Understanding the Gospel - Faith

Pastor Cass embarks on a series called Understanding the Gospel.  He begins with faith.  Understanding the importance, definition and object of our faith as it relates to our salvation.

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On faith. Going to talk about the importance of faith, the definition, demonstration, description, where does faith come from, amount of faith, things like that, uh misplaced faith, all of these different things uh in the sermon today. So before we even get started, uh let's go to Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. Thank you that we can freely meet together in this place and not fear of persecution from our government. So thank you, Lord, for that. Thank you that we have your word so freely accessible here in our nation. And Lord, as we get into it, I just ask that we would understand more and more of how important faith is, what it is, and and how to grow our faith. All of those things, Lord. I ask that you would use me this morning to communicate clearly your message. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, faith, according to Hebrews 11:6, we'll be getting into more of that in a little bit, but according to Hebrews 11 6, it is impossible. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. So that would, to me, put it elevates it on pretty important to understand what faith is. John chapter 5 and verse 4 says that faith is our victory. 1 John 5 4 says, For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. In other words, Jesus Christ has done everything that we can overcome the world. He it's all there. We apprehend it. We take that by faith. Faith gives us the victory. So again, the importance of faith is uh way up on the priority level to understand it, and that's hopefully what I'll be doing this morning is helping you understand more and more about what this thing is called faith. And of course, uh in Ephesians chapter 2, uh we find out we are saved uh by grace through faith. Ephesians chapter 2. These verses are uh well known. I'll start at verse 8. For by grace are you saved through faith. There is no salvation without faith. And this is not of yourself, it is the gift of God, speaking of salvation, not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So the importance of faith has to do with our salvation, has to do with our victory, has to do with how to please God. Because without faith, uh you have no victory, you can't please the Lord, and you can't even be saved without faith. Uh so what is what is faith? If it's that important, hopefully you understand it is extremely important, then what is it? And if you ask most Christians that have been around and been in the Bible uh quite a bit, they usually will say, well, Hebrews gives us the definition of faith. So Hebrews chapter 11, you can turn. I'm actually going to start at verse 10 of the book of Hebrews. I'm gonna give back up a little bit to give a little bit more context to it. Uh Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 38. You know, it says, now the just, the saved people that are saved, justified, uh, who those who have heard the gospel took that by faith, they understand that Christ died for our sins. He died for the sins of the world, and we simply are relying, trusting in him for that. We are saved, we are then justified, declared righteous by God. It says, now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. In other words, if we stop trusting God, uh you can't please the Lord. Uh but we are not of them who draw back to unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Now, faith, here's now, here's where they usually say, this is how what faith is defined by. I would like to suggest to you this is not a definition of faith, uh, it is a description of faith. And later he's going to give demonstrations of faith. In other words, if I said, hey, if you know you had someone uh from the south come up here and you started talking about ice fishing, they say, What's ice fishing? Well, you can define it, you can describe it, you can demonstrate it. That's three different things, right? If you say, well, it's one jerk on one end of the line waiting for another jerk on the other, uh you're probably you're not defining it, you're describing it, right? You can give it a definition, you could give it a demonstration. All of these things. So notice what I'm getting at here. This is a description. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand, so now he's gonna give a demonstration. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. And he's gonna go on to give more demonstrations. So, one, I'd like to give it a definition. I think that uh to understand a concept, it's good if you can define something in your own words. Uh you get to know something, and so when we talk about faith, how would you describe that in your own words? And what I've came up with in if when you get into describing things or giving something a definition, I should say, you typically want to make it as short and as simple as possible. Uh that's a good rule of thumb to go by. Uh, but some things they just take a little bit of extra wording to really get a good definition. So if you can come up with a better definition, uh I am open to hear about it. But I think faith is relying, or you could say trusting either word, on someone or something to do or that they've done something for you. Okay? So it's not just not just believing in something. Okay. Uh take uh the football, for example. Uh do we have a lot of Packer fans here? I would take. Yes, of course. And uh so if you if you know a whole lot about uh the season this year, or the end of the season, uh last night there was a game, right? Uh the Packers against the Bears. And if you know much about the Bears, you know that uh they've got a good coach, they've got a good quarterback, they've got a good team. And you can believe that, but you're not relying on them for anything. In fact, you want them to do horrible if you're a Packer fan, right? So you can you can acknowledge, you can believe something, but you're not trusting that to do anything for you. There's a difference there. So faith, people can know about Jesus Christ, they can know about what he did, but that doesn't mean that they're trusting it for themselves, what he's done for them. So faith, trusting or relying on someone or something, this is an everyday life, to do or that they've done something for you. Uh every day when church service gets over, you'll get into your vehicle and you're trusting that vehicle to get you home. You're relying on it to do something for you. That would be faith. And, you know, some of the cars I've driven, you'd have less faith than others, but nevertheless, it's not about the amount. We'll get to that. So he gives a demonstration then with Abel. Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained a witness that he was righteous, God testifying his gifts, and by it being dead, yet speaketh. So Abel trusted, relied on God, and brought a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. By faith, Enoch was translated, or we would say raptured. He did not see death, and was found because God had translated or taken him. For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God. Now we already we find out in the next verse. You can't please God without faith. It's by faith. Verse 6 then. But without faith, it's impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So you have to understand who he is, but then you're trusting, you're relying that he's going to do something for you, or in the case of our salvation, that he has done something for you. He goes on, by faith, Noah, warned of God of the things yet not seen, moved with fear, preparing an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness, which is by faith. By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go into a place where he should after receive an inheritance, obeyed and went out, not knowing whether he went. So, excuse me, demonstrations of faith, people relying on what God had said, that he would do something, or in our case that he has done something, when we talk about our salvation. So the definition, uh, description, and demonstrations of faith. Very, very important. Now, some people can get hung up when they talk about, well, uh, I need more faith. Uh the amount of faith. They can focus on the amount of faith. And there's a couple passages. Uh first we'll look at what Jesus considered great, great faith. Uh in Matthew chapter eight. In Matthew chapter eight, we've uh talked about this centurion before, but it it's worth going over again. Matthew chapter eight, verse five. And he says, uh, when Jesus was entered to into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him, saying, Lord, uh, my servant lieth homesick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus said, I will come and heal him. And the centurion answered said, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof, but speak only, uh speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say, This man go and he goeth, and to this man come and he cometh. And to my servant do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said unto them that followed, Verily I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in all Israel. So Jesus commends this uh centurion, saying he has great faith, greater than all Israel. Why? Because he's relying on God to simply do what he knows he can do. He said, I will heal him. Oh, you don't even need to come to my roof. You you just speak the word and it'll be done. I know you can do it. I'm relying on you. And Jesus marveled at that. Great faith. Now, what about little faith? We've looked at great faith, you know, a scale of one to ten, I guess that'd be a ten. Now let's look at little faith. Let's go to the Gospel of Luke. Luke 17. Because as we compare these things, uh what we'll find is important is not the amount of faith, but the object of faith. The object of faith. Uh Luke 17, one. Then said he unto the disciples, It's impossible but that offenses will come, but woe unto him through whom they come. It would be better for him a millstone were hanged about his neck, cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves. If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him. If he repent, forgive him. If he trespasses against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, turn again to you and saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. And the apostle said unto him, Lord, increase our faith. So imagine Jesus is teaching them and saying, you know, if someone does something against you, can talk to him about it. And if he says, Oh, okay, I was wrong, forgive me, okay. That that's that's pretty easy, right? What if he does it again? Oh, you do it again. What if he does it again? Or you do it again seven times. And they're like, oh my goodness, there's no way we can do this. Lord, you're gonna have to increase our faith. Or that would take that would take like a super Christian, you know, super faith guy to be able to do that. Lord said, if you have faith as a grain of a mustard seed, your your problem isn't your amount of faith. It's not the amount, is what Jesus is getting at. If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, you might say, the sycamore tree, be thou plucked up by the roots and be thou planted into the sea, and it shall obey you. But which of you, having a servant ploughing a field, uh ploughing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by when he has come into the field, go and sit down to eat, but will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherein I may sup, and gird thyself and serve me till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward you can eat and drink. And he thanked that serv uh does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I throw not, or I don't think so. So likewise ye, when you shall have done all of those things which are commanded you, say, We are improvitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do. Jesus tries to get into perspective. No, you don't have to have more faith. You are just you're not going to be some super uh apostle, some super disciple saying, Oh, look how good I am. I kept forgiving this guy over and over again. I need patidon. No, you're just doing what you've been told to do. It's not a matter of faith, of the amount. One of the best examples uh I've heard about this is to get people to focus on the object of faith and and not the amount of faith is uh when it comes again to ice fishing. Now, would you rather have a a lot of faith on a little bit of ice or a little bit of faith on a lot of ice? It's the object. That's the important part, not the amount. My amount of faith doesn't make that ice thick. It's the object. It's about Jesus, the object of our faith, not the amount. Not the amount. So where does faith come from? Where does it come from? This is this is an important topic. Uh some people say, well, faith is a gift. Well, uh there's a spiritual gift of faith for those that have believed, then they are given uh spiritual gifts, and one of those can be faith. Uh, but that's not faith for salvation or or what we are talking about. That is very separate. Uh go with me to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, and we're going to see uh where faith comes from, where it comes from. Uh Romans chapter 10. I'll start at verse 11. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him, that would be faith, believeth on him, shall not be ashamed, for there's no difference between the Jew or the Greek. For the same Lord overall is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So he basically goes in the reverse order. So you have to preach, someone's got to preach the word, so someone can hear the word, and so they can believe on him, right? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Verse 15 And how shall they preach except they be sent, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? Now we'll be hitting on these things. Uh Isaiah, this is comes from Isaiah chapter 53, when that opens up and says, Uh, who has believed our report? So he says, Wait a second. Um, Israel's heard, but they haven't all believed. How does that work? He says, So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So I just want to pause there for a second. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God. It's in modern evangelism, we know that someone has to believe in order to be saved, so we try to convince them to believe when they don't have the understanding or the knowledge to believe. And so uh we want to offer them uh the good side of things and avoid the bad side of things. Uh it kind of goes like this hey, uh, wouldn't you like heaven? Streets of gold, your own mansion, no more sorrow, only joy. Sounds pretty good. The alternative is eternal lake of fire. Which would you rather have? Well, let me think about that one. Um, you know, but they so okay, so then the next question that the unbeliever has is so what do I have to do? Well, wait a second, we're at we got the wrong thinking right there. You don't do anything, Jesus has done it. But you see, it's already trying to convince someone to believe. Let me give you a crazy example. Uh Zach and I like to uh come out here in the summer and play basketball. And let's just say I'm a little bit vertically challenged, uh especially in my my jump. But if I told you I can jump higher than the hoop out there, would you believe me? No. What if I said, I will take you out to eat if you believe me? I'll give you a reward if you believe me. Can you actually believe me? You know, some might say, I'm getting hungry. Yeah, I believe you. If I say, well, if you if you don't, I'm gonna sit here and talk for three hours and you have to stay. If I give you a punishment, so to speak, can that convince you? No, it can't. What if I I tell you and I give you some more information and say, well, I can jump higher than the hoop because I've never seen that hoop jump at all. Oh, now, now I see. I can jump higher than, you know, it's like uh I can eat more bananas than Americans eat more bananas than monkeys, you know. You know how that one goes. I don't know anyone who's ate a monkey. Okay. If you have the information, then and it makes sense. It's a logical and reasonable understanding, you can place your faith in it. Don't have to pester someone to believe it makes sense, so they believe. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. The more you go through the word of God, the more you start to see. God is faithful. He does what he says always. It makes sense. We start to realize man is sinful, a man fails all the time. Man needs God. This comes from going through the Word of God. It's like this say you have been at a job for a number of years, and uh you get a high turnover of employees. But there's one person that shows up all the time, every day. After years and years, uh you know they are consistent and they're going to show up. If they don't show up, something must be wrong, right? Because it's taken time. Faith in that person comes from understanding and seeing it. That's what God does with his word. We go through the Old Testament and we see how he dealt with people before the nation of Israel and how he dealt with the nation of Israel and so on and so forth. We understand uh everything he says comes true. He's faithful, he is just, he does exactly what he says. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. We start to understand our salvation through the word of God. And then we come to a place where it makes sense. I realize I'm a guilty sinner, I know what I deserve. But God in his mercy and grace became a man, took my place, took the penalty that I deserve, died in my place, rose again, God accepted the payment, and I can be saved. And I take that, I apprehend that by faith. I am trusting in what He did for me, what He did for everyone. We take those things by faith. That's where faith comes from. Comes from the Word of God. Now, if we keep going here, uh Paul writes, but in verse 18, but I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went out into all the earth, and their words into the end of the world. But I say, did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation will I anger you. So if you take this all together, he says, Well, there has to be someone sent, and they have to preach, they have to hear, and then they can believe. Okay? That's what he's saying. And then so the argument would be, well, what about Israel? Didn't they hear? Oh, yeah, they heard. Well, didn't they know? Uh yeah, they knew. That doesn't mean that they wanted to take it by faith. Now we find out why in the early part of chapter 10. Uh, this is what we'll go now. Chapter 10, uh, verse 1 of Romans says, brothers, my heart's desire in prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. So Paul has this desire. I really want the nation of Israel to understand the Messiah, for I bear record that they have a zeal of God. So if you ask a Jewish person, uh Paul's time, do you believe in God? Well, yes, they are very zealous for God, but not according to knowledge. See, they they lack the understanding. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So notice what he's saying. The nation of Israel, many of the Jews, they were ignorant of God's righteous standard being so high that there's no way that we could ever reach it. So instead, they they they lowered the standard and said, we can achieve it. We're gonna establish our own righteousness. You know how that looks today? That looks today with someone that says, Well, yes, I believe in God, and I'm trying to live a good life, and I think I'm gonna make it. That is not God's righteousness, that is called self-righteousness. That is people going out to establish their own righteousness, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, this perfect standard that he gives to anyone who will believe him, who will trust in what Christ does. He gets, this is the best exchange you'll ever get. He takes our sin, we get his righteousness. And people that don't understand that, they'll go about to establish their own righteousness. I'm gonna I'm gonna give it my best. I'm hope I'm good enough. I'll try to do this and I'll try to do that. Yeah, I'm not perfect, but I'm better than others, so hopefully my good will outweigh my bad. No such thing. No such thing at all. All of our works are like filthy rags to God. So we've talked about the importance of faith, description, definition. We've talked about the amount, where it comes from. One one more thing. Misplaced faith. Misplaced faith. Uh to show demonstrate that, we'll go to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24. I've talked to people that get upset at God because they say, well, I trusted, I had faith that he would do this and he didn't do it. Well, did he promise to do that? See, we can only take by faith what God has said we can take by faith. We can't twist his arm. Well, God, I'm I'm I'm trusting that I'm gonna get uh a letter in the mail and it's gonna be full of uh full of cash. I'm trusting you for that. When did God ever promise that? Well, I'm trusting that this uh uh this this loved one of mine who's sick is gonna get better. Well, maybe. Maybe not. Right? There's all kinds of things people will trust God for that he never said he'd do. Could you imagine getting upset at someone because they didn't plow your driveway when they never said they would? Wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. Well, I'm upset because uh so-and-so didn't bring me a packed lunch today. Did they ever say they would? No. And people will do that with God, misplace faith. Here's a demonstration of that, Luke 24. I'll start at verse 19. This is the the two that were on their way out of Jerusalem. Remember that? On the third day? And Jesus comes up and they don't recognize him, and he starts talking to him and he says, you know, why are you so upset? And he goes, Oh, the things that happened, and he says, Well, what things? And verse 19 says, uh, and they said to him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty indeed and word before God and all the people. Okay, well, so far, so good. And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him. Okay. But we trusted that it had been he which had redeemed Israel. And besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done. So again, they're thinking, well, the Messiah's here. He is the prophet that's been promised. So Israel is going to become, all the promises that God gave Israel are going to be fulfilled right now. Misplaced faith. Now look what happened, what how it goes here in verse 22. Yea, certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were earlier at the sepulchre, and they found not his body. So recognize what's going on here. You can go through the Gospels and you can find multiple times when Jesus says, Hey, I'm going to be going to Jerusalem, I'm going to be put in the hands of sinners, I'm going to be beat, I'm going to be mocked, I'm going to be crucified, I'm going to be put to death, but on the third day I will raise from the dead. Multiple times he has said this to his disciples. And they were so focused on, we want you to do this for us, Jesus, you're going to do this, that they're blinded to that. They don't see it. And so they're saying, Yeah, it's the third day. We're leaving Jerusalem. Oh, yeah, and some of the women, they said, Yeah, the sepulchre is empty, the tomb is empty. When they found out it's by, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said he was alive. So he told us ahead of time what was going to take place. He died, like he said. On the third day, we're leaving town. Even though we were told that the tomb is empty, the women saw an angel, told him he's alive, and certain of them with us which were with us went to the sepulchre, found it, even as the woman had said, but they but him they saw not. So, and we know all this can be verified, but we're still leaving. Why? Because we trusted that he would do it this way. Jesus rebukes them. He said to them, O fools and slow of heart, to believe all, not just part, right? All that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ have to suffered these things and to enter into his glory. They wanted to skip the suffering, skip the death, just go into your glory. Let's make the kingdom here and let's enjoy the fruits thereof. Misplaced faith. Relying on Jesus, that's great, to do something that he said he would do for you, not just what you want him to do. Misplaced faith. So hopefully we can understand the importance of our faith. There's no salvation without faith. We can't please God without faith. We can't have victory without faith. We need to understand that through the word of God is where faith comes from. We can get away from modern evangelism and we teach the word of God so that people can understand and it makes a reasonable decision of placing their faith in what Christ has done for them. We can have victory. We can please God. We don't need misplaced faith. We don't need to be trusting God, twisting his arm, saying, Well, you have to do it this way because I'm trusting you for it. And then get offended when it doesn't happen. Faith is the victory. Our salvation is by grace, but through faith. Let's pray. Father, thank you for all that you've done for us. And Lord, as we get into your word, help us to understand more and more of the things that we can take by faith and live for you. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here and everyone that is here, and those listening online in Jesus' name. Amen.