Faith

We are blessed this morning with a number of visitors among us. I'm not going to take the time out to introduce them all, but I would ask you please, before you leave today, to greet them and get to know them. One of the joys of Christian fellowship is meeting other brothers and sisters in Christ.

I find that a great joy when I meet you, new friends — I've made so many new friends in the past month, and I always love it when I meet new Christians, because one of the reasons I go to church is to get my feet washed. I mentioned this to you the first time I was here, I think. And when Jesus washed his disciples' feet, he said to us that we are to do the same to one another. Though it's a blessing to be in a church where maybe that is practiced — I have been in about two or three actual foot-washing ceremonies, and it's been a great blessing — I think really what Jesus is saying there is that we are called to be servants of one another, to refresh one another. One of the blessings of church is that we can fellowship with one another afterwards, greet one another, encourage one another, and you may not know what a blessing you could be to somebody else this morning as they leave the service.

I imagine that almost every congregation in Nineveh today has people in the congregation who need their feet washed. They've been through some valley this week, they've been through some hard places — you can't be in this world very long without the dirt of this world rubbing off on you. So I would encourage you afterwards to spend a little time in greeting one another, getting to know one another, particularly those who are visitors among us this morning.

Larry mentioned that we had the joy of visiting with Tim earlier this week. He's got a multicolored, technicolor leg that is broken, and all the colors of bruises you could imagine. It was good to be there to encourage him. We also went to visit Norman Barr — some of you may remember his widow, his wife who used to be cabinet of this church; I think it was Elaine or Evelyn, I can't remember the name. He wanted to express to you his appreciation for this church and what it meant to his wife, and I thought you'd be interested to know that, since some of you may remember him. And then last night Carson and I went to visit Avro Palbrigo — is that right? — and she's in very good spirits. She's very immobile, a very slow walker, but she again expressed her love to you and just wanted us to pass that on. She would love a visit, so if some of you are able to visit with her, and some of you remember her, it's a good time to be there.

Before I turn to the Word this morning, I want to pick up where Audrey introduced us a couple of weeks ago to praying through the 1040 window. Some of you may not know that the 1040 window is that band of latitude across Europe and into Asia, between the 10th parallel and the 40th, in which 90% of the Muslim world lives. It's the place where all the religions of the world are represented, and there's great persecution for the church there — but it's a window into which there are many opportunities. I know people right now who are working in many of those countries as school teachers, as businessmen, but really there to represent the gospel of Jesus Christ. For those of you who picked up the books, you'll know that today we're beginning the forty days of prayer through the month of Ramadan, to pray alongside the Muslims who are praying — but we as Christians are praying for the Muslim world. Today's subject is Uzbekistan.

But there was also, in the little booklet, a prayer request for the Muslims in Canada, and I'd like to read out what this week's prayer requests are, to give you a focus for your praying this week. There are more than 15 mosques in greater Vancouver, six in Edmonton, four in Calgary, two in Winnipeg, 12 in Montreal, and 30 in Toronto. We're encouraged to pray that the Lord would break through the hearts of Muslims in Canada with his truth, and to pray that the Canadian church will cultivate love for local Muslims and take active steps to encourage their members to reach out to their Muslim neighbors. There are 400 to 500 Turks in the greater Vancouver area, and only one known follower of Christ among them — no one is reaching them. Please pray for power to break through tradition and fear.

Pray for those who are currently preparing for overseas career work among Muslims, and for many more workers to be raised up for the work among Muslims, both locally and internationally. There are 800,000 Muslims in Canada, and that number is growing, yet few Canadian churches intentionally reach out to local Muslims — pray that many more would see their calling among these least-reached in their midst. Sameer is a Christian worker from Egypt with an internet ministry and Arab-speaking television and radio broadcasting in the West and in the Middle East — pray for Sameer and his radio work, that he may have open doors and an effective witness. Sean and Iris and Thais and Vivian are in Calgary reaching Muslims and new immigrants through personal contact; pray for wisdom in responding to the many requests for assistance from inquirers, and also for new believers, for the deepening of friendships, and for opportunities to share the love of Jesus.

That's the prayer request for Canada for this coming week, and though it may slip through your mind, I would encourage you in your private prayer time to remember the Muslims of Canada — and if you are praying through the 40 days, as I certainly shall be, remember these people and particularly those working among them. It is encouraging, if you read this book — and I certainly found it encouraging, having been in West Africa for a number of years — to see the large number of Muslims today who are coming to faith in Christ through visions and dreams, in direct answer to the prayers of God's people. So please pray not only for the 1040 window but for the Muslims in Canada. That's the pastor's trauma for this morning, so I encourage you to be doing that actively.

Faith, Hope, and Love

I'd like you to turn to the book of Ephesians. I'm going to take as my text, which I've taken for the last three weeks, Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church — chapter 1, verse 15.

Having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and your love for all the saints, I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers: praying that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of himself; that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of his calling.

Here, in these few verses, we have those three jewels of the Christian faith: faith, hope, and love. We find them, of course, in that wonderful chapter on love in 1 Corinthians, but I have found at least seven places where Paul, and other places where Peter, has linked those three jewels together. I think we as a church, and we as Christians, really do need to study to grasp what these jewels are that these men are speaking about.

I want to speak much on hope — I find very little preaching on hope in the church, and I want to speak much on it over the next couple of weeks. But in introduction to that I need to speak first about faith, and today I want to speak on the faith without which it is impossible to please God: the faith of which Paul speaks when he calls us to walk the walk of faith, to live the life of faith, what he means when he talks about the works of faith.

Now, the difficulty we have is that English is a very irregular language. It is not an easy language for students to learn, because there are so many irregularities in it, but it's also a language that is weak in its ability to describe and explain things. Let me give you a simple example. We read, in St. Matthew's gospel chapter 5, that introduces the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus sat down and taught them, saying… The Greek word there that is translated "Jesus sat down" is what they call the imperfect tense — it means that Jesus was in the habit of sitting down, Jesus used to sit down. The Spanish language has two different tenses which make that very clear, but the English language doesn't, and we immediately get the impression that Jesus sat down once and taught them, when actually he's got about 15 sermons linked into one. The Greek very clearly shows that Jesus was in the habit of sitting down and teaching them these things — a very different emphasis, and English is very weak in that.

It is very weak, too, in its use of the word faith. We talk about the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, the Christian faith. We talk about a dog being faithful to its master. We talk about a picture being a faithful representation of the person whose picture it is. We have the word faith and faithful used in our language in many different ways, and we have brought that over into our Christian understanding of faith. So I want to speak about what I believe the Bible is teaching when it speaks of faith.

What Faith Is Not

Paul said we are justified by faith — he says that several times, in Ephesians and in Romans. James, however, says, "You say you have faith? I want to see your faith in action, because faith without works is dead." And immediately we have a conflict between Paul, who says we are justified by faith and not by works, lest any man should boast, and James, who says, "You say you have faith — I want to see it in your works, for faith without works is dead."

Now, which of those is right? The conflict is only in English. The Holy Spirit certainly wasn't confused when he penned those words, or led those men to pen them, because I believe this word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit — he doesn't make mistakes. So if there is an apparent conflict in what these two men believed, we need to look at them and see how the conflict is resolved, because it surely must be resolved: the Holy Spirit didn't put the conflict there.

Those who follow Paul — Pauline Christians, as most of us probably are — who follow the teachings of Paul and revel in his writings, might look at the book of James and say that it really shouldn't be in the Bible. Martin Luther said as much: "The book of James is but a book of straw," he said; "it should not be there." Well, with due respect to Martin Luther, who was a great man, used mightily of God, I think the Holy Spirit is probably a little wiser than Martin Luther was, and the Holy Spirit thought it should be there. Those who side with James, and believe that faith should be evidenced in works — maybe even to the detriment of faith, with the emphasis all on works — they call Pauline Christians like you and me fundamentalists, with a little bit of disdain. Well, I'm a fundamentalist Christian who believes in the book of James, and I also believe in the writings of Paul, particularly when it comes to matters of faith.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, in John chapter 3 verse 16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Now, if I link those words of Jesus with the words of Paul, then obviously being justified is based upon my believing in him. But then Jesus, later, talking to his disciples, said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel; he who believes and is baptized shall be saved." Paul goes further and says, "He who confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believes in his heart, shall be saved." But to the Philippian jailer, after the earthquake shook the walls and God broke into that prison, releasing Paul and Silas, he says, "If you believe, you shall be saved, and your household."

Now, it seems to me, reading those stories concerning being saved, that they seem to say some different things. Am I saved by believing? Am I justified by believing? Do I need to be baptized in order to be justified? Do I need to confess in order to be justified? So what is faith? Is faith confessing and believing? Is faith believing and being baptized? Is faith simply believing? What is the faith that pleases God, without which I cannot be saved, for I am justified by faith — which is correct? Or may I ask the question another way, which is in error? Or may I ask it yet another way: is it possible that they're all correct, and incorrect only in the confusion they raise in our minds?

Such confusion is actually evident in the Scriptures. Now, I use an NASB — I want to make it clear I am not a one-Bible-translation man, but one of the reasons we have so many translations in English is because of some of the confusion around words, and many people today don't read the King James Version because, well, that's old English, and every year we get older the book gets more confusing. I confess I like the King James Version, but I can find things in it that don't mean the same today as they did when they were written — just as I can find things in the NASB that don't really mean the same as what I think the King James was saying, or some other version was saying some years ago. Let me give you one example.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23 — look at it with me. I love the book of Hebrews; that's what I'm teaching in adult class at the moment. Does anyone here have a King James Version — the old King James, not the new? Would you be willing to stand and read for me, chapter 10 verse 23, in the old King James Version, not the new King James Version? Nice and loud.

Let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering.

Did you hear that? "Let us hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering." Our Christian faith is something we want to confess. The only problem is that in the Greek, the word faith is not there. The NIV tells you what the real word is — what does the NIV say? Some of you followed that in your Scriptures, and it did not say faith, did it? It said hope. Well, is faith the same as hope? The Greek word is elpis, which is hope; it is not pistis, which is the Greek for faith. So why did the King James translators say, "Let us hold fast the confession of our faith"? Because they thought hope isn't something you confess, but faith is. Later versions use the word hope, because that is the correct word.

I'm just showing you the confusion you may get, particularly if you're the kind of person — as sadly many Christians are — who takes one verse of Scripture and builds a whole doctrine around it. The reason we have cults and sects in the Christian church is exactly that: somebody has taken a verse of Scripture that blessed them and built a whole following around it. "Don't bother me with the context. Don't bother me with the other verses. I believe that Jesus is coming soon."

How many of you believe that? Now, in the views concerning Jesus's coming there are those called pre-tribulationists — I'm not going to embarrass you by asking how many of you are pre-tribulationists, but probably most of you believe that Jesus will take us and rapture us out of the church before the tribulation. There are, however, many Christians in the evangelical church, who love the Lord just as much as you and I, who believe that we will go through the tribulation — they're called post-tribulationists. There are others who believe we will go through three and a half years of tribulation followed by three and a half years before being raptured — mid-tribulationists. And there are those facetiously called pan-tribulationists — you've heard of them? They're the ones who believe it'll all pan out anyway.

Now, I'm not going to tell you which of those schools I lean toward, because I know if I do I'll get two or three people afterwards coming up to try to show me I'm wrong, and I could probably tell you what books you've been reading or film strips you've been watching. I was in Australia once when a man came to teach on the Jewish view of the second coming of Christ — I thought that would be interesting, and I went to hear him. He spoke for two hours, the most fascinating lecture I'd been in for a long time, and I was struck, not by the verses he was quoting as proof, but by the fact that I'd never heard those verses before. I've become more struck, whenever I listen to people talk about a pre-trib, post-trib, or mid-trib position, by the verses they don't quote than by the verses they do. We are very, very good at using a few verses to justify what we believe, and ignoring everything else — that's what we tend to do.

Faith — there is much confusion about the use of this word. Let me tell you four things that faith is not.

Faith is not belief. The devils believe. If you went around Canada today and interviewed people, as some of these surveys do, you'd get reports telling you that 80% of Canadians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. It makes absolutely no difference in their life — it certainly hasn't got them the faith without which it's impossible to please God. They believe, but it means nothing more. Faith is not belief.

Secondly, I would suggest to you that faith is not presumption. Have you met those presumptuous Christians who operate faith like this? "I've been praying for God to heal my eyesight. The word of God says if I pray in faith, believing, God will answer my prayer — therefore I'll smash my glasses." That's called presumption; that's not faith. Presumption is a sin.

I know of churches in my former denomination in BC that were growing large, and so the board of elders decided they would build an extension to the building — a $1 million extension. But as they planned, they decided to build bigger and bigger and bigger. God was in it, God was blessing the church, they said, and they built something like a $5 or $6 million extension. How many of you remember the year in the 80s when mortgage rates went up to 26, 27%? That was the time — suddenly the local lumber mills closed down. True story. The church was left with an $8 million debt. People in the church lost their jobs; a lot of people moved out because they didn't want to be in a church encumbered with a burden like that. And then suddenly everybody was blaming God for not coming through. God wasn't in it from the beginning — they thought they were operating in faith, but they were actually operating in presumption. Faith is not presumption.

Faith is not belief. Faith is not hope — they are two different jewels. To say, "I've got faith that God is going to do this," when really it's something I'm hoping, is not faith. Somebody is sick, and you're praying for them, and you're hoping God will heal them — that is not faith, it is hope in the natural sense, not the spiritual sense.

And faith is not positive thinking. We have churches built around positive thinking — they're called Word of Faith churches. The business world will tell you, "What you think you are, you are," and we've brought that into the church: if you're sick, just believe God that you're not going to be sick, because that's the devil telling you you're sick when you're not really sick. They often go by names like "name it, claim it" churches. Let me not be too severe on these people, because they do have a grasp of Scripture that maybe we need to grasp as well — but they're not operating in faith. If you confess with your mouth that you're not sick, then you're not sick. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is your riches, and therefore you're not living in poverty, even though week by week you're not getting enough money to put food on the table — faith is not positive thinking. You cannot think yourself into health. You cannot think yourself into prosperity. You cannot think yourself into answered prayer. Faith is not these things.

Three Aspects of Faith

I'd like to take as my second text — am I allowed a second text? Many pastors in England have one. I'd like you to turn to the book of Thessalonians, please — 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 8.

Since we have a day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

A breastplate of faith and love. We all acknowledge that love is an attribute of the heart — I love you with all my heart; nobody ever said, "I love you with all my head," though love should also be part of that. We have no problem recognizing that love is an attribute of the heart, but this Scripture says to me that faith, too, is an attribute of the heart, for the breastplate of faith and love covers the heart, not the mind or the head. Hope has far more to do with believing than faith has — this is why Scripture uses an expression like, "if you believe with your heart."

Now, I was trained as a physicist — I taught physics in secondary school many years ago, as you've heard me say before. I was used to teaching scientific facts — the law of gravity, the electromagnetic laws, whatever it might be — facts I could verify and prove. I believed things: I believe that the planets rotate around the sun, and we can describe their orbit mathematically. If I took these keys out of my pocket and dropped them, they would fall to the floor. There are certain things I believe with my head — I come to believe them because it's a rational thing to do, having seen them operate, and so rationally I believe they're going to happen. My wife keeps telling me I'm too logical — that's who I am, praise God, I think too much; she's far more intuitive than I am. I'm a head person, I believe with my head. That is not Christian faith. I believe Christian faith to be an attribute of the heart.

Let me show you why. I see three aspects of faith in the Scriptures I'd like to take you to — three references. If you'd like to turn to them, make a note. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 to 9, verses you know very well.

By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves — it is a gift from God.

How many of you believe that verse to be true? How many of you have experienced that verse to be true? Praise God. My second reference is found in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22.

The works of the flesh are these. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith.

I know some people say "faithfulness," because they think of faithfulness as a characteristic of people, but it's not faithfulness — it is faith. It's a fruit of the Spirit.

I did tell you the story — I'm not going to repeat it — about the garden I had in Toronto, watching the branch trying to strain. Did I tell you this story? I tell so many stories, I'm sorry, I keep repeating myself. We watched this branch on our apple tree — for those who weren't there: we were newly in Toronto, and we heard a strange noise. My wife and I were sitting on a garden seat, and we heard a strange noise, and we looked and saw the branch of our apple tree swelling, and out popped this beautiful red apple. What are you laughing at, Cindy — you don't believe me? Then another branch was swelling, and out came another beautiful red apple, and all over the apple tree the branches were straining themselves to produce apples. Isn't that foolish? That's not true — you all think it's a very foolish illustration.

The truth is this, however: many Christians are just like our apple tree. They think they can produce fruit by straining. You cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit by any effort of your own. The righteous man, said the psalmist, is like a tree planted by the river of water, that brings forth fruit in season. The tree does not strain to bring forth fruit — it just abides by the river, and allows the river to produce in the tree the character of the tree. When you and I are Christians, and the Spirit of God dwells in us, he is the river of water that produces the fruit of the Spirit as we abide in Christ. As you abide in me, said Jesus, and I abide in you, you shall bring forth much fruit. You cannot produce the fruit by your own efforts. "I'm going to have joy in my life even if it kills me. I'm going to have faith to believe." Brother, you're not feeling well — you need more faith. That might be absolutely true, but you cannot produce one iota of faith.

My third reference is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, concerning spiritual gifts. As you go down there, we read these words, concerning the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit, in verses seven and nine.

To one is given a manifestation of the Spirit, for the common good of all. To one is given a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge, to another faith, by the same Spirit.

Let me give an illustration of the gift of faith. The board of an inner-city church decides that there is a lot of trouble with the inner-city kids around their church — they're sniffing glue, and shooting up, and everything — and they decide they have to do something to reach these children. So at their board meeting, six very sincere people raise the question of possibly bringing in a young worker, a pastor, to reach these young people. One of the men says, "We can't afford it — we don't have enough money in the budget or the bank." And that's a true story. So the pastor says to them, "I want you to go away this week and pray about this, and let's meet again next Tuesday."

They come together the following Tuesday, and as they walk through the door — you, a little fly on the wall, can read their minds. The first man is against it, can't afford it. The second man comes in, he's for it. The third person comes in, for it. The fourth person is against it. The fifth person is against it, and the pastor doesn't know which way it will go. You think to yourself, how are they going to resolve this? The pastor says, "Let's pray," and they pray. And he says, "John, Larry, what do you think?" And Larry shares his thoughts. And he asks another, "What do you think?" And as they go around the circle, one of those who came in against it says, "I don't know, pastor, but I came in here feeling we couldn't do this — but as I've listened to Larry and Peter speaking, I think we can. I know we should. I think we can." And suddenly they're unanimous — they all agree they're going to do it.

Why? Because God has given them the gift of faith, operating for that circumstance, for that time. It could be different circumstances — maybe you're praying for a sick loved one, and suddenly God gives you the deep assurance of faith that this is going to happen. That's the gift of faith.

So we have what I call saving faith, and sadly most Christians — small letters, most — live their lives operating only in saving faith. They trust in Jesus for their salvation, they trust that he's there in some way, he's got an influence on their life, but they haven't really grown into a walk of faith to know what it is to know him. They haven't developed the fruit of faith in their lives, or let the Spirit of God do it — they've never operated in the gift of faith, they haven't seen it operate.

Examples of Faith

But as I look at these three aspects, I'm struck with this one thing: all three have their source in God. The first thing about faith we can ever learn is that the faith which pleases God is the faith that has its source in God.

Paul speaks much about faith, about being justified by faith — he has several chapters on it — and he takes the example of Abraham, the patriarch of the children of Israel, who left Ur of the Chaldees not knowing where he was going, being moved by the Spirit of God, just as Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness after his baptism. Though Abraham did not yet know God — he had worshipped false gods in Ur of the Chaldees, among magicians and soothsayers — he was being led by God, because God had chosen for himself a man from whom he would birth a nation, and from whom he would bring the Messiah. All through Abraham's life you see him progressing, learning more and more about God. He pretended his wife was his sister, so that he would escape death — twice he did that — and had to be reprimanded by heathen kings for his lack of trust in God. He's not always a trusting God, but he's living the life of faith because God is moving him, God is doing something through this man. Abraham is Paul's example.

James uses Abraham as an example too, but he has a second example of faith: he talks about Rahab the harlot. What a strange choice. If I were looking for examples in Old Testament history of men of faith, I'd look at men like Daniel — but Daniel is never mentioned as an example of faith, while Rahab is. Rahab was the woman in Jericho who, when the spies came, hid them. She was a traitor to her own people, known as a prostitute — whether she was or not isn't certain. She lived in a house on the wall, so she could look out. But something within her was telling her that these two men, who posed no threat to her people — Jericho was a secure city — knew something about their God, and she betrayed her own people because she was being opened up to a revelation that God was making of himself to her. She's the example.

I often ask people to give me a definition of faith, and they come up with words like this: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" — Hebrews 11:1. And I ask them, what does that mean? And they don't know. Isn't it easy to quote a verse to define something without really knowing what it's saying? What is the evidence of things not seen? What is the substance of things hoped for?

Well, have you ever seen a child, as Christmas approaches, or a birthday, with all those lovely colored parcels under the tree? Little Johnny sees his name on that big box, and he's longing, longing, longing for the day when that box will be given to him, so he can tear the brightly colored paper off and see the substance of what he hopes for. That's a gift — the thing you long for and wait for, and finally receive, and it becomes substance in your hand. That's a gift.

What about the evidence of things not seen? Well, the Bible even explains that: by their fruit you shall know them. The evidence of what God has done in your life and mine is evidence in the fruit that flows out of us. You can do works, and people may think you're a fine Christian, but if nothing has happened deep inside by the Spirit of God, there will be little evidence of fruit in your life — you're not going to be a transformed, changed man or woman. The evidence of things not seen is fruit, and all the writer to the Hebrews is saying is that faith is a gift — the substance of things hoped for — and the evidence of things not seen, which is exactly the same thing Paul has said: a fruit and a gift that have their source in God.

If you find the example of Rahab the harlot striking in Hebrews 11 — and it is striking, because Daniel isn't there, and a few others I might have chosen aren't there either — read on to the end of the chapter, and you'll find that by faith women gave their children up to the mouths of lions, that people were persecuted and put to death, torn asunder, by faith. It doesn't say that in their torment, in their suffering, they had faith — that they believed. It doesn't say that. It says that by faith they gave them up, because God was doing something through them; the source of their faith was God. He was doing something through them that they could not understand, any more than Abraham understood, when he left Ur of the Chaldees, where it was he was going. But God was doing something — God was operating in faith.

It's striking, too, to look at the six examples of men and women whose faith Jesus commended. I have no time to go into all of them, but I'll give you the references, and I encourage you to look them up yourself. Only six people did Jesus commend for their faith. Three of them were non-Jews; none of them were his disciples; three of them were unclean and should never have come and touched the Teacher. I'll give you their stories' references — I won't tell the stories themselves, you can read them up, you know them.

One was the Roman centurion: "I have not seen faith like this in all of Israel." You'll find the reference at Matthew 8, verse 5 on.

The woman with an issue of blood: "If I touch the hem of his garment, I shall be healed." "Your faith has made you whole," said Jesus. How did she know to touch the hem of his garment? Had she read a book that told her to? She hadn't. Had she heard Oral Roberts on television — do you remember Oral Roberts on television, "Reach out and touch the television set"? She'd never heard that. She'd never read any medical books that said it would work. But the Spirit of God had spoken to her spirit, and said, "Reach out and touch" — and she touched. Her reference is Mark chapter 5.

The Canaanite woman comes to Jesus and asks for her daughter, in Matthew 15. Jesus said, "I do not give the bread to the dogs" — what a thing to say to the woman. "Yes," she said, and a revelation spoke through her: "but even the dogs, the Gentiles, are going to receive the crumbs that fall from the table." That was the first prophecy in the New Testament concerning you and me, as Gentiles, receiving the salvation of God — through the Lamb, the Jewish Lamb, who was slain on the Jewish cross, for you and me.

There's blind Bartimaeus, in Mark chapter 10: "Jesus, son of David" — which is the title of the Messiah, the name of the Messiah. In his blindness he saw more than the crowd saw with their two eyes open, because God gave him, in a revelation, to know that this man walking there was the Messiah. It was to him that he called out.

Then there's the woman in Simon's house who anointed his feet with oil and wept upon them. Simon thought that if he knew who she was, he wouldn't allow her to do that, and Jesus said, "Simon, I came into your house and you didn't even greet me, but this woman is anointing me for burial." She was acting prophetically — she did not understand that with her mind, but she was acting in obedience, in a prompting of the Spirit of God; she was acting in faith. That one is found in Luke 7. The last one, in Luke 17, is the ten lepers.

Ten went away to be healed, presenting themselves to the priest, but only one came back. Scripture says he was a Samaritan, and Jesus said, "Your faith…" He came back and worshipped, fallen at the feet of Jesus — he worshipped God. The leper realized that this was none other than the Son of God. How did he know that? By revelation — God's finger, God's word, into his spirit; into the woman with the issue of blood, into these Gentiles — God's Spirit spoke to that person's spirit, and though their minds did not comprehend the words, their spirits responded to the prompting of the Spirit of God. That is what faith is.

That is what Jesus meant when he spoke to Peter, and said — first, "Whom do men say that I am?" — and Peter is the one who said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of God." "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah — flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father has revealed it." The revelation was to Peter's heart and to Peter's spirit, long before it ever came to his head, and out of that revelation of the inner working of the Spirit of God, Peter made his confession: "Thou art the Christ."

Jesus then goes on and says, "Your name shall no longer be called Peter — it shall be called the Rock, for upon this rock I am going to build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." What rock, Peter? No, no — Peter was a crumbling stone, who crumbled at the words of a little girl in Pilate's judgment hall, until he was filled with the Spirit of God. What Jesus is saying is that he is going to build his church upon men and women like you, Peter, who receive a revelation from God in their spirit, not in their heads. I'm not talking about hearing voices — I'm talking about our spirits being so in tune with the Spirit of God that when he says move right, we move right.

When he says move left, we move left; when he says stop, we stop — not in the head, I'm not talking about voices, I'm talking about being led by the Spirit of God because we walk hand in hand with him, the Son. That's what faith is.

The Walk of Faith

So let me define faith for you. I believe faith is an attribute of the heart, evidenced in obedience — obedience to what God the Holy Spirit says through his written word, which speaks to our spirits, dividing the soul from the spirit and allowing us to be free to follow what the Spirit of God says. Obedience to the small, inner voice of his Spirit speaking to our spirits, amidst all the clamor of the other voices we hear in our minds. Obedience when he convicts us, and we respond by seeking again forgiveness and cleansing. Evidenced in obedience to everything the Spirit of God wants to do in us.

One of the characteristics Jesus named in the Sermon on the Mount is, "Blessed is the meek man." We have this false understanding that meekness is equivalent to weakness, but Jesus was called meek — the word meek literally means teachable, moldable, pliable. We sing songs about being clay in the potter's hand — clay in the potter's hand yields to every pressure of the potter's fingers; if there are lumps, he takes them out, he keeps working on it. I want to be such clay in the hands of my Lord that when he squeezes, there is the imprint of his thumb marks upon me. That is what faith is: allowing him to do his work, and having such a meek, pliable, teachable spirit that as he molds me, I am pliable, and he molds me. That is what the work of faith is — nothing to do with the head, everything to do with the heart. Allowing God to speak, to breathe, to put his finger into our spirit and mold us, and we yield in obedience to every little pressure of the finger of God, or every little word from the mouth of God. We yield because our spirits are in tune with him. That is what faith is — the faith that pleases God, the faith that enables us to walk the walk of faith.

So let me repeat: faith is an attribute of the heart, evidenced in obedience — evidenced in obedience. It's the finger of God in the hearts of men and women, moving them to do his will. I made a decision, when I came to understand this a few years ago, that I was going to hold his hand, to know him as Abba, Father. My commitment, day by day, is that I am holding my Father's hand. I do not know where he's going to lead me tomorrow — six weeks ago I did not know he was going to lead me to the departure of a Baptist church. I'm thrilled and delighted he brought me here — this is sweet time, this is honey time.

This is the kind of pleasure my earthly father periodically gave me when he took me to the sweet shop. My heavenly Father has brought me to a sweet shop with you people, and I delight in the sweet shop of God. But I've learned, long ago, in my walk, that if I go to the sweet shop often, I often have to go to the dentist's shop too — and sometimes my heavenly Father takes me to the dentist's shop. But I'm holding his hand, because I know the dentist's shop is good for me. That's what the walk of faith is.

So committed to holding my Father's hand, trusting him to lead — I do not know where he'll lead me tomorrow, but I know he holds tomorrow. I want to climb to that mountaintop, but I know he's going to probably have to take me through a valley to get there. The walk of faith is not a walk in beds of roses, in lullaby fields full of daffodils. The walk of faith often takes us through the sloughs of despondency, pain, and suffering. I do not believe in a Christianity that is all victory and happiness and glory, glory, hallelujah — praise God, it's going to be one day — but if my Savior was perfected through his suffering, why should I ask for less?

But the walk of faith, with its sweet shops and its dentist's shop, its valleys and its mountains, comes to those who are committed to holding the hand of the Father. My earthly father was not a Christian, but he was a very good father. I think, if I was a little child holding his hand and somebody bounced a ball into the road, I would let go of my father's hand and go chasing after the little ball — I did it often, and I do that as a Christian sometimes too. I let go of my Father's hand and run after the temptations of Satan. But just as my earthly father would never allow me to go out into the road while a ten-ton truck was coming, so my heavenly Father has promised to keep me — he gathers me in by the work of the Spirit and pulls me back before I fall into danger. That's the walk of faith. And I've learned, long ago, that I'm foolish to let go of his hand.

Faith, my brothers and sisters, is not a commitment to believe in things, and to do things, and to believe in a hope, or a presumption. Faith is a commitment to hold the Father's hand, and allow him to lead where he will.

There is a verse of Scripture I want to conclude with — I gave you a verse in the King James a moment ago that does not say what the actual Greek says; there are many verses like that. This one is found in Galatians, a verse you all know very well, and I'm going to suggest to you that, without you realizing it, you'll probably find it too has a different translation from what the Greek says — and believe me, I'm not a Greek scholar. I did two years of studying Greek, but I have learned how to use Strong's Concordance with Greek, and I do know that Greek, being a very classical language, means what it says. Look with me, please, at Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who gave himself for me.

Can you say that this morning — is that true? "And the life which I now live in the flesh I live" — many of your Bibles are going to say, "by faith in the Son of God, who gave himself for me." Is that true? Is that what your Bible says? If you've got the King James Version, it does not say that — and the King James Version, this time, is correct. The King James Version says, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who gave himself for me." Now, think about it — they are two radically different things. Do I live this life by faith in him, or by his faith in me? The Greek, let me assure you, says, "I live this life by his faith, operative in me."

I live this life because he — my Lord, my King — is the one who speaks into me, who breathes into me, who puts his finger into me and prompts me to move this way and that. And if I am a meek man, if my spirit is teachable and moldable, he will produce in me what he wants to do — just as he did in Abraham, just as he did in Rahab the harlot, just as he did in the people of the Old Testament, just as he did with five young men who went to Ecuador in 1957 and died on the banks of the Curaray River. All of North America wept for these brilliant young American men who died — "How is God in this? What is God doing?" they all cried.

But ten years later we saw a barrier broken down to the Auca Indians that had stood for centuries, so that tens of thousands of them became believers in Christ, because five men died on the banks of the Curaray River. Did Jesus intend and plan for them to die? I suggest to you: yes — by faith these five young men died, part of God's will, so that God would open a breach in the walls that had trapped the Auca Indians for centuries. That is how God operates.

So when I see valleys and despair, I ask myself: are you walking right now in the will of God? Are you walking in faith? That's what it means to be a man of faith, walking the life of faith, walking in obedience to it. My prayer for myself is that I will continue to walk this life holding his hand, being led by him. I'm not asking to hear voices, but I am certainly asking for my spirit to be entwined with his, so that his Spirit can mold me, prompt me, lead me, guide me. I pray that may be true for you as well.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word. I pray that you will speak to each of our spirits. Your word is sharper than any two-edged sword — it divides the soul from the spirit, the natural man from the spiritual. So we ask, Lord, that by your spoken word, even the still, small voice to us, you will make us men and women who work and walk and live in faith that pleases you. I ask this in Jesus's name. Amen.