Faith- Finish Lesson 9 Start Lesson 10
Courtney Hemenway · May 10, 2015
Faith, No. 18
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492653431539

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

Alright, we are in lesson 9 and I believe we just have 2 to go. I think we got through all the list of things. in that list, and I give you a bunch of verses that back up several of those things. Again, it's quite a compendium of thoughts about our relationship with Christ, a lot of different aspects of it. So, question nine of the faith class, lesson nine. Can we now say that the deep things of God are knowable and owned by us?

We can. We can? We have a yes? We can? Yeah. Any dissenting votes? We all can. No dissenters. Alright, what would be a verse that you would have? You have a verse that you could back that up with? Or you just think? I have a mind of Christ. Yeah. That's one. That's actually the one that I have. 1 Corinthians 2, 14 through 16.

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things. Yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ." Again, some of the things we are positionally seated with Him in the heavenlies, Colossians 3.3, and looking at the things of Christ.

Christ's life is one of the things, and therefore He is my life. Christ's desires are one of the things that come out from Christ, and I am in this wonderful union with Him. And therefore his desires are my desires. Christ's glory is my glory. Christ's will is my will. His mind is my mind.

So are these unsearchable or knowledgeable? We can know them. And the answer would be yes. Again, one of the other things, I don't know if this was from Hal, but the Spirit of God searches these things, yea, the deep things of God, yea, the deep things of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You can see them if you go down through any one of these, the depth of any one of them, Christ's obedience is my obedience, Christ's righteousness is my righteousness, Christ's abode is my abode. His rest is my rest. His sufficiency is my sufficiency. His image is my image. Again, just all these things that we get through the union with Christ or through our identification with Christ. So again, the deep things are knowable and owned by us.

I know you pointed this out, but I think it's really important to recognize that these things are not humanly searchable. You cannot reason to them. You can't even study to them. You can't, with empirical evidence, arrive at what they are. And I know we sometimes think, well, if I study long enough, work hard enough, do enough spiritual push-ups, read my Bible long enough, I'm going to see these things.

Because I put in time and effort, and that's not true. Yeah, humanly. Humanly, but through the Holy Spirit, convicting, convincing, and the Word, then these are knowable, very knowable. And recognizing that the Spirit is more eager for us to know them than we are.

You know, what it comes down to, and I guess jumping ahead in some of the principles, you know, this comes down, and why, again, I'm excited about this class, and the more I read, even this week, my reading through scripture, there were just a bunch that were the personal faith part.

Do we believe this stuff? You know, does it come down to, do you believe this? You know, all these things we read, do you believe that? You know, I was actually, you know, this week, I was just telling Mike, you know, Jane going home, it's a celebration for her. But as I realize, it's a test of our faith. Do you believe that? Do you believe what happened? If you do, it's a celebration of her being home. It's a loss for us because we're still stuck in time and space.

It's for us the comfort of knowing these things. But do you really believe that? If it is, Just praying, you know, it's 70 years, 80 years we're talking about the Lord. She's face to face with one she talked about for 80 years. So, you know, that's a cool thing. You know, how would you like to talk about somebody for 80 years and then finally meet them? You know, that's amazing.

So, you know, there are these things that, you know, it still comes down to faith. Do you believe this? Do you believe it? It became real this week. It doesn't become real every day, I shouldn't say that, but this was another one that just, do you believe it? It comes down to the personal faith. Actually, Mike, yours goes back, I wasn't going to get to that, and it goes back to the beginning of the Colossians verse. Can the natural man understand these things? No. Scripture tells us we can't do that.

Why do we have seminaries? Well, then why do we have class? I mean, there are good seminaries, or good Bible teaching colleges. Really? There are some. I could name one, but I'm not going to. There are some that actually teach these things. So, I mean, I don't want to put the...

If you take that, why do we have class? I mean, there are reasons for us to be as a body and a local body, I think, to edify the... The purpose of the church is to edify the body. And for us, that's what we're to do, is to teach His Word. So, there are... Why we have these classes. Alright, question 10? I'm sleeping in next week. I wanted to try to get that excuse out of there. When Mike drove all this out, I was like, hey, I'm staying home. We don't need this crap. We'll stay here. We'll do it ourselves.

I guess it's an issue with me because I've known too many theologians in my life. And theologians don't know this. They don't understand the deep things of Christ. It's like lawyers, we've got way too many of them. No, I agree. It's like the thing, I forget who I was talking about this week too. I think there are a bunch of people who by simple faith know Christ, but they've been in the nursery their whole life. I know we've had discussions about that on some of these things. Do they know, and if they add a bunch of junk onto it, but the basics are there.

I think they are in the body. They just don't know anything about it. They've been stuck in the nursery for their whole lives and they'll never get out because nobody teaches them these things. Because the nursery teacher is stuck in the nursery. Right, that's what I'm saying. Billions of people who have known or know, but they just never get out of the nursery.

We see it in his teaching too. Why do we come back to these elemental things? Paul was struggling with a lot of that too. All the time. I think part of it is that it's kind of like a law thing. You guys just ask big questions that I have never heard through my whole religious upbringing and stuff like that. And you ask these questions like, why do we do this? And I think not asking those questions will keep you in the nursery of just being like, well, you know, this is what we do.

Well, you know, it goes back, it goes back to, we've had this, and I think I'm getting more of the, you know, grace is the most misunderstood thing, but I think the most misunderstood thing is identification. Because if you don't know the identification, you're always trying to fix up the old man. And when you look out there at Christendom and the Christian bookstores and all that, it's all these, what can I do to fix myself up? And it's also, don't look too deep, because we might get to a point where we can't give answers, you know? But I really think the identification, because I think there's just so many programs.

When you look at all these things, it's either legal or self-help and all these things. It doesn't get down to the fact that you've been crucified. Yes, it doesn't get down to the fact. Like you just said in the beginning. Do you really believe it? That's what it really comes down to. Do you believe it? It's not condemning. I had 20 years in Alberta. I didn't mean it like condemning. I don't want to say me condemning. I was in a boat. 20 years and lots of things.

And reading Galatians. How did I read Galatians and not figure this out? How did I read Romans and not figure it out? When you read Romans 6, how did I skip by that? How did I get by that and not understand that? You know, I remember with my, you know, first times, you know, when I was coming to the Bible study here, and it's like, I remember, just read it. What does it mean? You know, you read it. I'm crucified? What? How did I get by that all the time?

How do you get by Galatians 2.20? How do you get by these verses and not understand that?

But I spent 20 years of doing that. So, you know, I don't mean condemning because I'm in the same boat. So it's not like I'm on my high and mighty horse. It's just going through that, you know, and I was teaching and doing all that stuff. And, you know, how did I miss that?

Well, you know, but in God's timing, God got me to this place. And, you know, it's like, I think Mike talked about one pastor who was like 70 years old and finally knew this and he broke down on what, you know, well, God's in control of all these things and now you're free to teach this. He knew what he was doing. Did God screw up and take you through all these things? No, he knew exactly what's going on. And that's when I look back, he took me through all these things to get me to this spot, right now.

I think there was a thing in me that I would read something like, I've been crucified in Christ, and it would just be like, well this is a Bible thing you don't understand, and I'd just keep reading it. And there'd be all these identification truths that I didn't even know they existed because it's like, I have to well understand I've been crucified in Christ and go to the next verse. Until someone literally holds your hand and says, stop and think about this.

Yeah, well that's where this whole class is about faith. Do you believe it? As I was reading through in Romans, there are so many things about faith in there. There are just amazing things and it's all back to faith. all these will end up back to our personal faith.

But it also, you know, we're trying to, the bedrock of it, it's God's certainty. And that's why we get back to what the essence of faith is. And I think it's because, here's me, this is my idea, is it happened 2,000 years ago and it can only happen one time. And it's not like Christ can keep dying on the cross just so we can see it. And that's why faith, I think, is so important, because it's believing something that already happened that we will never see with our eyes. And that's the only way to do it, is to trust that what the Bible says is correct, because that's what we have. Yeah, it's back to simple faith.

Actually, what the Lord's really helped out, too, Not that you have to have this, it's not. But it was amazing to go to Israel. The Lord allowing us to go to Israel. When you see all these things we read about and you actually see it, it was changing. It was very different for me to look at these places and where Christ walked.

I mean, that's where he was. This isn't just a story. It helped my faith. It didn't need to be and it doesn't have to be. I believed it before, but it was just kind of a different twist to it. that he allowed me to see. Not everybody's going to have that, but it was just, it was different. You know, when you see it, it's like, man, he was right here teaching. He was right here. And then it just kept overwhelming me that we only get a snippet of what he did for all those years. We don't get just the highlights that he wanted us to know. But there was a myriad of stuff that he did that we never even saw. I think that's an important point because the verses we're studying right now tell us that the things of Christ are knowable by us via the Spirit of God, where historical perspective won't get you there.

Yeah, oh no. No, it's not. Yeah, it's not. No, it's, yeah. Can I add one more thing? Yeah, no. Okay. Well, you know, I think the other thing that about this church that has helped me is like if I read I've been justified well when I finally found out I was justified in an instant I had the righteousness of Christ instantly I was placed in Him and I'm perfect forever starting at a point that never ends when you read your Bible that doesn't come across I have been justified It's a rock-solid fact. It started at a point and it goes forever. Well, that's one of those ones where I think a lot of believers beat themselves up for sin. God's done with it, why don't you? But you know, I think it's imperative that we go to a church that you have fellowship and that you have teachers that know this, that have been taught by others.

Because most churches that we've gone to, they don't diddly-squat, nothing. They graze up the creek without a paddle. We've had this discussion, you know, we've had lunches and Mike and I, and I've wondered why isn't there a megachurch that teaches identification? Why isn't there massive amounts of identification, grace teaching, Holy Spirit teaching, all that?

And for some reason, God's chosen to do it this way. And I think it's more on an individual basis and a very small one-on-one type thing than in a mega church for some reason. And I don't understand that. This is so earth-shattering when you come to see it and understand it. Why doesn't God do it? He does do it, and I'll tell you how he does it.

Which makes every believer in the body of Christ relevant and important. is the job of not only reconciliation of non-believers to Christ, but your job is also to explain to them the fullness of what they have in Christ. And that's a one-on-one situation, and that's how the body functions. I go back to just what I talked about in Israel. Christ was individual with a lot of people. One-on-one. One-on-one. And that occurred by having dissension within this church. that churches teach.

Is that why you're leaving? Are you saying something? No, but I think that's also, you know, we have believers who have left here that are making impacts other places. Yeah, like Brian in Atlanta, right? He told me that. I also think too, you know, we don't understand how many through the internet now come to here and now start to understand.

I think he's using all the tools he can. But it's not the megachurches for some reason. It's an individual thing and the more I see it, it's just one-on-one. That's the most... I'm not important, but that's the way it seems to work. Just one last thing. I've been listening to Chester McCauley's 119 messages on the Book of Romans. And I'm just like blown away by that.

There's never a second, item one, item two, item three. And I looked on Wikipedia, he's not in there. And I'm thinking one of the best Bible teachers who ever lived. Let me talk to you about Wikipedia. I'm just saying that you would think of all the saints of God Well, think about this, if you're the head of the opposition, is that boy Satan?

Yeah. What are you going to try to do? Because nobody knows about him. Exactly what you're going to do when you're going to give him a substitute. Yeah. And that's what it is. That's why I think that it's almost the truth, especially today, are almost under the radar. And the Lord has it purposely that way. I think.

It's almost like in the Brethren Church. J.B. Stoney, all the things we teach are in the Brethren Church. It started mostly in the Brethren Church. And I was in the Brethren Church for 20 years. And there's a lot that don't teach that. Coming through, it was like, I had all those things over there, but I never used them. And it's like, wow. Just the milk, the watering down of this. you know, the deception. You know, look over here. Look at this. So, anyway, let's get, so you can get at least started on this. So, question 10, what do you, what do we say to these things?

And the verse was Romans 8, 31 through 32. I'll start in 29 of Romans 8. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified. And these whom He justified, He also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for all of us, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? So, what are we to do with these things? What shall we say to these things? What? Yeah, what shall you say? What shall you say?

Just say thank you. Under grace, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. It's such a gift. Yeah. You know? This is under that principle that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, that if God gave you the greater thing, won't he also give you the lesser thing? See, the thing is, All things. What are we missing? He's going to give us all things in Ephesians. Do we have a shortage of blessings? We got shorted on that? What's he given us in the heavenlies? All spiritual blessings. What do we hear?

All things. You know, I'm not a lawyer. I play one on TV. No. All things. There's no exclusions to this. No exclusions. No subset. He's going to give us all things. Which all things are? Look at that list that we have on the back of the sheet. All those different things.

Do you believe it? You know, my thought along these lines is that we human beings do and acquire what we value. Yeah. I'm not going to do something that I don't value. So my head and my desires and my soul is filled with growing up with earthly desires. I want health, wealth and wisdom and all these other things. And then these things of God come along. You get saved and these things of God come along and you're not sure they're that valuable. Yeah. I mean, you know, I just you said, well, that's all well and good as long as that's going to give me what I want, what I want. Yeah. You know.

And so there's this process of one breaking down the old man and his value system and replacing it with Christ and his value system. So that those things of God do become important to you and they become paramount to you. And the desire and the value is there. If the value is not there, I'm not going. You know what I go back on though? I go to the Rockies game and if they keep losing, I'm not going. There's no value. But let's go back to what I started before this recording was.

It's a person. You have to have an object of love. So he's got to be the value. He's got to be the value. And that's where the object is him. All the other stuff is peripheral. Right. The object and that's what you, you know, if you love somebody, that's the object. They're the ones that... You don't care about anything else. And that's what all this comes from that position of the object of your love. And I don't think... That's really good.

You know, when you get down to it, until you... focus and that's the object. You're going to be distracted by all the bells and buzzers and whistles. I wouldn't say that until you focus. I would say until the Spirit of God lets you focus. It's like when you're growing up and wanting to be married and you're checking different girls out and here comes the one.

And it's like the rest of them go away. Right. And I do preface that by the Holy Spirit is the one focusing us and convincing us that's the object. But then it becomes all the other stuff. You get that. Because you're looking at him, you now know you have all these things. And I think so the Holy Spirit gives you these situations where, okay, here's this, let's say, use your example, here's this other woman that you're looking at.

Are you going to have faith that, you know, it's like each time it's like a choice? Is this... No, I don't think so. I think like... You get captivated. Eventually you get captivated, but I think you go through times of trials, I guess. It's a growing process. It's the personhood that grabs you. I think that's really important that you've grown up that it is the person of Christ.

Salvation is not nearly as important Salvation isn't as important as the Savior. He is the one that's important. I think that you want different things, but if you have Christ in you, then all that stuff is not fulfilling. It's short fulfillment, and then you're empty again, because it's really only Christ that can fill you.

Well, that's the spirit's job. His job is to show you Christ. Right. Again, back to that, the victorious Christian life is a person, not an experience. I think that is really the key. It's a person. It's not a process. It's not a program. It's not any of that stuff that all the others try and put you in. And it's a person. And that's the object, that's all you focus on, that's all you want.

And that's the intimacy that he wants, that's the union, that's everything we're talking about. In the faith, the understanding that he loved you with an eternal love. I think that's the answer to the megachurch question. Because as one beholds the glory of the Lord and this intimacy is developed, And the believer is transformed into the image of Christ. What do other people desire?

Not you. It's Christ in you. You see Him. And that's what attracts you. Yeah, thinking about that. Because at Omega Church you're not worried about the Omega stuff. No. You're now focused on a person. Yeah, that's right. And you know, it's so fulfilling that you just, you know, I just can't thank God enough for being in me. You know, that Christ is in me. It just brings tears to my eyes.

The identification is a great thing. You understand that process. And it was a good thing that he crucified you, positionally. That's a great thing. I think that's the hardest thing is to figure that out. Really, that was a good thing. That was the best thing that ever happened to you. Trying to fix up that old guy is not a good thing. That's good enough.

Why don't you take ten minutes? get started on, at least begin at question set 10. You guys ready to move on to the fourth and final aspect of biblical faith? Ready. You know what? This is supposed to say biblical right here. It's thrown us off a few times. Right? This isn't principles of faith. I mean, there's worldly faith in there.

Lots of that going on. One of the things that's been hitting me pretty hard throughout this class, and I would encourage you guys to also think about what's happening in your mind by virtue of what you're learning in terms of how it actually carries out in life.

I think when you have young children, you see a reflection of yourself a lot. And you think about, well, they're behaving the way I behave. They're acting like I act. They're walking in the ways that I walk. I'm a little nervous about that. It's kind of like a little mirror that walks around and it reminds you of yourself.

But then you have to kind of snap out of it and think about, all right, well, how am I training? and bringing these children up and that teaching that we do here in classes like this and then we go home and maybe we do it with loved ones or neighbors or children. We find ourselves probably speaking to the things that we're learning. I think that usually that's what rolls off the mind first is what presently you're thinking about. And so with faith, it's been interesting to talk to the kids about faith, and it's interesting how much they understand faith, but they can place their faith in worldly concerns and worldly promises that they believe are true, or they can place their faith in the Word of God and what we've pointed them to in the person of Christ.

And often, it's not a matter of whether or not they're operating by faith. It's a matter of whether they're operating by biblical faith. And that's really what's going on. You operate by faith every day. This whole faith thing, it's not new to you. You've been doing it since you were born. You have faith in something. Every single decision that you make from the moment you get up to the moment you fall asleep is based on faith in something.

And it would be interesting to think about if you were to graph that kind of process out over time in your day, when were we operating by biblical faith? through the person of the Lord Jesus? And when were we operating by worldly faith in the person of Mr. McCulley? You know, yourself, insert name. And so this lesson or this class is really based around every single moment of every single day of your life. It hits that home. It's just that ever-present with what's going on.

If you're making decisions right now, to operate by faith in what you're hearing, and hopefully you're searching it out. But when we start to define these four different aspects of biblical faith, We've broken them down into four categories, and I just want you guys to review with me what they are. They were up here a moment ago, so you had to do a little cheat sheet. But what's the first aspect of biblical faith, not worldly faith?

It's essence. It's essence. What did you say? It's essence. What does that word mean? That's your question. What does essence mean? You tell me. No, you tell me. I asked you first. I don't have my notes with me. Okay, let's think about it. What is the essence of anything? Let's say, what's the essence of love?

Bruce was just telling me facts. It's core natural being, right? It's who they are at their most purest and central place. If it's a person that we're talking about, it's the most central part of who that person is, their essence. If it's, we're talking about something concrete, you know, what's the essence of this computer? We may say, you know, microchips and plastic and, you know, we might get down to its core components.

When we're talking about faith, now is faith a person? Yeah, it's Christ. Is it? So this is the tough question. What is the essence of faith? We're going to define that in question number five next week. So you'll get a clear answer then. But I want you to just think about what does the word essence mean in relationship to faith? What's the essence of faith? It's important to make your distinction if it's biblical or... That's right.

What's the essence of biblical faith? in a short, and you guys can't answer. No, don't answer. I've only got five minutes. Am I going to get through these four? I would say reality. Okay. Essence is reality? Isn't God the essence of Biblical faith? How do you know that? Through biblical faith? You could know and not believe. So, how do you know? Whether you believe or not. Whether you have faith in what the essence of faith is. How do you know what the essence of faith is?

Where do you find it? In the Bible. In the what? In the Bible. And what is the Bible? God and Christ. Christ. It definitely tells us about Christ. Does it tell us other things? Other than about Christ? The Word of God. Okay, the Word of God. So we've used the term, the total revelation of God. Okay, the essence of faith has to do with the total revelation of God. Now, is that only in the Word of God? Or does he reveal himself other ways too? Other ways. Really? How? Billboards on the side of the road? Well, no, I guess it would always go back to the Word of God. Like, even when I feel like something's been revealed to me, it's consistent with the Word of God. So, with the Bible, so I guess it would still be the Bible. But wouldn't it be Christ also? So Christ is a portion of God's revelation, isn't it? And we could make the argument that everything is centered around the person of Christ.

But there's plenty in the scripture that God tells us about himself that we don't learn until later how that relates to Christ. So we see God as the creator in Genesis 1, but we don't learn until much later that it was the Lord Jesus who created it all. that he was the defining factor in terms of how that creation was designed and whose creative hand it was that was a part of that. We don't see that relationship take place until later on in the scripture. I'm not saying that you can't centralize this all around the person of Christ, but we have revelation outside of the scripture that's called general revelation, right?

And Romans 1 tells us that we're accountable to that, that God's communicating to those who believe or who do not believe, but every human being is subject to general revelation, which that is his power and his eternal attributes, right? You can look at the general revelation of this world and you can establish certain truths about the essence of faith, but you cannot get very far with that because it doesn't completely satisfy that word. It only begins to point you in a direction. It's through the revelation of the scripture that you get to the essence, to the heart of it all. And so when we're talking about the essence of faith, Just circling back around here for the next minute.

Is this clock right? We have about one minute. One minute. It's not right. Nobody's changed it since the last time I was up here. There's my bell. So guess what we did? We got to review number one. You know what happens when I erase this stuff off the board? You forget it. Guess what's going to happen? Guess what's going to happen when we get started next week? You're going to have to do that one again.

Just make sure you got it. Alright, let's pray. Father, we thank you that we have your revelation, that we have just a perfect picture of who you are and what you've done in the scripture and that we do not have to to grow up in the dark to try to understand what it is that we need to believe in and how that belief can give us life and Lord we know that it comes through an understanding and the operating system of grace and through the person of the Lord Jesus and we know that every single moment that we breathe on this earth is an opportunity to walk by faith understanding that this is reality, that the things that are true of us in Christ are our reality. And I pray for this class. I pray that as we spend the next week maybe thinking through some of these questions, that the review of some of these basic principles would just cause us to fall in love with you in a deeper way, and that as we study together next week, we might dig deeper into this idea of the principle of faith. We thank you so much for your love, and as you knew, we pray. Amen.