If you have your Bibles, I'm going to turn to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1. And I'm just going to start in verse 1. 2 Peter 1. 1. This is Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and Jesus, our Lord, according as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue and to your virtue, knowledge and to knowledge, temperance and to temperance, patience and to patience, godliness and to godliness, brotherly kindness and a brother, kindness, charity. And then Peter goes on. It's been several weeks now, over a month, maybe two, since we've gone through and we kind of did an overview of Second Peter and picked out some major themes that were in there. One that we kind of noticed last time was that Peter is really concerned with knowledge, not only a knowledge that's a head knowledge, but the word there is a head knowledge that goes along with experience. He would begin the book talking about that. In verse three, he says, according to his divine power has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness. This is pretty big. He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And then he says he does that through the knowledge of him that's called us to glory and virtue. And that's all that's an intellectual knowledge. You've got to you've got to know the facts, but it's also an experiential knowledge to where you've experienced the grace that comes from Jesus Christ. And then he ends his letter of second Peter with the same thing as he exhorts the people in second Peter chapter 3 verse 18, but grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sorry, knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him be glory both now and forevermore. Amen. So Peter is concerned here about knowledge. He's concerned about growth. And then the second kind of theme, I guess, that would run through this chapter, at least the first part of this chapter is faith. He starts out from the very beginning talking about faith. He says, as he addresses the letter, this is a letter from Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then he would get into talking about the knowledge a little bit, and then he would go back and combine the two and say, so add to your faith virtue and the virtue knowledge. And then he continues on with his list there. So this morning, I would like for us to just take a look at. And when I try to come up with a title for this message, it was just faith in the believer's life or in the life of the believer. And this is really just kind of a survey of what the Bible has to say about faith, answering a few questions about faith. I want to start out with taking what Peter says in the context of his letter that he writes here. But then I want to kind of branch off and answer a few questions. We're going to define faith. We're going to look at the source of faith. We're going to look at the function of faith. And we're going to look at the nature of faith and the life of the believer. So it's going to be one of those kind of back to basics messages. We've done that with the Trinity. We've done that with election. We've done that with a few others recently. And so I'd like to do that with faith this morning. So I'm going to begin in the first verse, the first chapter of Second Peter. Because again, as he addresses his letter, he says, this letter is to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. The first little phrase I'd like to look at in this is the like precious faith, really, if you were to I say if you were to, I guess it's translated like they wanted to there, but you could go back and look at the Greek words and it could be to those who have obtained equally precious faith. The whole idea here is that we have all been given, we are all receivers of, if we're God's children, the same kind of faith as everybody else that are Christians. So what's the point in that? The point is, and I feel like why Peter would say this and why God gives us this, is that in the Kingdom of God there are no big I's and small u's. There's no one that's been given the quality of faith or a quality of faith that's any higher, that's any more, that's even more special than any other believer. And so we can look back at folks like the Apostle Paul And he can be an example for us. He can be a pattern for us, because the Apostle Paul was not somebody that was given this Superman quality of faith that none of us here can have. We can look back at people like Abraham, who was considered so faithful, and he was so faithful, and we can be encouraged by that, and we can be kind of moved on by that, because, again, Abraham was not given anything that you do not possess. Stephen was not given anything that you don't possess. Peter wasn't. None of the guys that we read about, or women in the Bible, were given anything that you do not have. It's like precious faith. It's of equal quality. Let me just read a comment that was put on this. It says, in a secular sense, The word meant equal, or it means equal in status and in rights. In a spiritual sense, it means that each Christian receives from the gracious righteousness of God, which acts impartially toward all, an equal faith which makes all equally righteous before God. And so it's faith that's coming from a God who has no favorites. It's faith that's coming from a God who's not impartial. It's faith that comes from a God who loves his children. And he has the same goal in mind ultimately for his people. And that is that we would become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And so as God gives faith again, he doesn't give a special quality of faith to preachers or pastors and then kind of a smaller quality or a lesser quality to those who don't have or are not called to preach or have some public office. Faith is given out equally. And so we all equally have the same opportunities to grow in grace. Now, let me make sure you understand what I'm saying. And I'm saying I'm using the word quality, equal quality on purpose, because it's obvious if we look at passages that have to do with the way the spirit works and how the spirit gives gifts and how the spirit deals out things that everyone's not always given the same quantity. You remember the parable of the talents to where different amounts of talents were given to different people. God never said to any of those guys, or there was never a rebuke to any of those guys because they weren't given any more than they were given. They were just supposed to do with what they had. They were supposed to be able to act on what was given to them. Also, in passages like 1 Corinthians 12, 1, where it talks about the gifts of the Spirit, we're all given different gifts. And so, as far as the quantity of what's given, that's going to be different. Everybody's not called to do the same thing. But as far as the quality, that is the power that you're given or the strength that you're given to do that which you've been called to do in God's kingdom, we've all been given the same. We've all been given the same. So the quality there is going to be the same. And then it says, as we go down, that we have obtained, or those who have obtained like precious faith. And that word obtained there is usually referred to or usually translated whenever in the New Testament, Old Testament alike, whenever folks are casting lots or really what we would call something like drawing straws, you receive something not because you really put forth any effort. It just kind of fell in your lap. And the word picture there that was used in one of the books I was studying said it was like ripe fruit that falls off a tree and lands in your lap. And so the picture here is is that Peter is writing to those who have equal quality faith. Again, no big guys, no small use. We're all on equal footing before God, equal footing. God has no favorites with us. And then we've received that faith or we've obtained that faith, not because we've done anything for it, but it's just as if we were sitting under an apple tree and the apple became so ripe that it fell off the branch and landed in our lap. And the faith has been given to us by God. so that we could use it in service of God. And so if you want to look at some of the words that have been translated or differed a little bit, same Greek word, but the King James guys and other translators have translated different words. In Acts 13.48, Romans 12.3, Ephesians 2.1-10, and Hebrews 12.2. You may not be able to write that fast, but if you want to see it afterwards, you can, or go back and listen to it on the tape. So from here out, I would like to just break down very simply, what are we talking about when we talk about faith? We've obtained it. We've said that it's been given to us. And we've also established the fact, at least Peter does, that it's equal, that God's not divvying out any special faith to anybody that's not the same quality as any of his other children. But what is faith? I think that's a pretty legitimate question. I think it's one that's kind of misunderstood. not all the time, but a lot of times in our culture, at least biblical faith. Because we hear about having faith in Christ, and then we could also turn around and, you know, kind of have faith in our favorite sports team, or we could have faith in ourselves to do something, or we could have faith in someone else that they'll do something. And we could just use that word in a lot of different ways. And so faith simply defined that would work in any of those scenarios is just trusting, believing somebody that's worthy of your trust, to rely on somebody. And then the last one is to obey. And that's a big part of this as far as evident faith. It's to trust, it's to believe, it's to obey. That's what faith is. And before we say anything else about faith, I want to say this, because I feel like at least for me and maybe for some of you, it might help out in trying to put all this together. If you're called to trust, if you're called to obey, if you're called to believe or to rely on something, then faith by necessity is relational. In other words, faith has to take place within the bounds of a relationship if you're going to be trusting, if you're going to be believing, if you're going to be obeying. And so it's not some abstract idea. So if you're going to think about yourself growing in faith or your faith being strong or your faith being weak or what in the world is faith anyway, If you don't understand anything else about faith, you have to understand, you need to understand, if you're going to have a biblical view of faith, is that faith takes place in the context of a relationship. In other words, faith in myself is nothing. It doesn't really mean anything. I mean, faith in faith isn't anything at all. When we look to the Bible, we look to Scriptures, we're talking about faith in God. Faith in the person of Jesus Christ. And so there's a person here and there's a person here, and faith is the interaction that's going on between those two people. And so it's not faith, and we'll get to this a little later, but it's not faith that says, well, I'm going to believe what I believe because I hope it comes true, or I'm going to believe what I believe because I wish it were so, or despite all evidence, I'm going to go ahead and have faith anyway. That's not biblical faith. Biblical faith is trust in God, believing in God, obeying God. And so it has to take place in that relationship. Now, that seems pretty basic, but I'm going to tell you for myself and just for some of the explanations and some of the presentations that I've heard on faith, a lot of times it's just totally ignored. And faith is some abstract concept that you really, you know, it's kind of an intellectual deal, but you never can really apply it in the way that it should really be applied. And so number one thing about faith, it has to take place in a relationship. If it's not taking place in a relationship, it's not really faith. It's just. Intellectual knowledge, that's all it is. So it's trusting it takes place in a relationship, and then let's go over to Hebrews 11, this is the. Really, the sole place that just straight out defines faith. for us here in God's Word. Hebrews, Chapter 11, we're in verse one, it says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen. And then we continue to go on there and we'll skip down and read a few other things here in a little bit. But I just want to take that definition there. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen. Now, I want to replace that word substance with the word assurance. And if you go do a word study on that, you'll find out that that's what the word means. It's an assurance. And so faith is an assurance of things hoped for. And assurance of things hope for the evidence of things that are not seen. If we take the idea of what the writer of Hebrews is laying out for faith, faith is it's like a a deed that's given to someone for a piece of land. And so it's not the land, but it's the guarantee that you have the land. You understand what I mean by that? If you have the deed, then the land belongs to you, but it's not the same thing. And so what faith is for us is the deed for the spiritual blessings or the guarantee of the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. With God. It's important. To keep that in mind, or I guess to grasp that whole idea. Because as we continue on, we're going to kind of build on that. And if I don't make anything else clear this morning about faith, I want to make this clear. It's that faith is only, faith is only rooted in the revealed will of God, the revealed Word of God. And so faith that's faith in anything else is nothing. It's not anything. It's not faith. And a lot of times we have a hard time with that, and a lot of times we think about, well, you know, things don't look like they're going too well, or this doesn't look like it ought to, you know, I might be wanting to go down this path or take a certain way, and all the doors are closing, but I just want to do it, and so I'm going to have faith and go shoot in there anyway, and chalk that up to faith in God and hope that somehow that makes me a little more spiritual. And it's just not so. Or maybe we fall in love with somebody and they are not believers. And we've heard of experiences where some people have been converted after marriage. And we say, I'm going to have faith that God will do this. And that's not faith. It's just not faith. I'm going to tell you why it's not faith, because God has never, ever put in his word that one of these days for Louis, if I decide to marry an unbeliever, that he will convert them after we're married. It's not faith. It's not faith. We can, however, in that same situation, By faith, look and see several things. First thing that comes to mind is this. You're going to reap what you sow. By faith, you can look at that and you can be assured that you're going to reap what you sow. Also, by faith, you can look and say, despite my feelings, I should not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. We can also look by faith and say, I belong to God. God has created me. God is in charge of me. God is directing my life and he's my Lord. In other words, he's my master and I'm called to be a slave if I'm his. I'm called to be a servant. And so I can't do this in good faith. I just can't do it. Not because I have a mystical feeling about it, but because God has plainly revealed. The details of my problem or at least my situation to me. And so faith by its nature, while it is something that we it would be hard for me to stand up here and try to give you every detail of exactly how faith works, the way faith does work in a believer's life is not a mystical process. You know, it's not some Eastern thing that you can't really put your finger on. That's a fuzzy feeling or a intuition that you have. That's not faith. It's not faith. So faith defined, it's trusting, it takes place in a relationship. It's an assurance of things that are hoped for. It's an evidence of things not seen. It's a deed is the picture there to what God has in store for us or what God has given us, accomplished for us in Jesus Christ. Let me give a few more things about what faith is not. Faith is not knowing. and intellectually just agreeing with facts about God. That's not faith. Let me say it again. Faith is not just knowing and agreeing with facts about God. Let's turn to James. James 2, verse 19. Familiar verse for us. James 2.19 says, Thou believest that there is one God. Thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. And so just the intellectual knowledge and ascending to the fact or saying, yeah, I agree that this seems to be so. It's not the same thing as faith. The devils know all that and they agree with all that. So it's not just intellectual. Faith is not just some hopeful, subjective feeling. The same chapter in James, James 2, verse 17, says, Even so, if faith has no works, it's dead being alone. In other words, faith does not just exist in feelings, but faith produces action. It produces action. If it's just feeling, it's dead. In other words, it's not even faith. Next one, faith is not made stronger by ignorance. Now, that sounds kind of funny for me to say that. But listen, we live in a culture that is chocked full of just not just whenever we get to thinking about other religions that come in or people that try to tweak stuff, but just people who just willfully ignorant, almost almost are impressed with themselves because they have faith about something that they know absolutely nothing about. Listen, that's not biblical. It's not biblical. Being ignorant and being spiritual are opposites. They're opposites. Brother Steve knows what I'm getting ready to say. It's a sin to be stupid. But you have access to knowledge. Alright. Faith is not accepting something to be true because we wish it were true. We said that already, but that's true. So if I decide to, you know, at the end of this semester, which ends on the May 9th, I'll be finished with my counseling degree. And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm dying to find a counseling job. And there's one that looks like may be coming open that I'm dying to have. But you know what? Just because I'm dying to have it doesn't mean that that's what God is calling me to do. And just because I'm dying to have it doesn't mean that if I step out and do that, that I'm stepping out on faith. All that means is I'm trying to gratify my own anxieties and hurry up and do what I wanted to do anyway. So faith is not doing something or not accepting something that's true just because I want it to be true. There's a whole lot of things that I'd like to do that have absolutely nothing to do with God's leading at all. Again, faith is not believing against all evidence in Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, verse 17. He says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And so as it says more about that in there and we'll get to it later on in the message, but it's not. It's not accepting something to be true, despite all evidence, there is evidence for our faith. Faith is not just pulled out of thin air. Faith is not just placed in something that never existed, that was irrational, illogical, and there's no reason to ever believe that it would be true. But faith is based on evidence. Faith is based on evidence. It's based on the revealed Word of God. That's where our faith is based. And then the last thing I want to say, just as far as what faith is, is that faith is experienced through the intellectual, the emotional, and the experiential dimensions of our lives. In other words, faith encompasses all of that. There are intellectual effects to our faith. We practice it intellectually. We have to know something, but also emotionally faith affects us because really faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin. And so faith drives us to Christ. Whenever the spirit convicts us and there's sorrow over sin, the believer that's been that's been regenerated by the Holy Spirit will be driven to Christ because that's the only place he can go. That's faith. That's where you find that comfort. That's where you find the relief from your sin, by going to Christ. And then, experientially, it's just your life. Faith takes place in the context of your real life. And so the more you live experiencing faith, the stronger your faith becomes. As long as we're talking about growing in grace, growing in knowledge, growing in godliness, your faith grows throughout your life experience. And so it's not you're living over here and then you take a time out to come to church and get your faith to grow a little bit and then come back over here and put it on pause again. But the whole spectrum of life is affecting your faith. So that's faith defined. That's what faith is. Trusting in God, rooted in God's Word, not based on just a whim or your own emotions or just understanding something, but it's taking everything about you and affecting that. That's what the Holy Spirit does whenever you're regenerated and He gives you faith. So that's what faith is. Where does faith come from? Where does faith come from? Is it just something that we muster up? Are we presented with the gospel message and we have to, you know, go one way or the other? And if we can, if we can work up faith or exercise the faith that's automatically implanted in us, then we're on this side. And if we can't, then we're over here. And most of, you know, the answer to that is no. In Ephesians chapter two, in Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians 2, verse 8, it says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. And so faith comes to each one of God's children as a gift from God. It's a gift from God. It's not something we could ever muster. It's not something we could ever do to have the idea or to try to embrace the idea that we have to respond in our own faith is to have a total ignorance of the doctrine of total depravity. In and of ourselves, where we left to ourselves, we had to respond. If we had to muster anything by ourselves, we couldn't do it. We could not do it. And the reason is and we went there several times. We were talking about sanctification. We were talking about conversion at a Roman's age. But the reason is, is that we are naturally dominated by the influence of the world or the influence of the flesh, which is the opposite or would take us the opposite direction of godliness. No human being that has ever been born outside or past Adam and Eve would ever naturally want to submit themselves to God or anybody else for that matter. It doesn't just have to be God, anybody else, but God in particular. That's what we're talking about here. We are not submissive by nature. We're very selfish by nature. We wouldn't think that we have as many hindrances as we really have. Matter of fact, even after somebody's born again and regenerated, the older they get and the more mature they get, most of the stories you hear by people that are just honest is they become more and more amazed at just how helpless they really are outside of Jesus Christ. That is totally opposite to what we would really love to tell folks. It's funny. At school, I'll go every now and then. I've got to go, well, really, if I'm going anywhere from my room, I've got to cut to the gym. And there'll be guys in there playing basketball. And there's just several of them. I mean, they strut around and they look good. And if all they were doing was standing there, then you would think, man, these guys can really play. I mean, they've got all the gear and all the things. And then they start shooting and start missing and start showing what they can do. And they're awful. But if you were to ask them, I'm telling you, they think they're the world's greatest. They think they're the world's greatest. I got a kid that I joke around with, and we have a teacher-faculty game at the end of every year, and the seniors play against the teachers, and this guy's several years out. But I was saying something to him, and he said, yeah, I can't wait till the senior-faculty game. I'm going to dunk all over you, Mr. Sokran. And I said, dunk? I'm not even worried about you making a layup, much less dunking on me. But he really is. He's so confident in himself. And that's the way we are, too, in the same areas that we're so weak in. It's against our nature. It's against our nature to think that we would need someone. And it's against, really, we just have a tough time with that, that we would be totally dependent, even halfway dependent, even a little bit dependent on somebody else. You ever have a hard time going and asking somebody for help? I do. especially depending on the person. If it's somebody that I really want to be superior to, man, it's tough to go ask that person for help. Or if I'm around somebody that I want to really be perceived as successful or not even successful, but just competent, man, I don't want to go ask anybody questions, especially anybody for help. But whenever we have faith in God, it reveals to us that not only do we need a little bit of help, We need all the help we can get. In other words, we are not competent, period. Not just in having a successful life, but at even living life outside of the guiding hand and grace and mercy of God. And that's what faith reveals to us. And so faith is produced by God. It's given by God. Also in John chapter six. The Gospel of John. John 6. Verse 26, this is John 6, verse 26, it says, Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek Me not because... I'm sorry. Let me start again. Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves and were filled labor, not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures and everlasting life, which the son of man shall give unto you. For him hath God the father sealed. Then they said unto him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom he had sent. And then it continues on there. But I wanted to get verse twenty nine. These people come to Jesus and they say, what can we do? What can we do to do the works of God? And Jesus kind of reframes where they are. And he says, listen, this is the work of God right here that you even believe. that you believe on the son of God, that you even believe, God, that are me, that God has sent me. That's the work of God. And so the question is not what can we do to work for God? But the question is or not really the question, but the answer is God is working on our behalf and our job is to submit to that and to obey him. Not that we're adding anything to anything or not that we're making something up to where God's lacking. He says the fact that you even believe on me. is evidence of the fact that God's working or that's what God does. And so the source of faith, well, that's God. It's not us. It's God. The object of faith, that's the next thing, object of faith, in other words, who or what are we believing? Who or what are we believing? And it really is an important. Question to answer, because we get so Maybe not you, but me. We kind of get bombarded a lot of times with different emotional pulls with faith. And here's what I mean by that. You know, there for a while, and maybe they're still doing it, but I think it was Disney that was coming out with all these non-cartoon movies about these sports teams that just never had a chance in the world, and all of a sudden they rise up and do all these great things. And maybe it wasn't all Disney, but I'm thinking about Remember the Titans about the segregation thing and the white guys and the black guys come together and they just make history when they shouldn't have done anything. Miracle about the hockey team from the U.S. that just shouldn't have done a thing in the world and they end up winning the whole thing. that Glory Road basketball movie. And anyway, you get finished watching all those movies and you're ready to play whatever sport it was that they were playing. And there's a concept there, or there's a emotional turning or excitement there about, man, just believe in yourself. Anything could happen. You never know. If these guys could do it, why couldn't I do it? And the whole idea is that if you just have faith in yourself, you just believe in yourself, you just believe in your team, if you just trust in this or trust in that, Even some of the Christian movies, and I'm not down on them, but I'm not trying to make them a normal thing either. The whole face in the giant for the coach. You know, all of a sudden, folks start buying him new trucks, and his team starts winning all these games, and his wife becomes pregnant at the end, and all these things start falling into place. And while I'm not saying God couldn't do that, I'm just saying if we start having faith, or if we put our faith in some emotional experience, or even in faith that God will produce something, in other words, faith in things, not faith in God, we get the completely wrong idea of what God's talking about here. What is our faith in? Our faith is in Jesus Christ. Even if we never win a game. Even if we die poor. Even if our circumstances are bad. If you read Hebrews chapter 11, you start finding out that these heroes of the faith didn't have the cushiest life. Some of them were sawn in half. Some of them's heads were lobbed off. Some of them didn't know where they were going and why they were going there. It's not about we have faith in God because we believe He's leading us on our road to our palace somewhere here on earth and things are going to just be so great and we get halfway through there and figure out that our palace doesn't look nearly as good as whoever is over here and so we just kind of lose faith and throw up our hands. What's the object of our faith? The object of our faith is the whole idea that God's going to make us successful, that God's going to materially give us all the things that we want or all the things that we feel like we need. You're going to be disappointed almost every time. And the reason you're going to be disappointed is because God knows absolutely nothing about that kind of faith. He knows absolutely nothing about that kind of faith. You think about the life that Christ lived. He said, I don't even have a place to lay my head. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And so what's the object of our faith? What are we believing? 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1. It says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preach unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And then he goes on with what he has to describe there about what it is that he had preached to him. But what is our faith in? Whenever you boil it all down, your faith, as far as biblical faith, is to be rooted in. You're supposed to believe the power of faith is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, you're a sinner. You've messed up. You've offended God. And you've done it a million times. And without any kind of payment for that, which is a must, there has to be a payment for your sin. And without that payment, you will be judged and you will burn in hell for eternity and God will get that payment from you except for the fact that Jesus Christ came and He died on the cross and He was a propitiation for you. In other words, God got His satisfaction for what should have fell on you in Christ and He's reconciled you to God and your relationship with God has now gone from being split to coming back together. And now you live as an adopted son of God. That's what your faith has to be rooted in. Now, obviously, there's other promises that God makes about that. There's promises for the journey from here to there. But essentially, the foundation of your faith has to be the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if it's not that, well, then it's not faith. It's not faith. You see, our problem is we're so bombarded and distracted by all these different things that we think, ah, the gospel, we know a little bit about that, but give me something that's a little more practical. I'm going to say that there's nothing more practical on earth in the universe, nor will there ever be, than the fact that God has dealt with your sin and you don't have to pay for it. There's nothing any more practical than that. If you understand that and you understand the implications of all that, it's going to make you be a better husband, a better wife, a better father, a better worker, a better employee. It's going to affect everything about your life. So that's where your faith has to be rooted at the beginning of it. In the facts of the gospel of Jesus Christ, He came, He died for our sins, and He rose from the grave and was accepted by God. And so you don't stand guilty before God anymore. That's where it has to start. Let me tie that back to where we started, because outside of relationship, faith, I don't want to overstate it, but I don't think I am. Outside of relationship, faith is worthless. God reconciles you from yourself back to Jesus Christ, reconciles you back to God so that your relationship is restored. That's what faith is doing. You can trust. What are you going to trust? You're going to trust the fact that God's already received payment for your sin. And so you can act as if you're God's child because you really are God's child. You can come to God and pour your heart out and believe that He's listening because He really is listening. You can go to God and ask for grace because He really is giving grace to His children. You can go to Christ and you can trust that He understands where you are because He was tempted in all points just as we are. But He didn't fall. He was successful in that. And so He can give us the strength that we need to overcome sin. That's what faith is. That's what faith teaches us. That's where faith motivates us to go. But I'm going to tell you, faith without knowledge is worthless because you don't know what in the world it is you're supposed to even be believing. Jesus Christ, that's the object of our faith, the gospel. I don't know that I'll get all the way through this one this morning, but the next one I want to look at is the function of faith. So what does faith actually do? So we've defined faith, trusting, obeying, relying on. We've looked at the source of faith, that is, faith is a gift that's given by God to His children. We've looked at the object of faith, that is, who or what it is that we're believing in. Let me get one more before I go to the function of faith. The necessity of faith. Is it even necessary to have faith? Now, that kind of seems like a silly question since we've already gone over some other things. would answer that already, but it's a question that hits modern Christianity, not only in our own, I say in our own circles, I don't know about in our own circles, but there are primitive Baptists, there are Southern Baptists, there are people all over that carry the name of Christians that would debate whether or not faith is actually even necessary. And so is it? Well, you could probably answer that if you If you've listened to the rest of it, if God gives faith, then it must be. Will all Christians, will all children of God have faith? Well, if they're born again, they will. And we have no reason to believe that God doesn't regenerate all of his children while they're on earth. So here's the message, anyway, that we get from the Gospels in John chapter three. John, chapter three, verse 16, familiar to everybody, 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. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And so what John lays out as far as well, what Christ lays out in the Gospel of John is the fact that if you believe on him, then you're saved. But if you don't believe on him, you're already condemned because you didn't believe. Is faith necessary? Yes. Yes, that word believe there is what we're talking about. We're talking about faith. The fact that I do believe, I do trust that this is what Christ has done on my behalf. The Spirit has borne witness to my heart that I am a child of God, and so I cry out to God. I believe all these things about God, and so I do something with that information that I have. And he said, if you don't believe, you're condemned already. Mark, chapter 16. Here the language is a little stronger. Mark 16, verse 16, he says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. So it's pretty plain. Pretty plain. Is faith necessary? Yes, faith is necessary. We go back to where is our source of faith? Well, it's God. God gives His children faith. God gives His people faith. And so it's not a scare tactic. It's not that we try to scare you or that I bring these verses up because I want to scare you into having faith. I'm just distinguishing what real faith actually is. And is it necessary? Yeah, it is necessary. It is. Another reason why it's necessary, I don't have it here, but we'll get to the verse in a little bit. It's Hebrews 11, 6. Without faith, you cannot please God. You cannot please God without faith. It's impossible. It's not that you might slip up and unknowingly please Him. That's not it. It is impossible. You cannot please God unless God has given you the ability to come to Him in faith. You just can't do it. Okay, the function of faith. What does faith actually do? Now, in order to answer that, I want to I want to look at a couple of things that faith does not do. And we've gone over this a little bit, but. I want to go over it one more time, Luke chapter seven. Luke, Chapter seven, and we're going to look in verse 50. This is the. Story of the woman who comes and she. Is it Simon, the Pharisees house and. She's, from all indications, she's lived a life of a prostitute, and she breaks the alabaster box, and she pours the ointment on his head, and she washes his feet with her tears, dries it with her hair, and that whole scene. And then Jesus tells her that her sins are forgiven, and Simon says, who is this that's forgiven sins? And then Jesus begins to explain what he's saying. But then at the end, in verse 50, he looks at the woman and he says, it says that he says, and he said to the woman, Thy faith has saved thee. Go in peace. Thy faith has saved thee. Go in peace. And there's a couple of other verses that are in the New Testament that have to do with Christ saying something similar to this. Your faith has made you whole. Your faith has saved you and all that. And so. Let me put into context here what's being done here and what's being done in the other instances where that happens, where the man's lowered down through the roof and all that. Let me say this again about faith. Number one, faith does not save in and of itself. It does not save in and of itself. Faith is, again, given by God. God gives that as a free gift. And it's an evidence of salvation, not the cause of salvation. It's important to keep those two distinctions there. It's an evidence of salvation. It's not a cause of salvation. It's a gift that's given by God freely to all his children. But it doesn't cause anything as far as that goes. If you want to think about it as a fruit of the spirit, that's exactly what it is. Salvation is the root of the tree and faith is a fruit that's produced there. It's a fruit that's produced by the root of salvation. OK. So he comes to this woman and he says, your faith has saved me. The woman here comes and she is obviously, obviously way out of place. Several months ago I preached a message on this and I don't know if you remember or not, but the background of this was it was a pretty regular thing back then for for men, this man was a Pharisee, to have people come over and rabbis, people that were respected, respected teachers, come to your house, have a dinner, have a talk. You could bring people there that wanted to ask questions. And then there were people that were kind of poor, at least outcasts, could come into the house and line the walls and just listen. But you did not talk. You kept your mouth shut, you stayed in the background, and you just kind of heard what was going on. Simon brings in Christ, he doesn't wash his feet, doesn't anoint his head, doesn't kiss his cheek, doesn't do any of that stuff. Christ comes and sits down, and in that culture, just kind of sits down and has been disrespected by the owner of the house there. This woman comes in, and she's watching, and faith is at work in her. Because when she brings this alabaster box, and it varies, I mean, you can read, you know, ten different commentaries, again, ten different prices as to what all this was, but most of them seem to indicate that it was around a year's wages for this woman to purchase this alabaster box. And she breaks it and pours it over his head, and in humility she cries and washes his feet with her tears and wipes it with her hair, and she humbles herself before God. She comes to him in faith. She comes to him in faith. God draws her and he uses just the fact that I don't know what Christ was teaching about. I don't know what he was saying. I don't know what the conversation was like whenever he was talking to Simon there. But this woman totally humiliates herself in front of the crowd, and the reason she does it is because she believes God. Somehow or another, the conversation winds up and Christ says, your sins are forgiven. I don't know what all took place in the back and forth conversation, but this woman, apparently by her actions and who knows what all was said, was well aware of the fact that she was a rotten, worthless, helpless sinner who needed a Savior. And I want to keep that there and go to the second one and then we'll come back and I'm going to tell you how this whole idea of your faith has saved you works into that context. Romans, chapter five, again, you can keep your finger in Luke, chapter seven, because I am going back. But just to. Kind of stay in sequence and fill out the picture, I think this will be helpful. Romans, chapter five. We read this in Romans chapter five, verse one. He says, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ in whom we have access by faith and it was grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And so in this phrase here in Romans chapter five, we have this idea that we're justified by faith. OK, another thing I want to talk about as far as the function of faith is that and I'm not contradicting the verse, but our justification before God does not occur because we have faith. The fact that we have faith does not justify us as far as get rid of our our guilty standing before God. However, the way faith works in a believer's life, and I'm going to go to another verse in Romans chapter 4 here in a minute, but the way faith works in our lives is that we are made aware of the fact that we are justified before God. The believer is able to move into that experience. And so I'm going to tell you that whenever Christ talked to that woman back there in Luke chapter 7, he says, your faith has saved you. In other words, your faith has taken the blinders off your eyes and you knew exactly where to go with your sin and you're cleansed. Before that, she had no idea that she was justified before God. And before you come to faith in Christ, you have no idea that you're justified before God either. Now, let me go back to Romans chapter 4, just so you don't think I'm making stuff up. Romans chapter 4. We're in verse 25. Well, let me back up. Let me go to verse 22. This is talking about 23, I'm sorry. Now, it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him. This is Abraham, that his faith was imputed to him for righteousness, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. Then he says after that, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Our justification is rooted in our justification was accomplished by the fact that God accepted the sacrifice of Christ for our sins. And that was made manifest by the fact that Christ rose from the dead. And so we're justified through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We experience that justification or we embrace that justification through faith. That's the way that works. Biblically, that's the way that works. And so this woman that comes to Christ, or even this man that comes to Christ who's healed, and he says, your faith has healed you. It's not the idea that because you had faith I was bound, or you had my arm twisted and I had to do this or that, or it produced anything in me. But your faith has revealed to you the reality that has already existed. You're justified before God. You stand just before God. Now, you can take that and then you can also just the law of non-contradiction look through scriptures and figure out very quickly that if you're only justified when you come to faith, there's a lot of things that don't make sense. And one is you start thinking about when it was that God actually planned or God actually began to love his people. And that is clear in scripture. God has loved his children, his people from all eternity. And I'm going to tell you that God did not love a people who were not justified in his sight. He didn't do that. We've been adopted and brought into God's family, and that was done an eternity past. Again, God did not adopt his children and leave them unjustified and bring them in and love them. That makes absolutely no sense. And as I say that, I don't say it to just make a point of argument because there are good men that believe that there's a. something special as far as an eternal value that happens between our standing and God standing men that are way smarter than I am and would say, yeah, there's something that goes on there as far as justification. But I'm going to tell you, it's not because I'm so smart, but it's because the scripture is so consistent with the fact that God, if he's ever loved you, he's always loved you. If you were ever his child, you've always been his child. If he was ever involved in your life, and bringing you to a point of grace. He's always been doing that for you, and He will always do that for you. And so the justification that came in order for that to happen was from all eternity. Now, did it happen in real life? Well, sure it happened in real life. It was planned before eternity passed. It was accomplished when Christ gave Himself on the cross. But it was a sure thing. It was a sure thing before it ever happened. God knew. He knew that He knew. And the reason is He knew that He knew is because God cannot lie. He can't lie. And so whenever the plan was made, the decree was made, we look at Christ and it says over in Revelation that He was as a lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. That's not just throwing words out there, that's some necessary information for us. That opens up the picture for us. What does that mean, a lamb as if he was slain before the foundation of the world? I mean, the covenant was sure from the beginning of the world. If God had a people, his people were justified then and they were brought into his family then. And as we live and our experience plays out, then we begin to experience and we become aware of and come into a life that is consistent with the blessings and the grace that God has for us. But those were there. Justification was there before you ever knew it. It was there before you ever knew it. So we're not justified or made just in the sight of God by our faith. And that's where I want to stop. That's where I want to stop for this morning. When we come back this afternoon, we're going to look, what is faith's function? And I'll go ahead and tell you, because I know that some of you won't come back. Faith's primary function, faith's primary function is to give the believer the ability to please God. Faith's primary function is to give you the ability to please God. Again, that's usually not what we think about when we think about faith. We think about faith function as something that we might, you know, kind of get something for our own sales. But that's not it. It gives you the ability to please God. And in the middle of you pleasing God, you get a blessing out of that. That's not the primary function of faith is not that you would receive something by that, even though it indirectly is. But scripture is consistent to the fact that so you can please God, so you can glorify God. And then at the end, we're going to look at the life of faith, the fact that faith is not stagnant. God doesn't give faith and it just kind of stays there and it never changes. But faith is a growing fruit. It grows in your life, and so it's meant to grow in your life. And so we're going to look at those last couple of things with faith. Again, it's a basic survey of faith, what the Bible has to say about faith. It's extremely important that we understand this, that we're going to relate to God in a way that's true. And so that's what we have on faith this morning. I hope you'll come back this afternoon. Let's pray.