What does it mean to have Faith?
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What does it mean to have Faith?
What does it mean to have Faith?
If we know that God is real or believe that God is real, what do we need in order to believe IN God?
What do we need?
We need the trust that the evidence, the premise for the arguments of God, that the God we have argued for is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We still have to have faith when it comes to knowing God because you have to put faith in the knowledge about this creator, we call Yahweh.
Without faith what does our life look like?
Well, let me share a short story about a faithless life.
(Illustration) The Cliff
A man fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down.
The following conversation ensued:
“Is anyone up there?”
“I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?”
“Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can’t hang on much longer.”
“That’s all right, if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I
will save you. Just let go of the branch.”
A moment of pause, then: “Is anyone else up there?”
That’s what a faithless life looks like. You’re hanging by a tree branch, about to fall to your eternal death and God reaches out and shows us how to be saved, we just have to take that leap and that leap can seem extremely scary when we have to let go of being in control and allowing God to be in control.
You’ve got to have faith in the Lord in order to be saved from eternity separated from the Creator.
And you also need to have faith that the God we argue for, is the God of the Bible. YWH.
So the past few weeks we have gone over what is Truth, How Jesus is the Way the Truth, and the Life, and two arguments for the existence of God. Now last time we were together I will agree it was a lot to take in and also a long video but i chose that video because it is still Important to understand from general revelation, general knowledge how we can defend the existence of God. Now tonight we are going to answer the question, what does it mean to have faith because without faith like i previously said we can know there is a creator but we have to have faith that the creator is Yahweh.
So, if you can turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11, we are going to answer what it means to have faith.
Hebrews is an interesting book because it gives no author and people would like to claim that Paul is the author but that is for theologians to argue about, not for us to argue about.
In order to know what we are reading we have to look at the context of when it was written and to whom it was written. So, the book of Hebrews is a letter written to a Hebrew Christian church who have in their generation not yet experienced persecution but can look back in the past and remember the persecution that had happened to Christians, these Christians had a high risk of persecution to come which means that this letter was written in the middle of two great times of persecution. The first was in the time of Nero in the year AD 64 and then next was in the reign of Domitian about AD 85. The letter was written to a church that had great teachers and leaders, a church that previously suffered persecution, a church that was not directly founded by any Apostle. When we sum it all up, we can say that Hebrews is a letter written by a great teacher to a little group or college of Christians in Rome. He was their teacher; at the time he was separated from them and was afraid that they were drifting away from the faith; and so, he wrote this letter to them insuring that the Christians stayed the course even though the possible persecution.
So, we pick up in .
Passage: NASB
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update Chapter 11
[Now] faith is
b List-Item the aassurance of things bhoped for,
c List-Item the conviction of things not seen.
2 Reason [For] by it the men of old bgained approval.
3 a Instrument (b) By faith
b Profession we understand that the aworlds were prepared by the word of God,
c Purpose so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
2 For by it the men of old gained approval.
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 For by it the men of old gained approval.
3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. We hope for a place in heaven when we have faith in God, since we have this hope we can look past persecution and onto eventually going to heaven.
It is important to understand that on the verge of persecution or being persecuted, we as Christians need to keep our faith in the Lord. Just because we may be persecuted does not make it unique because we can look back in Christian history and see all of the extremely horrible persecuting our Christian brothers and sisters have had to go through.
Verse 3, as I said before you have to put faith in that Yahweh was the one true God that created all of this, He designed this world out of nothing (so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.)
1. Faith is having assurance of things hoped for in the worst situations.
2. Faith is having faith that Yahweh is the Creator of the universe from nothing.
Let’s continue.
4 By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.
So, because of faith, Abel gave a better sacrifice than Cain and because of this great faith Abel was given righteousness and Cain did not receive righteousness because he did not give by faith, Cain kept some of his flock from God. Abel obtained righteousness from God, because Abel obtained righteousness Cain was jealous and killed Abel. Abel was killed because his faith he had was shown to be much greater than Cain’s.
So, Abel can still speak to us through his experience, his testimony.
think of it this way, when it comes to tithing, we as Christians will be blessed by God if we give by faith, if we give with the heart of giving and give what we can. so its not about giving, its more about your heart of giving with faith. if you have faith that God will provide, your giving will be much greater because you do not lean on your own control but Gods control for the money you give.
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Have you ever seen someone who has great faith and was persecuted for that?
Discussion…
For us keeping faith is to live a Christ like life no matter what situation, temptation, persecution comes our way.
5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; AND HE WAS NOT FOUND BECAUSE GOD TOOK HIM UP; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God.
This small story is found in (). Enoch lived three hundred and sixty-five years on earth, he had faith, it says he pleased God which he would not have been able to do without having faith, so Enoch must have pleased God all of his life in order to be in such favor with God that He took Enoch up. That is my assumption, not fact.
Now I’m not sure if we have anybody today worthy of having God take them up because of their righteousness in faith but it’s still pretty cool.
Have you ever thought, is it possible to live a perfect life?
Can we have faith in the Lord so strong that we live a truly Christ-like life?
I believe we can but that comes with a lot of discipline that none of us have.
Essentially, it’s not impossible but it is improbable, its not practical to reach that kind of perfection in this day and age, especially.
Let’s go on…
6 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 Him.
How many people around the world try to please God by their works and not their faith?
Catholics, many Christians believe that we need to work in order to gain our rewards but it’s the faith we have in the Lord with the strengthening of the relationship with God, we are moved to wanting to do things for others. If we serve others with the heart of, ‘mannnnn I bet God will love that I’m doing this.’ is your heart in the right place? NOPE.
we will never have faith even as big as a mustard seed.
When you have faith in the Lord you automatically, when growing your relationship with Him, you will be moved to serving others without feeling like you have to do this but that you want to do serve.
7 By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Noah’s faith is demonstrated in the remarkable building project he undertook solely on the strength of his confidence in God’s promise. Noah’s faith was justified while the world that did not heed God’s warning was destroyed.
Let’s compare what this means today because there are often times where we are all warned of something, we all heed the warning yet not everyone listens. Take hurricane warnings, we can track a hurricane about 2 weeks before it hits yet how many people every year get the warning and still do not listen, they say I can ride it out and then they’re drowning in their own house or business building because they don’t want to put in the effort for preparing.
The people that heeded the warning, had faith in God that the warning was accurate and that preparation is needed.
How many of us have been warned of something and didn’t prepare or know someone who didn’t prepare?
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;
10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants AS THE STARS OF HEAVEN IN NUMBER, AND INNUMERABLE AS THE SAND WHICH IS BY THE SEASHORE.”
Does anybody see a pattern here about these Old Testament characters and faith?
They all have testimonies. Everyone of them who had faith in the Lord has a testimony.
What’s one of the best ways to evangelize to people about God if you do not have the knowledge?
Sharing your testimony.
How many of you here have grown up in church and gave your life at a young age?
Your testimony is showing the transformation that faith in Jesus Christ had on your life and from there how you live testifies to the faith you have in the Lord that He, Yahweh is the one who created, designed the universe.
Your testimony is how God has worked in your life that you can tell others while you evangelize.
So, as we transition into the next month, I will continue to challenge you as well as myself to talk to people about God, evangelize.
What we have been going over the past weeks is knowledge that you can use to evangelize and if you still think, man I can’t evangelize to people, I don’t know enough.
Do you know how many people say they don’t have enough knowledge and yet they use their testimony to evangelize about how Christ has worked in their lives.
So, as we go into the month of March, I want to give everyone some homework for the next time we are together. I know homework immediately makes people depressed but what I want you to do won’t be strenuous I promise. I want everyone to write down one question that you have pertaining to God, other religions, the bible, the characteristics of God, any question that you can think of that has to do with God or a god.
Because the next time we are together we are having a special guest come and essentially stand up here or sit here and answer your questions. I promise your questions will be answered.
So back to our first question, what is faith?
How do we define Faith?
Faith is defined as the unshakeable confidence in the reality of the yet unseen world and the certainty of God’s yet unfulfilled promises.
Dear God,
we as Christians live in a reality that is opposite to the glamour that Hollywood portrays, what the craziness far left portray as truth. We as Christians live in a reality where the word truth has meaning. Where the word truth is not like a million table tennis balls getting thrown in the air at once and everyone is told to catch one of them for themselves. We live in a world where being a Christian is not easy. Where telling the truth is not easy. Where going against the grain of the world is like trying to split an arrow straight down the middle with another arrow seems darn near impossible. where the past is so scary that I know I’d be damned if I repeat it so we fight like hell to make the present more Christ like so the future is less and less like the past we are dead to . We live in a reality where the foundation of following Islam means death to Christians and Jews not peace for all nations. We live in a reality where being a soldier for the Lord is the most difficult way to live.
We live in a world where following the way, truth, Nd the life is darn near brutal to the flesh I am connected with but Following that path is also the most rewarding, the most coveted possession in the entire world, where everyone is searching for the same thing that we as Christians have. We have faith, we have faith that what we live for, breath for, fight and die for in the name Jesus Christ. We soldier up to go into combat and save those who are still in the darkness. Everyday, we battle a spiritual warfare that wants to drag us down, beat us till we are weak on our knees and want to submit to the endless pit of nothingness. We do bend at times but we do not break. Our faith keeps us strong in the days where there seems like there is no end in sight. And keeps us up when our days are bright. As we go out tonight and leave this study I pray God, You will use us and help strengthen our faith in Him in order to fight back and be the warriors we are meant to be. So put on your armor for the Lord, raise your swords that were finely sharpened by the Words of the almighty and get ready for a spiritual battle the next two weeks. Amen
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