Where’s Your Faith? In God or Your Church?

Many Christians lose sight of God and become worshipers of their own church. Faith is easily placed in traditions, the work done in the church, and even other members of the church. Ultimately faith in God is lost and is put into man. These churches end up catering to seekers and not the saints.Scripture discussed: Hebrews 11:6-7

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(This is a computer generated transcript of this podcast.  This is NOT a typed transcript and it has not been edited. Expect grammatical and syntactical errors.)

Welcome and good day. I am B. R. Maul it's good to have you here with me this day, and today I want to focus on faith. I know that's a pretty broad topic, but it's also a very important topic. So let's just jump right in, shall we? I want to ask you a question my dear listener. Do you have faith in God or do you have faith in your church slash denomination?

Now, hold on before you think to yourself, well, that's an obvious one. I trust God. I want to ask you some questions though to help you answer this question. So let's start, for example, by your comfort level. How comfortable are you worshiping God, our Father, in other places other than your church? Think about that.

Can you go into just about any church that is singing songs, preaching God's word, and jump right on in and worship God our Father? These are questions for you, of course, to be very sincere. Now I'm here to preach, teach, and lead. Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. To teach Born again believers, that is my brothers and sisters in faith, how to walk alongside our Lord and Savior and to lead those who don't know Jesus as their personal savior. Lead them right to his feet. So it's important that as honest as I am to you, that you also be to yourself. Now, if you have of course, questions or comments, you are always welcome to email me at questions@brmaul.com. So back to my question. The other thing about whether or not you have faith in God or it's in your church and denomination, I want you to think about your church and what are things about going to church that you take great comfort in?

And again, this is a time for you to be honest with yourself. Right? What is it about your church? If someone were to go into your church and take away all forms of tradition, what would your comfort level be? Something to think about, because we often want to put faith in our traditions, and there's comfort in that because it's easy for us to justify, it's always been that way. So the way you do communion. What if suddenly that had to stop and it was done in a way that you yourself wouldn't appreciate, but now it's been made clear that that's the way we're going to do it. What if the pastor didn't wear robes? Or if you're at a church, were the pastor does not wear a robe. What if suddenly he started wearing one? Now, the reason I ask you that is because I think as Christians we want to be able to say that we have full faith in God, but in my experience, in my walk with Christ, I have learned that that's often not the case. Cuz I found really, ultimately I noticed that I was trusting him, I had faith in him for my eternity, but I did not have faith in Christ for the here and now. And that's what I want to tackle today is about that faith, about the here and now. Because , there's believers, and there's unbelievers. The world is definitely categorized in those two big areas.

Those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, and those who do not believe. Right? And there's no middle ground. It is impossible to be halfway there. You either believe in Jesus Christ or you do not believe in Jesus Christ. It's simple as that. So no middle ground whatsoever. And that's not just me talking because even Jesus made it quite clear that Luke warm, he wants to spew from his mouth, either be hot or cold.

 Either be cold and completely against him and not even care about him. Maybe even hate Jesus because he can work with that. He can change that because there's still passion in that heart. Or love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might. But being lukewarm to Jesus, that's the most disgusting thing that he wants to throw up.

 I say that cuz I want to reiterate and back up what I just said, that you are either a believer or you are not a believer and that's that. And so with that, if you are a believer, then you must have faith in Jesus because we cannot have faith in something else or someone else other than Him. The other two people, I was going to say before I lose my concentration is there, there are seekers and saints, so yes, there's believers and unbelievers.

Those believers are indeed saints. So obviously, well I shouldn't say obviously cuz to many people I guess as saint is somebody who is extraordinary. They are beyond ordinary, and that's not true at all. There are plenty of passages in God's word in which it's identified what a saint is. Let's see here.

We have Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus as Ephesians 1:1. In fact, Paul starts a lot of his letter. In such a way, recognizing believers, a k a saints Colossians 1:2 to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossi grace to you and peace from God, our Father.

That's Colossians 1:2. Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timothy Bond Servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons. One Corinthians 14:33 for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. Okay, and there's many more, but let's just establish right away that a saint is a believer and we are called to be holy and we are called, of course, to put our faith in Christ Jesus.

And we can't live a life as if that's something we can't do. Too many churches today preach a soft message. The message is that Jesus loves you just the way you are and he understands that you are a sinner and that you just can't overcome the sin. There's so much there , to say about that. I don't have time cause I'll get down a rabbit hole.

I don't want to go. However, I do need to address right away the fact then, that we as saints, as believe... first of all, yes, Jesus loves us just the way we are. However, he does not want us to remain the same. And I say that because he is in the process of sanctifying us. That is his children, those who do believe in him.

So why would our Heavenly Father go through the process of sanctifying us in the image of Christ as we walk with his son. Why would he go through that if he just wanted us to remain the same and he was happy with that? I mean that, that's complete nonsense because we have the Holy Spirit residing in us, and since we have the Holy Spirit residing in us, for us to say, I can't overcome sin when he gives us no temptation, that is beyond the scope of leaning on the Holy Spirit in which he will give us a way to overcome that sin.

When talking about seekers and saints, I was a seeker and in the process seeking going from church to church, sometimes even denomination to a different denomination. And looking back, I can say that I was justifying my seeking cuz I was seeking the Lord. But now I can say that was an excuse. I was seeking comfort.

I was seeking for a place that I could go and I was comfortable. Because in that time in my life, I still was not a regular in reading God's work. I had felt that I had learned everything I needed to know about God the Father, about Jesus Christ, my Lord, from sermons that I heard as a young boy. How far from the truth that could be. A seeker if being honest is seeking for themself.

They are seeking comfort. , they go into a church, and that church, if it makes them uncomfortable, if there's something they don't like about that church, then they go on to seek another. And I say that because a saint isn't looking for what makes them comfortable. When a saint enters a church, the saint is looking at is this church preaching and teaching about my Savior from our Heavenly Father's Holy Scriptures, or are they doing their own thing? So that's the difference. There might seem like that's a subtle difference to some, but that's a huge difference because the thing is a seeker can stay at a church if they're not really in tune with the Bible, but it feels good to be there, and a saint is just the opposite.

One can't feel good being at a church that is not teaching and preaching directly from God's word and is staying right on that narrow path regardless of who the message may insult or hurt. So how important is faith? We can take a look at Hebrews 11 versus 6 and 7 will give us a really good idea how important faith is.

But without faith it reads, it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, he being God, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. By faith, Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an arc for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith.

Let's break this down back to verse six. Hebrews 11, verse six. But without faith, it is impossible to please him. Wow. I mean that right there. We could stop, and that defines the importance of faith because think about that, it is impossible to please God without faith. Think about how many people want to put their lives together to try to please him, or try to get all the knowledge they can in order to please him, or to do good works in order to please him.

 Yet without faith, it is impossible to please him, and my heart goes out to those who are putting the stock in what they do or who they are in an attempt to please him. Faith, faith is the only thing; without it, it is impossible to please him. Period. So let's read a little more then. For he who Comes to God must believe that He is and that he, God, is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

There's two things. Believing that he is, that he exists and that he God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Okay? That shows some understanding of who God is, that he's a generous God, and that he will indeed reveal himself to all who seek him, who diligently seek him. That faith is big, that faith is so important.

Before I go on verse seven, talking about Noah. Do you hear others say things when you bring up God and particularly Christ Jesus. But when it comes to faith, saying something like, well, you know what, I'm, I'm just not the kind of person that just, you know, throws myself and has faith. You know, I need to see some, I need to see some proof, you know, I need, I need to see some empirical evidence, something that I can look at, something I can maybe hold, reference. I, really need that. Yeah. And then, you know, once you show me some proof, well sure you know, I'll consider having some faith, you know, but of course I want to also know that God's going to take care of me and God's going to actually deliver the promises he says that he will. And yes, if he does that, I'll have faith.

To me that is ludicrous. First of all, we all practice faith every day of our lives, mostly on smaller scales, such as, okay, the very chair that I'm sitting in, I just have faith. The chair's going to hold me.

I don't sit and stare at the chair and then start stacking a whole bunch of stuff on it and seeing how it does and if it's going to do its job, twirl it around or whatever, start doing tests on it and then consider, and then well hold on here. Before I do that, I better see if it'll hold somebody else first.

And then call somebody who's roughly my size. I want you to sit down in this chair and well, Hmm. Well, yeah, that's working for you. I wonder if, hmm. Well maybe you're doing it a different way or something. I'm not sure. See that? That's not the way faith works. Faith doesn't work by that at all, and that's why we can't please him without faith.

So now let's take a look at Noah. That'll give us maybe a little better understanding. Verse seven in Hebrews 11, by faith, Noah being divinely warned of things, not yet seen, moved with godly fear. I'll pause right there. There's a big picture of what faith is about. Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen.

God was telling him, I'm going to send this flood. Now, keep in mind, pre Noah flood, there wasn't rain. There was still the firmament in the sky and the ground still watered itself where Noah was. It's not like he was sitting right next to his, like a huge lake or the ocean. I mean, there hadn't been. , but he was divinely warned of this, and even though he couldn't see it, even in his mind's eye, he moved with godly fear.

That's that reverence, right? Going on. It says, moved with godly fear prepared in arc for the saving of his household. Knowing that God was going to save his family by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is according to... what? Faith, the righteousness, which is according to faith.

Faith isn't easy. It's something that we need to exercise, we really do. And when we exercise faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and he reveals over and over he will take care of you, he reveals how much he loves you, and you continue just to put your faith in him, things start to happen because then suddenly,

rituals, traditions, they don't seem as important and they shouldn't because your faith is being put in God and God alone, not in any kind of man-made tradition, manmade routine. If it is not of God, it is of this world. A side note, again, I'm not against going to church. I'm not against churches. Not at all.

In fact, , I stand very strong for the church of my Lord Jesus Christ, because he died for me on the cross, his blood shed for my sins, and I will be forever grateful. And I love him for that. But when it comes to man-made churches, I have seen a lot and I have seen enough to know that many, unfortunately in today's time, many churches are not in it for Christ.

They are in it for the security of jobs. They are in it for the security of a place to go to be with community. They are in it for every reason under the sun except for the Son of God, and Jesus becomes an afterthought or just part of the message. , but the living isn't for him. The attending isn't even for him and that breaks my heart. That breaks my heart over and over again because people grab onto tradition, they grab onto what they know, and they hold onto that even though they don't know their own savior. And so again, as I had proposed a question in the beginning of this podcast, what do you put your faith.

Could you leave your denomination and just worship God on your own? And I'm not encouraging that because you know, I've, as I have said before, and I'll say some more there, the four areas that we need to be stay connected to our Lord is reading God's word. And Christian, I hope you are reading God's word, praying to him each and every day.

Coming together with brothers and sisters in the faith as often as possible, hopefully at least weekly, and yes, coming together and worshiping him. And if it's at a church, wonderful. But I am encouraging my brothers and sisters in the faith who swear that they are indeed born again. I'm challenging you to keep your eyes open, because we need to be diligent. We are living in a time when the world wants nothing more than to stomp out the light of Christ,

and one way of doing that is to have people, his people in particular, conform to the world instead of the world conforming to Jesus. And having faith in him means at any given time, can we walk away from the life that we know it because God calls us to do something different, to go someplace different.

Who do you go to? Where do you go for your advice and moral advice? Biblical advice. Do you consult God's word first and foremost and pray to him? Or is there somebody that you rely on? Not a bad thing to have those for council. We need that. But I'm, I'm asking you who is your first, and as a Christian, we need to go to God's word first because there are many false prophets.

There are many who are unfortunately misled. And we are, of course, every generation is getting closer and closer to the end times. We live in the church age. There's nothing, there's no other age that is, going to be coming after this. So we are that generation. This generation shall not perish.

That's the church age. And so there's nothing else to be fulfilled for Jesus to come back. I'm talking about following our Lord. I'm talking about walking with him daily and we have to have faith in him to please him and to do that. What does that look like, Christian? Well, that does look like going to him financially.

 How many times do people take jobs without even preying on it? Well, it's more money and so that's gotta be. Or it's a lot less work for the same amount of money, whatever. But so often we use the world's standards to measure what I should do next. How much money, what kind of health insurance I get, how fun is this going to be for me and life, whatever it is.

So it's not just job related, but relationships, where we live, what we. Who we spend our time with, because we very well could be doing stuff that is not in his will. Having faith in him is the beginning of being able to be in his will. How then do we exercise our faith and how then can we be and know that we are in his will?

Reading his word, period. Are you Christian? Are you opening his word every single day? Are you learning about the savior that loves you so much that he hung on the cross? Are you learning about God, our father, and how he has never changed that he is the same God that in the Old Testament that parted the Red Sea, that sent the plagues on Egypt. Supplied manna for his people and fed them for 40 years. That's the same God as then as it is now. He's marvelous, he's wonderful. But again, we can only truly know that if we put our faith in him and know that he is, that he does exist, that he is everything, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

He's not going to hide from you at all. You open up his word and some of it may not make sense right away, but you just keep on reading. And I'm not one who likes to make promises because I only promise what I feel I can keep, but this is something I don't need to keep. So I can promise you that you opened God's word and you read God's word, and God's word will begin to read you.

It will change you from the inside out. It did me. And I have seen it do extraordinary things to others as well. I went from putting all my, faith and trust in what I could see in my own skills, my own talents, the people around me, over and over I let myself down and the people around me let me down, and it wasn't until I finally handed over my life to Christ, and that is the time I can look back and realize just how much he has changed me.

Christian, you have your story too. And I tell you, I struggled with greed when I was younger. Boy, I wanted fame and fortune acting and modeling and as much attention as I could get, and I wanted all the money I could get, and it consumed me. It was a fire that just consumed me. And you know what? He took that greed away from me.

When I gave him my life, I can't tell you how long it took. I just remember one day realizing it no longer had a grip on me. Greed was no longer guiding me, bossing me around, telling me what I'm going to do. I was no longer a slave to greed. I was jubilant when I realized that. And to this day, I am very, very thankful.

One thing I'd like to get more in the habit of doing on these podcasts is also praying. You can also send prayer requests to questions@brmaul.com. The idea here is that we can also pray with one another and for one another because that that is how he teaches us. As it says in James five. Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that you may be healed.

My prayer for you, heavenly Father I thank you for this time. The fellowship of being able to give this message. And for those who are listening, Lord, I ask you to touch their hearts and to reveal to them what their faith looks like, what their faith looks like to you. For those who need help in exercising that faith, send it to them and give them that strength.

Because as you say in Psalm 28:7 the Lord is my strength and my shield. So you are our strength. And may my brothers and sisters in Christ listening to this, lean on our Savior for that strength and for those who don't know Jesus yet, to you dear friend, that's something that you need to talk to the Lord about.

You need to pray to him, and there's no special prayer. There's no magic in the prayer. All the power is in who we pray to. And so if you're praying to the Lord and you need guidance and what to do to become his child, he will tell you. Well, let me say this in hopes that maybe he's using these very words to guide you.

Then Romans 10, verse nine and 10, he makes it quite clear to us that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So friend, it's just a matter of calling Jesus your Lord. Admitting to him that you do need a savior, that you are sinful, and that you repent, that you want his guidance for him to teach you how to move forward and believing that God has raised him, that Jesus did raise from the grave conquering death.

That's it. Confession with your mouth and believing with your heart cuz Romans 10:10 reads, for with the heart, one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. My prayer is that all who hear my voice know the Lord Jesus as your savior or come to him and then know him as your savior..

So until next time, God bless.

Songs

“Heroes Inspire Hope” and “Mountainscape” by Humans Win

“Southern Folk Rock Intro” by Jon Presstone

“Cinematic Action Suspense Thriller March” by Media Music Group