice.

Am I going to use my will to believe what I think or am I going to believe what God says? And that brings up a good point. Let's say, for the sake of argument, I have all my personal experiences and I find myself in a jam and I really don't know what God says about this particular circumstance. Is it okay for me to say, I don't know here, I guess I just have to trust God and what he's doing. Or would it be better for me to say, well, you know, the Lord is teaching me something here, I better go find out what he's up to. Now, I think the Holy Spirit is very careful about what he does in terms of, he brings specific trials for specific growth. and we're to grow in the knowledge and the grace of the Lord Jesus. So the trial is going to be specifically tied to something he wants to teach us, a knowledge thing and a grace thing.

We may not know it at first, but it isn't just happenstance. He's not going to bring a trial in my life that you could look at me and say, oh, I can handle that no problem. And I can look at your trials and say, give me those Lord, I don't want mine, I'll take theirs. I just want to read what I kind of wrote here and see if it's kind of on the right track. I just put the trials draw us to God and when that happens we learn more of His love and His grace and our need for Him.

Yeah, and I think in the middle of all of that is this growing appetite for His word. where you do go there. Say, well, I don't know what I'm doing here, maybe I ought to get in the Word. And he'll direct you to where he wants you. Or something will show up for you to read, or somebody will come alongside of you.

See, I don't think it's just sort of a blind thing about, oh, I just have to trust him. That faith has to be specific about him and a certain aspect of the Word, the faith. Because that's what sustains you. You know and you're not floating around thinking, well I wonder what he means. Well I know what he means. I know what he's doing.

I just want to point out something that you and Courtney do agree on. When you were saying that, you said, you don't always know in that moment what God is doing, which Courtney says, we can't always know stuff, but we do know that his ultimate plan is to conform us to the image of Christ. So you guys agree. Yeah we agree on that.

And a lot of times what starts out to be ignorance, the whole reason for the issue is for me to learn. That's the whole reason it's there. So that the information about what I'm supposed to rest my faith in now becomes clear to me. It might be some verses I've read 50 times and didn't get them. But this time... A flat forehead? Sure. The flat forehead syndrome.

So it's like I read that Hungry Heart every morning and we discuss it and it's amazing the stuff I learn out of there. I didn't look that up this morning, but one of the Hungry Hearts said that as a teacher, when you're teaching us, it can be that we don't like you. people do. But you got to love me. Go ahead, I'm sorry. I mean, it's difficult. Oh yeah, I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, but I don't think that, I think you end up being very grateful that you've been taught. See, don't you all, I mean, I hate verifying the word by my own anecdotal experience, but haven't you noticed in your Christian life there's always been somebody there to teach you? And maybe they're there for a while or a long time and then they go away and then there's somebody else. Has that been true of your life? It's been true in my life. I'm getting old now, though. They're all dying, so I can't call them up anymore. When I was more of a new believer, I swear I learned so much from the TV evangelist. I'm not kidding you. Now, I can't stand to listen to them.

I know. But at that time, that was so important to me. See, that's where I see the all things. This is the growth process. That was during that time, and now you look back on it. Whether you know or you don't know, he's using all those. And then the second Corinthians 1, where whatever we went through may be not only for you, but to comfort somebody else in the same spot later. Or to come beside somebody who's watching the televangelist and say, hey, these are some other things. He's using all things. All things.

Well, sometimes you listen to those people and you're going along with them and they got you coming. They got you coming and all of a sudden the Spirit of God says, this guy isn't telling you the truth. Or sometimes there's good truth in there. They don't even know they're saying it. Well, I was a believer. I was saved on December 7th. Tomorrow's my birthday. So I went to Christmas Mass that year, right? Catholic? Catholic Mass, because that's where I came from. So I'd get into the church, and we went to midnight mass. And the priest gets up and reads the Christmas story. And I had never heard it before, and I got tears running down my face. I'd never spiritually heard it before. I was coming off the ceiling. Then the priest gets up to explain what just was read.

He didn't have a clue. I could have walked out of the church. I thought, wow, that's what discernment really is. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. The glory of God sending his Son, he didn't know. the TV evangelists and radio people and stuff like that. It wasn't like, oh, I'm not going to listen to them anymore. They don't know what they're talking about.

It's just like the interest sort of went away. You know what I mean? Oh, it does. That you're grateful to them, that it's available to people. Well, if you, like if you eat, you know, Snickers bars for six months, pretty soon you're tired of them. You move on to better food. Really? No. Do you suppose it's beneficial to people who don't know anything and they're like in kindergarten?

You know, it's interesting as how the body of Christ works. You know, we're all gifted and we're all designed and gifted by God to edify the body. So we're all in the process of edifying each other in love so that the whole body will be conformed to Christ. And we're all involved in that, you know, and you will find that, like in this body, you know, you'll be next to somebody, you'll be the right person for them, and then you'll go, you know, they'll be fine, and then you'll go somewhere else and somebody will come alongside of you. Yeah, I think you have to, you learn over time to trust God with the spiritual growth of others, you know.

And you know when you're supposed to say something and when you're not, you know. Because, you know, I could have, and Courtney and any of us could have come to you back then and said, you know, you've got to stop listening to those fools on TV. Well, you're not going to believe us. You're going to turn it on one day and it's going to be like, why am I looking at this? Click. You know, there's no food there.

But I listened to Joyce Meyer. Oh, Joyce, baby. And she helped me way back when raising my kids and everything. Because it's very redundant. She's real practical. But she said the other day, I am seated with Christ in the heaven. Really? Even Joyce Myers can grow. Yeah. That's the thing too, is for a while, sometimes you see the TV evangelist like, because every now and then I listen to that Creslo Dollar.

And he was all like, give me dollars. But then all of a sudden, he went off on this big grace thing. And it was like, wow. Did he get his jet, by the way? Oh, yeah. I don't know. But it was like, so is that, what's her name from around here? She would have international jets. She had a jet. Marilyn Hickey? Yeah. But you know, it's like sometimes, you know, It's not that God can't work on them, too. Well, he does, except, you know, it's interesting. They have a will, and they have a Bible. And they get an agenda going, and it gives them worldly fruit, and it's really tough for them to get away from it. John MacArthur's like that.

What does it say, you know, regardless of the intent or the motive of the... But the person delivering the message, the message is still delivered in spite of them. When Paul was in jail. I'm trying to find that one because that's the one I always think of. That their motive doesn't matter, the gospel is being preached.

And I think as you get discerning, you want to make sure that they are preaching the gospel. I remember the day it dawned on me that that guy at the Crystal Cathedral wasn't a Christian. What was his name? Schuller. Or Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen is not a Christian. If you listen to him, he's not a Christian.

Interesting. Well, how long does it take you to figure that out? A while. A while. But he may make it. Well, my theory is... You know, if money... I think money has really gotten in the way. I like the intellectual side of Hal Lindsey. Yeah, he's good. I really enjoy him. He's into the end times a lot and it's like, what's wrong with focusing on who you are now? So in essence what we've done is we've covered the first three questions. Right?

One last thing on personal faith. Personal faith is only a portion of the total picture of faith. Personal faith is rest and trust in what is revealed to us through the Word of God in the essence of faith and of the faith. Faith has to have an object. If you're the object of your faith, you've missed it. It has to be God's Word. It has to be. Okay, starting in question four. The big question today is, is personal faith a gift? Yes or no? Personal faith is a gift. How many say yes? How many say no? How many aren't sure? Or too chicken to raise their hand? My answer is maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but we're going to find out.

There are four passages in scripture that seem to tell us that personal faith is a gift of God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Romans 12, verses 3 and 6. Romans 12 verse 3 and Romans 12 verse 6 and 1 Corinthians 12 verse 9. So let's just today and next week see if we can't decipher whether faith is a gift or not. Well I looked that up and faith is a gift. We'll see. Where did you look it up? Joyce Meyer's Bible? No. It was some scripture that you guys had given. Okay. Well, let's just see what it says.

Romans 12.3 says, For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith."

Sounds like faith is a gift to me, right? That's right, it's super unleaded, middle grade. Isn't it not that it comes in a supply and we get more, it's we get to have more capacity for it, like in our growth, you know what I mean? Okay, well let me ask you this, my guy that lives in the White House over here is not a believer, does he have a capacity, does he have the gift of faith? But he can believe, right? So this 12.3 would say, there's no question, every man is given a measure of faith, right? That's what I think. Or a gift of faith. Every man, like believer and not believer? Every man. Okay. Women? No, I'm just kidding.

So the issue is to look at these verses in context. And part of the context is in verse 6 and it talks about gifts. Let's go down to 6. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. It's prophecy according to the prophecy of his faith. So it says that everybody's got a spiritual gift and it says that it differs according to the grace that's given to us. Right? And it specifically starts with prophecy. And my ability to prophesy is in accordance with my faith. Right? So... What does that really mean, prophesy? Well, slow down. Well, we're running out of time. You'll have to come back next week.

So does God give us a measure of faith to the unbeliever in order that he might believe? I don't think so. So what would you say then? In these verses are we talking about unbelievers? He said yes. No, we're not. No, we're not. In Romans 12, 3 and 6 we're talking about only believers. Okay. Okay, we're not talking about unbelievers.

I know, but I don't think he gives. How can he give? That's to an unbeliever. Now we're talking about the gift of faith. How can he? I don't know. Okay. I agree with you. He does not give the gift of faith to a non-believer. Right. He doesn't do it. And I'll tell you... Well, doesn't he give them a gift, they just don't accept it? A gift of faith? Well, you know, I could say, how did God build me? How does he build the guy across the street who isn't a believer? Does he build him up with the gift of faith?

He's got a will, right? And if you have a will, you can decide. It's a decider. So with his will, he can decide to believe God or to believe something else. To believe that he shouldn't be going over 35 miles an hour in a 35 mile an hour zone, or he can believe I better marry this girl rather than that girl, right? That's not the gift of faith, biblical faith. We're talking about every man has the ability to choose, right? It's not the same thing as having the gift of faith.

Sometimes I think circumstances come up in a person's life to get them to do a different turnaround. I'm thinking about C.S. Lewis. He was standing in a long line of people. They were waiting for someone. He was an atheist, as you probably know. And then someone broke in the line ahead. And he thought, well, that isn't right. And he got thinking about, why did I think that wasn't right? And then that set him off on his rescue. time to become a Christian. What I'm trying to stay focused on for the last minute or two is that every human being comes on the planet with the ability to choose.

That's not the gift of faith. These verses we're talking about in 12.3 and 6 refer only to believers. Only believers have gifts. Non-believers don't have gifts. They are what they are. They're built the way they're built. And oh, you know what they've got that's really, really dominant in their life? They've got a sin nature. And Romans 2 and 3 says that they're a slave to sin. A slave. That means they can choose between one sin and another sin, but they can't choose life.

So God doesn't say to them, I gave you the gift of faith, you need to believe in me. No. So what about question number six? Does God give a measure of faith to an unbeliever? Maybe that's our difference? Well the measure of faith as described in 12, 3 and 6, the measure of faith has to do only with believers. God doesn't give a measure of faith to unbelievers that they might believe.

He gives them the ability to make a decision to choose. I know we're running out of time. Where is the scripture that says that Christians can make people envious of their faith? I don't know. I'll have to look it up. I don't know but here's what we're after. There's the Calvinist viewpoint of limited atonement and that God specifically enables only the chosen to have this gift of faith and only they are the ones that have it.

Well, I think the scriptures totally disprove that. And I think we start right here in 12, 3 and 6. Every man is given a measure of faith. God says that he so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever will may come. That includes everybody, including this guy over here. Whoever does what? exercises his will to believe may come.

And the one who does believe didn't have a little pocket of faith standing next to the guy who didn't believe. He didn't have an advantage that way. That faith in and of itself as a gift is only to people who are already believers. Are you alright with that? We'll explain further next week. And if he was to become a believer, he'd have an angel of faith? Sure he would. No, then he'd have the gift. He'd have the gift. He already had the gift.

Because every believer, every person, once they believe, guess what? One of the things you get is a spiritual gift. At least one. And the spiritual gift is for the edification of the body of Christ. It isn't for you to be a cool Christian. It's just for the body. It's what he enables you to do for the benefit of the body.

We'll pick that up next week. Oh, you've got a lot of thinking to do this week. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the way in which you do things that you do require us to believe you and to rest by faith in what you've taught us. And we thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.