Faith Principles
Lesson Two: What Faith Is
Foundational Text: Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Intro: The Bible gives four scriptures which tell us that the just must live by faith: Rom. 1:17, Hab. 2:4, Gal. 3:11, Heb. 10:38. We said last week that the reasons we need to understand, and be walking, or living by faith is: we can not please God without faith, we can not obtain the promises contained in God’s Word without faith, we receive protection from fiery darts with our faith shield, we are saved by faith! We also looked at people in the New Testament using their faith, and being pleasing unto Jesus. This evening, we are going to discover by the Word of God what faith is. How many of you understand that if my definition of faith is incorrect, or if I don’t know what faith is, I can’t walk by it, I can’t please God, I won’t receive any promises of God, I will not be able to protect myself against the onslaught of the enemy. Many people have faith accidents, and it works for them, but they can’t repeat the process because they don’t know what happened. So, we must know what faith is before we go any further.
I. What is Faith?
A. Easier to find out what something is by discovering what it isn’t.
1. Faith is not Hope
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
1Co 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
a. Define Hope: elpis (el-pece’) Fromἔλπω elpo¯ which is a primary word (to anticipate, usually with pleasure); expectation (abstract or concrete) or confidence: Webster: expect or look forward to, with desire and confidence. Confidence in a future event; expectation of something desired.
b. We are not saved by hope, not pleasing to God with hope, can’t walk by hope, can’t appropriate the promises by hope, no protection in hope.
c. Hope always is future tense. “I’m gonna get healed, I believe God’s gonna heal me!” If that person remains in that position of hope, they will die!
2. Faith is not natural faith, or human reasoning. We could call it sense knowledge. Got to see it first. Got to feel it before I believe it. Only one person in the Bible was led by feelings, and he was deceived! Found in Gen 27:21-22 And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. (22) And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. Living proof that going by feelings can get you in trouble, and cause you to miss God. If you go strictly by your feelings you can be deceived!
a. Sense knowledge is the Thomas kind of faith
Joh 20:24-29 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. (25) The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. (26) And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. (27) Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. (28) And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. (29) Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
b. Notice, Jesus tells us we are not going to be blessed with the Thomas kind of faith, or the seeing before believing
c. 2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
B. Faith Is
1. pistis (pis’-tis) From G3982; persuasion, that is, credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly constancy in such profession; by extension the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself: - assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.
2. Vines tells us faith is a firm persuasion, a conviction based upon what you have heard. Simply: Faith is what you believe! Our complete definition therefore would be: Faith is a firm persuasion, a conviction, a belief based on what you have heard, and have accepted as truth!
3. Our definition of faith as a Christian is no different from our definition of faith from the world. His Word does not redefine what faith is. The difference between our faith and God’s faith is the material in which it is developed. Our definition of faith is not different than world. The only word the Father redefines is the word “love”. World’s love and God’s love is different. Jesus doesn’t redefine faith, He uses words they can understand. Did you notice He doesn’t have to have a three day seminar on faith when talking with Nickodemus? Joh 3:1-18 There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: (2) The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. (3) Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (4) Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? (5) Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (6) That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (7) Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (8) The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (9) Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? (10) Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? (11) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. (12) If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? (13) And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (14) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: (15) That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
4. The Bible itself defines faith the best in the letter of Paul to the church at Rome. Many have called Heb. 11 the faith chapter, however I personally consider Romans chapter four to be one of the most powerful chapters in understanding what faith is.
(Read Chapter four)
a. Vs. one (MSG) So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things?
b. Notice verse three tells us that it was because of what Abraham believed that was counted as righteousness? Yet verse 5 tells us that our righteousness is imputed unto us by faith. Wait a minute, how can Abraham receive his righteousness by believing, and we have to get righteousness by faith? How? Both of these words are the exact Greek word pistis that we defined earlier.
c. Look again to verse 11 which tells us that Abraham is the “father of all them that believe.” Yet look at verse 16: Rom 4:16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
d. Faith defined: Rom 4:18-21 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. (19) And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: (20) He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; (21) And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
