Faith

NB! Nota Bene! Note well! Very important!

We have called this series that because it is about things that are very important to God and should be very important to us.

Very important ideas that come from God’s word.

Week 1: “Truth”. Week 2: “Salvation”. Week 3: “Change”. Week 4: “Action”

 This week … FAITH!

What is faith?

 

Hebrews 11: 1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Faith is…

• Assurance (which can also be translated confidence) about something hoped for
• Conviction (a settled belief) about something not seen

So, let’s define faith as “a confident hope of, a settled belief in an unseen future”.

Now what unseen but hoped for future did the people in Hebrews 11 have a confident, settled belief about?

It was about what would happen to them after death.

• Hebrews 11: 13 – 16, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

God had made promises about a new heavenly homeland, a better heavenly country, a better heavenly Promised Land, that one day they would be in with him.

And they took God at his word and lived and died with a confident, settled belief in what God had said.

 

And yet according to this passage, each one of them died without seeing the fulfilment of that. Were they wrong to have such faith in God?

No, they simply and confidently believed God would eventually fulfil his promises.

We know it wasn’t fulfilled in their lifetime because the Fulfiller, Jesus, had not yet arrived to fulfil it through his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

And they were happy to see the unseen from a distance and wait for its fulfilment, God was not in the habit of not fulfilling his promises, even if in his own time.

And so, the people spoken of in Hebrews 11 trusted in God’s promises, God’s word – this future was real for them.

And it was so real that they persevered through the most difficult times still believing.

And this showed that they really were God’s people and he their God.

And the writer of Hebrews shares these examples of this kind of faith (read for yourself) because his readers were wanting to give up their faith in God because of persecution. Maybe they felt God had let them down.

The writer wants them to exercise their faith and persevere … because if they don’t, they would show that they didn’t have real faith and would miss out on the reward promised to those who have faith and continue in their faith in God.

Hebrews 11: 6, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

And actually, the Christians reading Hebrews were in an even better place of faith that the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11.

The Hebrews 11 heroes were looking forward to someone who would come to fulfil these promises…

Whereas the readers of Hebrews could look back to Jesus who had fulfilled it and opened the door to that heavenly city.

• Hebrews 11: 39 – 40, “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”

The readers of Hebrews, of all people of faith (they know about Jesus and what he had done / they had the Holy Spirit in the way of the New Covenant), should persevere and not give up, not turn back.

You and I are in the same position that the readers of the Hebrews are.

The faith definition has now changed to…

“A confident hope and settled belief in Jesus who fulfils all God’s promises for an unseen glorious future”

Do you have that kind of faith?

Well where does such confident, settled faith in Jesus come from?

Must we generate it ourselves?

In other words, God makes promises to save us through Jesus that we have to generate the faith to believe in those promises and salvation?

No. We receive faith as a gift and then are saved.

And here we have to move out of Hebrews…

Ephesians 2: 8 – 10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Faith is a gift we are given to believe in Jesus and the gospel of salvation, we do not generate it ourselves.

If we did it would be said that we were saved by our works and then we could boast. For a faith that we generated apart from God would be our good works.

But there is no room for that in the bible.

Once we have that gift of faith, we must also live by it. And then that faith can be strengthened or weakened by our actions…

Strengthen	Weaken
Regular reading and hearing of the Word	Irregular or neglect of the reading and hearing of the Word
Obeying God’s Word	Disobeying or ignoring God’s Word
Regular prayer for strengthened faith	Irregular or neglect of prayer for strengthened faith
Regular time with fellow Christians encouraging each other to grow in faith	Irregular or neglect of time with fellow Christians encouraging each other to grow in faith

 

And there is much more blessing that we experience with a strengthening faith than a weakening faith.

But first and foremost, it is a gift from God, not something you have to generate on your own.

So, if it is a gift, and not something we can generate…

How do you get God to give you this gift of faith?

The biblical answer to this is difficult for some people to accept, because we like to think we are in control of our eternal destinies.

How do you get God to give you this faith? You don’t. He decides who he gives it to.

• Ephesian 2: 8 – 10 again
• John 6: 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”
• Acts 13: 48, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”
• Acts 16: 14, “One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”
• Philippians 1: 6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

 

• Titus 3: 5, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”

But Mike I remember asking Jesus to save me, to give me faith, and he did. I had to ask, and then he gave it to me.

Actually, you wouldn’t ask unless he had already given you faith to ask.

• Romans 3: 10 – 11, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”

By asking him you were exercising the faith he had already decided to give you.

As we are reminded in in John 3: 3, you won’t have the faith to see the kingdom of God and want it unless you are born again.

Yes, you must ask Jesus to save you and forgive you your sins … but you will only do that once he has given you the faith to ask for it.

• But now that you have that knowledge, if you want to ask, ask … it means he is working in you. how awesome.

Those who can ask for the Lord to give you faith are those who already have it. NB of prayer for the salvation of people.

It is said that when God wants to save someone, he gets people praying for them. That is how God chooses to set his plans in motion.

God gives us faith – a confident, settled belief in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, as fulfiller of all God’s promises.

We must, with the Spirit’s help (Prayer) exercise that faith, live by that faith … how we do is clearly explained at least in principle in his word.

And when it comes to our time to die, we must pray for even stronger faith, for we will be about to receive the great reward of our God given and exercised faith…

Our new eternal home with him.