Faith Series

After taking a week off from our series last Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day, we return today. I hope all our mothers had a wonderfully blessed day and I hope your family showed their love and appreciation to you on your Special Day because you are so special to us.

Today’s Holy word is FAITH. When we speak to a non-Christian about having faith, I wonder if they fully comprehend what we are talking about. I wonder if all Christians know the full extent of the meaning of the word FAITH.

I quote something written by GD Coppedge in a devotional he published this past Wednesday concerning FAITH. “God creating the world by His will is hard for many to believe. God sending His Son to earth by a virgin birth is even more difficult for others to believe. The fact that Jesus lived and died for our sins is impossible for even more to believe. With all this, it’s even more important to know your faith is real. Your faith is what separates you from all those who will never see heaven.”

Let’s take a close look at Faith today and see where it fits into the equation of our relationship with God.

PRAYER

It’s hard to know what to believe any more. The internet is filled with topics from everything from politics to medicine, to conspiracies. And all the writers who present their side of things will promise you that what they are saying is the truth, even though the “facts” they present contradict each other. And if you doubt what you read, they’ll tell you something like, “It may sound hard to believe, but just accept it as true. Take it on faith……and I say, “REALLY?”

Let me ask you, “Is faith something that we just jump into blindly when we want it to be true—or is it something more?” When we read through the Bible, we see a whole different idea of faith. We are going to begin in the book of Hebrews 11. The writer of Hebrews captured the essence of what faith is in a single chapter.

In this chapter, we see individuals whose faith was grounded in something solid: A faithful God who could be fully trusted.

So, let’s push aside everything we have read on the internet about faith, put the secular books down that make an attempt to define Christian faith, and let’s take hold of a different understanding of faith from what the world describes. Faith isn’t believing something without substance. Hebrews 11 shows us real life examples of people who faced overwhelming situations and expressed a faith grounded in God.

Let’s see what God tells us about faith and what it SHOULD be.

Since the Christian life is a life of faith, let’s be very clear on what faith is.

Right up front I will say that faith gives us confidence. Faith has substance. It’s an assurance based on the reality of what God has done and said. Faith is an inward conviction. We trust God and know He will do what He says He will do because He always does.

Hebrews 11:1 describes how faith works and what it does. READ Hebrews 11:1-3.

“Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. 2 For by this our ancestors were approved. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”

While we would all agree the universe exists, not everyone knows why and how it came to exist. Our universe isn’t some accident of physics; it’s the intentional work of God who reveals Himself first as Creator.

God was faithful in the beginning in His work of creation. Because of that truth, we can believe He will be faithful to the future of His creation. And to highlight his point, the writer of Hebrews reminded us that God made everything from nothing: (v.3) “what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”

God spoke and the universe came to be. God began with nothing and brought all that exists into being from nothing. We can be confident and have faith that God will continue to work His will in our world—and in our lives.

Now here’s where faith comes in. Is the universe merely a giant cosmic accident? OR did God have some purpose or plan? Christians know the answers to the “why” and “how” questions because of our faith. We accept it based upon what the Bible says. (V.3) “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.” We can only understand this by hearing God’s Word and believing what He said. God spoke and we take Him at His Word. That’s faith.