INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• READ INGREDIENT LIST??
• When you look at food and drinks, you see that all the items have ingredients. When you put a recipe together, it takes ingredients.
• If you want to make TURTLE COOKIES you will need to ingredients pictured above, although you would substitute sugar for the faith.
• If you decided in you quest to make the turtle cookies to leave out the flour, you would not have turtle cookies. If you leave out the chocolate chips or caramel bites you would not end up with turtle cookies.
• We are going to spend the next 5 weeks looking at the ingredients needed in order to if you will bake salvation cookies.
• Put another way, we will look at what God’s Word says are the necessary ingredients one must have in order to be saved.
• The question of “What must I do to be saved” is one of the most important things that we can answer for a person. This is a question that we must have a correct biblical answer because it will affect the eternal destiny of other people.
• This question has been asked since Jesus walked the earth. Is salvation something that we earn? Is it something we can buy? Is it something that we can even know if we have it? Can we just say a prayer?
• If you look to the church for the answer to that question, you will receive many answers to that question ranging from, “nothing” to a correct biblical answer. It is so important that as people of God, we give people answers from God’s Word, not the answers of other people.
• Why doesn’t the church have the same answer to the question of receiving salvation? Sometimes it is because we pull passages out of context; sometimes we do not look at all of the other passages on a subject.
• Other times we go to the scriptures with our minds made up and then we try to explain away passages that do not fit our way of thinking.
• Today we are going to examine the ingredient of faith.
• How does faith fit into God’s way of saving man? Is faith all we need? Can we just “claim” to have faith and be in good standing with God?
• Today let us explore that the ingredient of faith is all about and as we examine this ingredient we will see why this ingredient must be in our recipe of salvation.
• SLIDE #2
SERMON
I. What is faith?
• When we look at the ingredients of many of the things we eat, we have no clue what they are. EXAMPLE.
• When it comes to looking at the ingredients for the recipe for salvation it is very important for us to understand what each ingredient is because if we do not know what it is, we will struggle in our quest for Jesus.
• How we answer the question, WHAT IS FAITH, will determine HOW we carry it out in our life. It will also determine what we will and will not do for Jesus.
• If we misunderstand what faith is, then we will misunderstand what God expects from us.
• For many people when they think of the word FAITH, they equate it with the word ACKNOWLEDGE or a weak form of the word BELIEVE.
• In the Bible both faith and believe come from the same root word.
• Is there more to faith than simply acknowledging something to be true?
• SLIDE #3
• A working definition of faith is as follows:
o Faith is whole-soled trust in God’s Word because of the sufficiency of the evidence, which leads to doing what God says.
• Some when they think of faith think that God wants them to take a BLIND LEAP OF FAITH, but this really is not the case. There a leap involved when it comes to faith but it is not BLIND.
• People think that God wants us to take a blind leap of faith to follow Him. That could be the furthest thing from the truth. When Thomas doubted Jesus’ return, Jesus allowed him and the others to examine Him.
• Faith is a “trust” built upon sufficient evidence.
• God gives evidence of Himself through creation and many other ways.
• We can see enough evidence of God to put our trust in Him.
• Just saying we believe in God is not what FAITH is about!
• FAITH INVOLVES A RESPONSE, A CALL TO ACTION.
• Think about a parachute for a moment. You are on a plane that is going down, you are with experienced skydivers and there is an extra parachute. You KNOW a parachute will keep you from crashing with the plane and going out a legend.
• The skydiver tells you to put on the parachute and he will tell you how to use it.
• What do you do? Would you tell him that you believe the parachute could save you and then do nothing?
• Will the parachute save you if you just acknowledge what it can do or if you just sit on the plane and hold on to it while the plane crashes?
• In the working definition of faith, you will see that part of the definition deals with doing what God says.
• In order for the parachute to work, you have to take it, put it on, and then use it properly.
• SLIDE #4
• James 2:17–19 (ESV) 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
• The demons believe but where will that get them?
• Jesus reminds us…
• SLIDE #5
• John 3:36 (ESV) 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
• The word faith would be better translated FAITHFUL because it implies action.
• In our working definition of faith we said that faith was based on the sufficiency of the evidence. Let us look where part of that evidence comes from.
• Let us look at Romans 10:13-14 and verse 17.
• SLIDE #6
• Romans 10:13–17 (ESV) 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? …17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
• SLIDE #7
II. Where is good faith harvested from?
• We can base our faith in God’s Word. Creation can show us there is a creator, but what we see in creation will not get us the details.
• We can see God working in the lives of others, but that alone does not give us a basis for our faith.
• One thing people need to understand is that God is not afraid of questions.
• A great example of this happened after the resurrection, Thomas said he would not believe Jesus rose from the dead unless HE saw Jesus and could touch Him.
• SLIDE #8
• John 20:27–29 (ESV) 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
• Many people say they cannot believe something unless they see it. Think about how much we believe without seeing. A vast amount of what we believe consists of things we have not seen.
• Who has seen George Washington? Who sees the wind? Who has been to Jupiter?
• How do we believe many things? We read about them.
• Thomas got to touch Jesus; we get to read about that experience.
• In the Romans passage we see that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
• The evidence we need the facts concerning God and the character of God are revealed in His Word!
• Many want to base their faith on other things, prosperity, miracles and many by FEELINGS.
• The problem with all the above is they are subjective.
• God gives us something that is objective that we can put our hands on, something that we can go to that is an objective standard. God has laid out His case before us in the Word.
• One of the things that impressed me and still impresses me is the accuracy found in the Bible.
• God has preserved the text over the centuries and it does not contradict itself.
• The Bible does not speak in terms of “once upon a time in a land far, far away”, it speaks of actual places and actual people that can be verified through history. The Bible names 100’s of cities that can be verified through archeology.
• The Bible contains 66 books that were written over a 1,500 year span, over 40 generations by over 40 authors from every walk of life from peasants to kings, yet it still all fits together.
• Our faith should be based on the evidence of the Bible and can be strengthened by the testimony of others.
• SLIDE #9
• John 20:30–31 (ESV) 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
• If you are waiting for something spectacular to base your faith on, it will not come because God gave us His word.
• In Luke 16:27-31 in the story of the Rich man and Lazarus, the rich man pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of the impending doom they will face if they did not change.
• After pleading with Abraham to send Lazarus, Abraham closes the conversation with verse 31.
• SLIDE #10
• Luke 16:31 (ESV) 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”
• Let us conclude by looking at Hebrews 10:35-11:1
• SLIDE #11
• Hebrews 10:35–11:1 (ESV) 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. 11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
• SLIDE #12
III. What does the ingredient of faith add to the recipe?
• Hebrews 11:1 is used by many to DEFINE faith when in reality verse 1 is a result of faith.
• Faithfulness is the assurance of things hoped for (heaven) and the conviction of things not seen (Jesus, God, heaven, etc..)
• We have the deed to all that God has promised to Christians. VERSE 36, 39
• Hebrews 11:1says that faithfulness is the assurance of things hoped for.
• The word “assurance” can be used to speak of a title deed. Faithfulness results in us holding the “title deed” to heaven.
• This word can also mean that “faithfulness” is the substructure that all of the Christian life involves. If a person misses the supreme importance of the subject of “faithfulness” he has missed the heart of the Christian life-style.
• We will have an inner conviction that what God promises He will deliver. 38
• When we look at our lives in the light of God’s revelation in the Word and in Christ, and when we see the changes that God is making in our lives, we are more convinced about the things in His word that we cannot lay our eyes on.
• Our faith will lead to obedience.
• Jesus said that if you want to follow Jesus, you have to take up your cross and follow Him daily!
CONCLUSION
• Biblical faith is a faith that leads to action.
• Our faith in Jesus is based in the Word of God.
• Our faith is not a blind faith, but is based on sufficient evidence.
• If we have faith in Jesus, we are saying that we accept the truth about Jesus to the point that it motivates us to do what He says.
• Is faith all you need, does the bible tell us that faith alone saves us?
• Next week let us examine the next ingredient in our salvation recipe!
