There Is One Faith Series

A. The story is told about an atheist who was spending a quiet day fishing when suddenly his boat was attacked by the Loch Ness monster.

1. In one easy move, the Loch Nest monster tossed the atheist and his boat into the air.

2. Then the beast opened its mouth and was ready to swallow the man right out of the air.

3. As the atheist sailed in the air toward the mouth of the monster, he cried out, “Oh, God, please help me!”

4. At once the entire scene froze in place with the man hanging in midair above the open mouth of the Loch Nest monster.

5. Then the booming voice of God came down from the clouds, saying to the atheist, “I thought you didn’t believe in me.”

6. The atheist replied, “Come on, God, give me a break. Until a minute ago, I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either!”

B. Faith is a funny thing, isn’t it?

1. What is faith?

2. What do people really believe and believe in?

3. What should people really believe and believe in?

C. As you know, we are in a sermon series about the 7 ones that equal unity.

1. God wants His people to be unified and the 7 ones are the things that unite us.

2. So far in our series we have discussed the one body, the one Spirit, the one hope, and the one Lord.

3. Today, we are going to talk about the one faith.

D. While Ephesians 4:5 states very clearly that there is just one faith, we live in a world in which there appears to be many faiths.

1. The 12 major, classical religions of the world in alphabetical order are these: Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.

2. A popular belief that many people hold says: “There are many ways to God and all religions are equally valid.”

3. There’s also the false idea that all religions are basically the same.

4. Certainly, there are some similarities to the ethics and ideas of the assorted religions, but there are huge fundamental differences among these 12 religions about who God is, what God is like, what God is doing in time and history, in how God saves, and what God requires from people.

5. God could have provided many paths to God if that’s what God wanted, but that would certainly lead to a lot of confusion and it would make the sacrifice of Jesus unnecessary.

6. If people could be saved without the death of God’s own Son, then why would God offer that as one of the many paths to God? That doesn’t make sense.

E. Another absurd thing that people often say is: “It doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you believe in something.”

1. Faith in faith is really nothing at all.

2. Faith in general has no power at all.

3. It’s not faith that moves mountains, its faith in a God who can move mountains that makes a difference.

4. So, there’s a big difference between faith in faith, and faith in God.

5. The object of our faith is way more important than the strength of our faith in that object.

6. For example, if I believe that a certain chair will hold me when I sit on it, the primary issue is the construction and quality of the chair – which is the object of my faith, not the amount of faith I might have in the chair.

a. Even if I believe very strongly that the chair will support me, if the chair is a broken-down piece of junk, then it will break if I try to sit on it.

b. My faith, even if it is ever so strong, will not make the chair good, if it is bad.

c. But if the chair is of quality construction, then it takes very little faith to sit comfortably and safely in it, and my faith in it had no bearing on its strength or weakness.

7. So, let me repeat, it is the quality of the object, not the quantity of my faith in the object, that is of primary importance.

F. With all this in mind, we must ask the question, what is this one faith that Paul says leads to unity?

1. I believe that this one faith is a reference to the whole body of truth that constitutes the Christian faith – the Christian faith is the one faith.

2. I believe it is the one faith that Jude wrote about in verse 3 of his little letter: Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all. (Jude 1:3)