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Faith
14 Plays1 year ago
Vernon talks about the most important word in the New Testament. Faith. Why is it so important? Because "without faith it is impossible to please God". He also highlights the misunderstanding around James 2.
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Transcript
Introduction to Walking Free
00:00:03
Speaker
This is your host, Vernon Terrell, with Grace Ministries International, and it's time for Walking Free.
What is Faith?
00:00:21
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And welcome back, this is Vernon, and today I thought I'd just talk through this idea of faith.
00:00:30
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And it kind of came to my mind this weekend just a little bit as maybe some of you do on the weekend.
Faith in Everyday Life
00:00:40
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It's yard work. Don't you love it when you kind of put it off, put it off, but eventually at some point, at some time, you just cut to do it. And Michelle and I have this tree on the corner of our house that is kind of close to the house.
00:01:00
Speaker
It didn't really bother me that much, but eventually, as the limbs are growing over the roof and kind of sitting on the roof, and it's time, you know, to trim those tree limbs. And you've got really one of two things, really one of three things you can do. You can just let it go and just say, okay, it's okay. I'm okay that those limbs are on
00:01:30
Speaker
the roof messing with the gutter and the gutter guards. And yeah, that wasn't gonna happen. Or number two, you could call somebody, a professional, to come and to get up there and cut those limbs away or remove the tree altogether. We didn't wanna do that. Or the third option is to climb up that tree
00:01:55
Speaker
with a saw and start sawing down those limbs. Now, I am, let's just say, I am just over 60 years old. But you know what, I don't feel over 60. I feel good. I won't sing the song, but I feel good. And I'm relatively in good shape. I said, yeah, I got this. We can do this. So I just went,
00:02:25
Speaker
out to that tree like I was my teenage self. And I just jumped up to grab that first limb, pulled myself up, started climbing up that tree before you know it. As I'm dodging the Joro spiders, if you're in the South, you know about the Joros, which, side note, it was a nine to one win on our part. We knocked down nine Joros, one got away, killed nine. It was a glorious day.
Comparing Faith to Trust in God
00:02:56
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but I'm up in the tree and I'm up above the roof line and I said, all right, time to solve. And it was, we, you know, we've got all the limbs and so I haven't solved my left arm, not my dominant right arm, but I'm sawing away, getting limbs are coming down and it's great. And don't worry, there's no bad ending to this story. I did not fall out of the tree.
00:03:24
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I made a really good descent down, hopped down like I really owned it, stuck the landing, it went well. But I was thinking, as I was sitting on these, not huge, but medium-sized branches, that after I'm sawing away, sawing away, that I had placed a lot of faith. Not even knowing it, I placed faith
00:03:53
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in those branches to hold me up while I just did my
Biblical Examples of Faith
00:04:00
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work. Didn't even think about it. I'm up there and I wasn't thinking about the object of my faith. I wasn't really thinking, I was just thinking, oh, they're tree limbs. Even though just a couple of minutes before I saw this dead tree limb, I said, oh, look at that. Let me break that one off, break.
00:04:22
Speaker
and I kept climbing, not even really pondering. And maybe intuitively, I'm thinking, yeah, this is a good one, this is a good limb, yeah, this is a hold. But I had and placed my faith in these tree limbs or this couple of tree limbs to hold me up while I did my work. And you know, I really think
00:04:50
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in some maybe twisted, maybe very poor, analogous way, that that's what the Lord really desires. He wants us to just trust Him. Like I trusted those branches. While we do our work, while we're out doing the work and we're just sawing away or working or relating or playing, enjoying,
00:05:19
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He wants us to rest in him and have our faith in him.
Faith and the Gospel
00:05:29
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I love when we look at this idea of faith in the scripture and Paul really kicks it off in Romans four, talking about Abraham. You're thinking, man, Old Testament, there's faith? Absolutely. Romans four, 11.
00:05:47
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Talking about Abraham, he received a sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised so that he might be the father of all who what? Believe without being circumcised. That righteousness might be credited to them.
00:06:11
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Isn't that incredible? That's what the Lord wants. It's faith. It's trust in Him. And He wants us to go and enjoy. He's given us everything to and enjoy in this life. It doesn't mean everything's always gonna be a bunch of roses and it's all gonna be just ease, comfort, and pleasure. We know that's not how life works.
00:06:39
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but he has given us everything to enjoy. And so as we're out working or playing or whatever we're doing, relating to one another, I believe he wants us just to rest on him as we go about it. The author of Hebrews says it this way,
00:07:06
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Hebrews 11, six, he says, and without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek
Material vs. Eternal Faith
00:07:25
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him. When we come to quote faith, when we believe, that's the gospel, it's the death
00:07:35
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the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the good news. And as John tells us throughout his gospel, the Lord is calling us to believe, to trust him. That's what this is all about. And even if, as we trust him, we don't get all the
00:08:05
Speaker
all the goodies in this life. We think, oh God, when we think of blessing, we think of all this financial blessing and the house and the job, the career. You get the girl or you get the guy and that's the blessing. There's bigger blessings. There were many that were talked about, the author of Hebrews,
00:08:31
Speaker
in that famous chapter, chapter 11 on faith, talked about all these folks who went through hard times and they were killed and they were ostracized and in verse 13 said all of these died in faith without receiving the promises but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance
Enduring Faith
00:09:02
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and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on this planet. We can enjoy this planet, but this planet is not our final home. Do you have an eye? Are you looking out to the future, to what God has promised?
Faith and Works
00:09:23
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That's why he tells us to endure to the end. You know why?
00:09:30
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because you will be delivered from this because of your faith. You will be delivered, just hold on a little bit more. He's with you now, but in this glorious eternity, there's so much more. Hang on a little bit longer.
00:09:56
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This idea of faith is so important and sometimes we misunderstand faith. We think that we have to, this faith is us holding on to God and actually it's placing our faith in him and he's the one who's holding on to us. I think, you know, when we look at the passage in James with so many people, Martin Luther hated it, right?
00:10:26
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want to cut it out. He didn't like James. He, uh, James, the brother of Jesus. And I think, uh, Andrew Farley really does a great job. I think on this passage, he does a great job on so many passages makes a lot of complicated things. It's very simple. And so just kudos to him on that. But, uh, in James two,
00:10:53
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Verse 18 says, but someone may well say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without the works. I'll show you my faith by my works. And this whole idea and these illustrations of these different folks who had faith and Rahab, the harlot, you know, this Rahab who was
00:11:22
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in Jericho and had faith that, yeah, the God of Israel is the one. Let the spies in. Hit him and let him back out down the wall. That was her exercising her faith. And that's the type of works that we're talking about. Faith is not just faith in some nebulous something. Faith without works, James 2.20 says,
00:11:53
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is useless, don't be foolish. He says, you foolish fellow, don't you know? Faith without works is useless. And we put this in our own frame, our own context, and we start saying, oh, well, that means you have to do these good things to really prove your faith. And if you don't have all these good behaviors, then you obviously don't have faith. I don't think that's what it's saying. You know what? What is the work of faith?
00:12:24
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The work of faith is to believe. That is the work, is to believe.
Core of Faith: Belief in Jesus
00:12:36
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And I think that's what's going on here. John 6.29, Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God. You wanna do the works? You wanna do works? You wanna do the work of God?
00:12:50
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believe, but he doesn't just leave it there. He says, oh, just have faith. Just have faith, this nebulous, no, he didn't say that. He said in John 6.29, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. That is doing the work of God.
00:13:18
Speaker
And that's what's happening, I think, here in James. James' brother, Jesus, he grew up with Jesus. I think he was one of the last holdouts. It's like, I like what Andy Stanley says, and he said, what would you say if your brother claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God? Yeah. That's the position James was in. It's like, really?
00:13:50
Speaker
And he, it took a lot, I think after Jesus was crucified, that probably broke his heart. And then when he saw the resurrected Jesus, okay, yep, you were right. You know what the work of faith is? It's to believe in the one whom the Father sent in Jesus, believing in Jesus, trusting Jesus. And faith without works,
00:14:18
Speaker
where you're actually opening the door to Jesus, where you're actually, when God says, hey, kill your son, Isaac, you're one and only son, I'm gonna raise him up. Taking the knife out, the work of faith, it's believing God and calling on the name of the Lord is that work of faith, it's the expression of your faith.
00:14:46
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And that's what all of these illustrations are talking about. And in James 2.26, he says, for just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. Faith and faith alone is useless. Faith in Jesus Christ is life everlasting. And that's the beginning.
00:15:17
Speaker
In fact, that's the resting place. Because once you enter in by faith, believing in Jesus, you are now entered into rest. And I love what, when you look at faith, this idea of faith that John writes so much about believing, believing, believing,
00:15:45
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And he has a huge statement about faith in 1 John. Some think 1 John was like a sermon.
00:15:58
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and a message to both believers, and then those who were not exactly believers. They were Jews, but they were wrestling with this idea of faith. Well, 1 John says this. He said, 1 John 5, 4, whatever.
00:16:24
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is born of God, overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Again, it's not just faith, this nebulous idea of just faith in something. No, it's faith in Jesus Christ
00:16:51
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And when we receive and call on Him, we are born of God, and whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
Growing and Expressing Faith
00:17:03
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And that's the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. You are victorious in Jesus Christ. Corinthians says this, He always leads us in triumph, always.
00:17:21
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We're not always listening. He's always leading and trying. You are not only victorious, but because of your faith, you are an overcomer. But sometimes, and not sometimes, all the time, every one of us, we are growing in the expression of this faith. And that's what 2 Peter
00:17:51
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Peter talks about, in chapter one, he talks about how do we grow this faith? And they're going through a hard time, as Peter is writing, and he is writing this second letter to folks, and he says this.
00:18:19
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Do you know, in verse three, that God's divine power has granted you, he says, granted to us, everything pertaining to life and godliness? Well, how? And he tells it, and to who? Well, verse one, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours,
00:18:46
Speaker
That's saying, hey, did you connect by faith to Jesus, by the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ? Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and Godliness. How? Through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.
00:19:17
Speaker
And he says, for by these he is granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature having past tense escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. You're an overcomer. You're victorious. You have escaped the corruption.
00:19:46
Speaker
So, it's all good, right? Nothing else to do. Folks, there's a lot to do. Doing is not a bad word. We need to learn how to express that faith, how to grow in that faith. We don't know what, sometimes we don't understand what behavior looks like. What does this faith behavior look like? How is it expressed? Well, he starts to tell them a little bit, he says,
00:20:15
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Now for this very reason, now that you've got everything, you've escaped the corruption, you've got everything you need for life and godliness, he goes let's apply this. In all diligence in verse five, he says in your faith, through your faith, that's the starting point, so everything from here on is coming from faith. Supply moral excellence, how?
00:20:45
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Do I go and I act in a moral excellence like really good to get more faith? No, it goes in your faith of the righteousness of God that you have supply this moral excellence or this virtue. Isn't that awesome? He wants you
00:21:12
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He wants out of you, Christ in you and Christ through you, through the brand new nature He's created in you, that you don't see, so it's by faith, supply, furnish, give, add, furnish abundantly, moral excellence or virtue.
00:21:41
Speaker
And he continues, he says, look, and in this, through this moral, through this virtue, through this moral excellence, knowledge. Isn't that interesting? He starts within your faith, this moral excellence, which is really the righteousness of God and the kindness of God coming together and express
00:22:10
Speaker
and in that and through that knowledge. And then from that knowledge, from that virtue, the righteousness and kindness and caring of God to knowledge, self-control, and in self-control, perseverance, and in and through that perseverance, godliness, and in godliness, brotherly kindness, and in this brotherly kindness,
00:22:40
Speaker
this agape that no one can explain. What changed the world and turned it upside down, they had no idea. This was not a common thing in that culture but love, agape. And he says this, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, see we're growing in this.
00:23:09
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They render you neither, here's that word that James was using. They render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge, epinosis. This, it's a more powerful form of experiential knowledge of really putting your feet
00:23:35
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putting your hands to work, your feet walking out that faith. It makes you not useless and not unfruitful in that true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you see, he who lacks these things is blind, short-sighted,
00:24:01
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having even forgotten the purification from his former sins.
Actively Walking in Faith
00:24:09
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Isn't this incredible? You don't wanna be a forgetful hearer. You wanna be someone who is making an impact. And that's what James is also talking about, that
00:24:27
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The real faith there is one who has said, I am believing and I am trusting Christ. I am opening the door, not just one who's acknowledging God and acknowledging that Jesus existed, but my faith is believing in him whom the Father sent, Jesus.
00:24:55
Speaker
And when that comes together, that faith explodes into life, and we're born again, and we're told to grow in that, and we will not be useless. We will not be unfruitful as we begin to express that faith to a hurting world, maybe to a hurting neighborhood, maybe to a hurting child.
00:25:28
Speaker
Faith is the most important thing that we have. That's our response to our loving Heavenly Father. Will you trust him? Will you trust him? And through that faith, knowing who you are in him, knowing that you have everything you need for life and godliness, would you allow Christ to express through you
00:25:57
Speaker
that righteousness, that virtue, that knowledge, that self-control, that perseverance and godliness, brotherly kindness and love. Let that be an expression of your faith. And that's, when you do that, that's when you're not just talking about this Christian life, you are actually walking.
Conclusion and Resources
00:26:26
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You've been listening to Walking Free, a production of Grace Ministries International in Marietta, Georgia. For more information, go to our website at gment.org. That's gminc.org.