Faith and Hope Picturing faith using New Testament examples

Welcome to episode 121.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 121. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I am going to talk about some examples in the New Testament and kind of see what faith looks like in the New Testament and see if Jesus kind of gave us an example. And I think it is. I, you know, when I said that it is a verb and a noun, you know, I think about faith without works is dead, that you find that in James. But I want to remind you that grace has absolutely nothing to do with works. And so we've gotta make sure, that's why we talk about grace and faith and hope and love, all of that together. But the grace of God is poured out for all men. That was Jesus dying on the cross. It had absolutely nothing to do, or maybe everything to do with you, but you cannot add anything to what Jesus did when he walked on this earth. If you try to add anything to what God did, it makes it worth nothing. But if you just say, "I didn't do anything to deserve heaven. In fact, I screwed it up so bad that I need a Savior," and you take your faith in what Jesus did and say, "I want that," that is believing the Word of God that says, "Look, you can't make it on your own, but Jesus died for you." You use your faith and add it to God's grace. Grace is what God has already done, and we've already talked about grace, and I just want to make sure that everyone's understanding that I'm not talking about works that we can make our— make God like us more by doing something. God is love, and you can't do anything to make him love you anymore, and you can't make him love you any less. You can't do something to make him love you less. God is the perfect Father and you are his child. I don't care if you've accepted Jesus or not, God loves you and he sent his Son to die for you. And you can't— I mean, you can't make him not love you. Now, all of that said, the grace of God was poured out for you and you are going to have a decision to make. Are you going to follow after Jesus, or are you going to follow after the world or after your own way of thinking? Either way, you're going to follow something. And I, I pray that you would just hear, hear my tone, hear my voice, hear, hear the word of God, what he's done in my life, hear my testimony. I was nothing without Jesus. You know, I thought I was something, and I was visiting with a friend of mine. I hadn't seen him in a long time. And we sat down over a cup of coffee and we had a great visit. We both grew up in high school, but I was not— I was without God, and I was comparing myself to other people, which I know is wrong. But then I didn't know what— I didn't know what to compare myself to. I, I was just going through life. But this is a pass/fail standard, and the only way to pass this test is if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord. And Savior. And it's not enough to believe, you have to believe and receive. Because I'm going to read James, because I was going to start reading James 2:17. Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe there is one God, You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. I want to stop there. When I say it's not enough to believe in God, even the demons believe in God. Even the demons know there is a God. So just knowing that there is a God is not getting in— getting you into heaven. And even if you know there's a God, and that's kind of where I was, I was kind of on God's team. I thought I was on his side. I was not against God. If you would have asked me back in high school or or in my early 20s or mid-20s, late 20s, whatever, before I accepted Christ, if you'd asked me, I'd have said, "Yeah, I'm for God." But the Word had never come alive to me. The Word was never proclaimed in a way that the Holy Spirit was able to use it to bring me to salvation. And I declared Jesus as Lord. And that, I think that's the key. I think that you have to repent, that for the salvation thing, that you have to bow the knee. Jesus said, and it's Mark 7, it's very, upsetting scripture in Matthew 7:22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. And then I want to go back to James real quick because it says in James 2:19 You believe there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. So when the demons think about God, they're fearful because they know— see, they've seen God. They've been in God's presence. They've seen God, and they chose to fall, or they chose to go the opposite direction from obeying God. And the reason they're trembling is because they know that Father God is the real deal. He is a God of his word, and he's going to one day take these demons and he's going to throw them in the lake of fire. They're trembling. They know there's one God and they believe, but there's no way they can bow the knee and declare Jesus Lord of their lives. They had the opportunity. They looked with angelic eyes and chose to go the other way. They're a demon now. I, I don't understand all of it. But I know that they believe in God. But see, God is going to say, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. He's going to throw the demons into the lake of fire. In fact, that's where hell— the lake of fire, it was made for the demons that left their post. But it is also going to be for the unbelievers who choose to not follow God. Again, I'm going to say this again, I don't believe God is going to throw anybody into hell You are going to have the opportunity— you have had the opportunity probably multiple times to declare Jesus Lord of your life. And if you choose not to do that, you're going to do that out of your own free will, which means you are choosing to not follow God. You want to be separated from God here on earth. So God is going to allow you to do that, but he's also going to say, hey, you chose to be separated here, you're going to be separated in the spirit realm as well. I don't think that's a good plan, reading the book that I'm reading. I don't think that's where you want to be. And that's why I'm here jumping up and down talking about the Bible, talking about how good God is, talking about how wonderful Father God is, because we do have an enemy and all he does is call into question the word of God. That's all he does. And I want to show you that faith— it says faith without works is dead, and I know you've probably heard a lot of that, but I, I don't think you got— you can work your way into heaven. You have to accept Jesus by faith, and it's a positive response. And that's really what I want to key in on, is that you have to have a positive, non-fearful response to the Word of God. And again, that's where I think— and I haven't heard a lot of people talk about this— but you have to have a positive response. It cannot be anything out of fear. It is not done in faith. If you take fear away, I think what you have left is a positive reaction. Fear would be negative. Faith, or your positive response, would be positive. Now I know that may sound kind of redundant, redundant, but it's positive response. I don't know that it's got to be all cheerful. It just can't be fearful. Heh, maybe that's a rhyme. But you've got to have a positive or a cheerful response to the Word of God. Unwavering. Let's look at Jesus' example of one of our go-to scriptures in Mark 5:35. While he was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house who said, 'Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?' And as soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he said to the ruler of the synagogue, 'Do not be afraid, only believe.'" So he's requiring the father of this daughter that was just told that she's dead. Jesus turns to him, he looks at him and says, "As soon as he heard this word," Jesus countered with, "Do not fear, 'Only believe.' The father of the child had to make a decision right there. He had to have said— it doesn't say, but he had to have said, 'I believe what you're gonna do, Jesus. I believe you.' He had a positive response to what Jesus told him, and Jesus was looking at him. I believe— I wasn't there, but Jesus looked at him as soon as he heard it and said, 'Do not be afraid.' 'Only believe.' And he sat and looked him right in the eye, and the father probably said, 'I'm not afraid, let's go.' And that's all God needs. God does not need the mountain-moving, earth-moving equipment. He just needs a positive response in a direction. And in that same story with the woman with the issue of blood, where she said with her own mouth If I but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be made whole. And if you'll read that back just a few verses up from when the father hears that his daughter is, is dead, this lady said with her own mouth, with faith, she said it out loud, look, if I just touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well. And she went out and got after it. That is a positive response to hearing the word of God. You're hearing all the people saying Jesus is healing everyone, everyone that comes in contact with him. Well, this lady was sick. This lady was bleeding, probably bleeding to death. The doctors couldn't fix her, and she had had it. She said, I'm gonna go take care of business myself. And she went through the crowd, which was against the law in the Jews' tradition. You could not— you had to yell and scream, unclean, unclean, unclean! She did. She broke the Jewish law to get to Jesus and touch the hem. She done made up her mind, and she went and got after this, touched the hem. Boom! Jesus said, "I felt power come out." Hey, I just looked up, and I'm gonna finish this point on the next episode because I promised I would stay on kind of one thing and keep it within 10 minutes-ish. And I want to just pray. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this podcast. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you for the example. I thank for your New Testament. I thank you for the Old Testament. And God, I pray that you would just help us understand what it is you want us to know. Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth. Lord, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

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