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00:01 This morning we're going to look at the topic of faith and in particular we're going to look at Abraham's faith. I'd
00:07 like to show you a short video first. We have a hot one for you. Robert Kwood.
00:18 Faith healer Peter Popoff claims miracle powers to cure. But in reality, his source of inspiration is a hidden
00:24 receiver in his ear in which his wife transmits names and ailments of audience members, making him appear to have
00:31 psychic powers. Jodyie
00:38 Dean. Jody Dean. No, should be right there on your right side. Right side.
00:43 Glory to God. Come on up here. No, that's not her. Hallelujah. No, that's not her.
00:49 Jodie in the blue. Glory to God.
00:54 That That might be her. Here it comes. Okay, she moves at 4267
00:59 Masterson. 4267 Masterson. I can see the angels of God all around your house.
01:05 And she's praying for her daughter Joy who's allergic. I'll tell you, God is going to give Joy complete deliverance.
01:12 That's what you've been praying for. She's not have any more eating disorders. Before 86 is over, she's
01:18 going to gain about 15 lbs. And you're going to rejoice. You're going to know that. I tell you, she got shocked.
01:27 She got shocked. Hallelujah. I come here to be healed.
01:32 I come here to be healed. I see you have a cane. What is uh arthritis? Arthritis.
01:37 Arthritis. How much money have you sent, Peter, do you think? I don't know. I don't know. I have son $100 at a time.
01:44 I think what you're doing is you're you're exploiting this market. You're taking lonely people using the
01:50 television medium for financial gain. It's hard to answer a question like that. I mean, are cigarette advertisers
01:58 exploiting their audience? Are the beer brewers exploiting their audience?
02:04 You know, you could say, well, they are. Yes. Okay. Um,
02:11 we're not here to character assassinate anybody, but uh,
02:17 this was a very famous episode that happened in the 80s. As you know, this was a man who claimed that he heard
02:24 voices from God, but actually it was his wise voice via a hidden microphone. And
02:30 he was exposed actually on a national television. And here's a few disappointing things. He he never
02:37 admitted wrongdoing. He said when he was exposed that occasionally he has to use a microphone but most of the time God
02:44 speaks to him. Now like I said we are not here today to you know run someone down but I just
02:51 want you to think of something. What happens if you were in that church and
02:57 your faith was strengthened because you said, you know, here's a man who could
03:03 hear God's voice. And you get very encouraged and you grow only to find out
03:10 the basis of your faith was false. That shatters you, doesn't it?
03:16 Um, I come uh we have Adrian who's from a
03:22 small town called Melbourne. Just like Malcolm in the middle, small town. I come from a superior place
03:29 called Sydney. Ah, you know, not like that backwater
03:34 place, you know, Melbourne, you know. Anyway, some of us like Peter, the superior species, all come from Sydney.
03:41 Now what is this that Melbourne Sydney Per they had during our days they had a very strong student movement very
03:47 similar to the summit team coming here and during our days people came to the
03:52 Lord like waves the Christian student movement was huge
03:59 and you had people from Malaysia, Indonesia, from China all coming giving their life to the Lord and saying I want
04:05 to be a pastor. I want to eat this and you see them years later and the way
04:11 they live you know you know any vice you can imagine do they they did they would do
04:18 and I spoke to a friend of mine who wanted to be a pastor when he was in a university and his life shows absolutely
04:24 nothing of that sort now and I said what happened he said you know you're overseas you're in Sydney you have no
04:31 friends you join the students union it's trendy to be Christian.
04:36 This morning we're looking at the foundations of faith. If you place your
04:43 foundations on certain things which are not secure, you can ride that wave and feel really
04:50 high, but one day it will break. And when it breaks, your faith will go
04:57 crashing down. This morning we want to take a very hard look at a very simple
05:02 question. Why are you here this morning? And why do you call yourself a Christian? What
05:09 is the basis of your faith? And what motivates what you do? It's a hard
05:15 topic. It's a heavy chapter, but please bear with me. Let's come before the Lord in prayer. Lord, we we u
05:23 we thank you, your good God, and we ask for the next 20 minutes or half an hour,
05:28 we will be still. We will be still, Lord. We ask in our in this time we will
05:36 seek your face and we will let your word and your word alone speak to us. Keep me
05:41 humble oh Lord. Uh let your spirit do the the teaching and not the wisdom of
05:47 men. And please say this in Jesus name. Amen.
05:52 Now let let's look at the text again and and we see Abraham's faith and look at a
05:58 key verse. Verse 18. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed.
06:04 And jump on without verse 19, without weakening in his faith, he faced the
06:10 fact that his body was as good as dead. And then verse 20, yet he did not waver
06:15 through unbelief. How do you get a faith like Abraham? How
06:20 do you get to be so unshaken in your faith? Now statistics, the Gallup poll
06:27 showed that American society up to last year, 92% believed in God. In fact, if
06:35 you take statistics worldwide, more people believe in God today than they
06:40 did in the 70s simply because the communist countries have collapsed. So
06:45 atheism, to be an atheist, you're a minority. So if you go out there to Sububang or
06:52 you go out to town or wherever you are, most people you speak to will tell you
06:59 they believe in God. Now which God? What kind of spirituality? That's another point. But
07:06 inherently human nature's DNA is linked to a instinctive belief in God. I want I want
07:14 you to just take that at the back, you know. And what does it mean when we say believe in God? Now, here's the
07:20 background to this text. It's a heavy text. And early on in chapter 3, Paul argues that Abraham was justified by
07:28 faith. And he anticipates in chapter 4 a Jewish respond. Chapter 4 is very much designed
07:36 to look at Jewish objections. And the Jew will probably tell Paul say, "Oh,
07:41 hey, Paul. All right. Not too bad, but not for me. I'm a Jew, you know, and we
07:48 have our own religion. And by the way, Abraham, he never knew Jesus. So, he
07:53 could have come to know God by the cross. Abraham must have been justified other ways. And how was Abraham
07:59 justified? And the Jews will argue three ways. Good works, circumcision, and
08:05 following the law. And this is very particular to the Jewish faith. Now, here's a strange interesting thing. If I
08:12 take away those langu lingo and put it in everyday language, it will be this
08:18 good deeds, religious rituals and following the law or being morally
08:24 upright. Now, haven't haven't you heard this about most people who are religious?
08:30 All religions teach you to do good. It doesn't matter whether you're Buddhist or a Hindu or Christian. Just
08:37 go to your place of worship. Do your religious duty. Get baptized. get circumcised, abstain from certain foods,
08:44 and be a morally good person. The basis of most faiths in this world, as John
08:50 Sto puts it, what the Jew believe, he will tell you in chapter 10, is something most people who claim to be
08:58 religious will believe. And this is the foundation of most religions. Now, here's here's my my my treaties. I I'm
09:06 I'm going to propose why people fill up churches. Now my my I I I suspect many people who
09:13 come to church and not saying necessary First Baptist Church but any church is that privately they're not sure
09:21 but they're not going to tell anyone. You see Pascal's wager is this. Pascal's wager is
09:27 if I if God does exist, if I do believe, I go to heaven. But if
09:35 God doesn't exist, well nothing to lose. But if I didn't believe and God did
09:41 exist, I'm going to go to hell. So, and if God didn't exist, nothing happened.
09:47 So, Pascal's wager is to be saved, believe in God.
09:52 And many people do that. They don't come to church because they have a firm
09:58 foundation. They come to church because they are scared. They're scared of the unknown.
10:05 Instinctively, something tells them, "You know what? there must be a god out there. So, well, I'm not very sure. I'm
10:11 going to go to church. But privately, you could be sitting down there and
10:16 you're not sure, but it's not politically correct to tell anyone. So, you come to church and you say all the
10:22 right words. I believe Jesus is my Lord and Savior and he died for my sins. Hallelujah, brother. But deep, deep,
10:28 deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down inside, you say you, is this really true? Can a
10:35 man enter a fish like Jonah? Did God really create the ark?
10:41 I'm not really sure, but I'm not going to tell Peter that. And this morning, we want to look at foundations of faith.
10:48 And this is what Paul says later on uh to the Jews. He says, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for
10:54 the Israelites that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that their zeal is for God." And here's the
11:01 interesting word. But their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not
11:06 know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to what? Establish their own. They did not submit to God's
11:13 righteousness. The point of the text is that human beings will create their own religious
11:20 venture. So you know I I think God's out there. I'm not very sure. So I'm going to worship God my own way. And a lot of
11:27 people who go to church do that. And House would say this, that if you could
11:32 reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.
11:38 What is the point? The first point is this. People out there will say if you're religious, you're stupid.
11:45 And this is a church, First Baptist Church, thankfully not ours. They will say reason is the greatest enemy that
11:51 faith has. So people think religion is unreasonable. And there's lot of good
11:57 reason for that because in the last few years there have been a lot of people so caught in the Christian circles doing a
12:04 lot of strange things. Telling you the world will end on May 21st. Telling you
12:09 you got to be rich. Telling you I read a book about people going to heaven and coming back. So if you're a Christian
12:16 you're stupid. That is the point. Just now Elgene just told me today in news if you go back you
12:23 find a case of a church couple where the kid died. You know why? Because the
12:29 parents believe it's a sin. If she went to the hospital they must have faith. So
12:34 if your faith is on all sorts of strange things, it leads you on a very difficult
12:40 path. So here's the contention. The contention is that if you go to church, you're not very intelligent.
12:47 But let me just pick out a few things what Paul says. He'll say in the book of Galatians, you foolish Galatians
12:54 who will be with you. In 2 Timothy, he talks about people who just gather around people where their ears want to
13:00 hear. And in Colossians 2:18, he talks about people who are puffed up with all
13:06 sorts of strange dreams. So the Bible talks a lot about foolishness. But here in the text, I just want you to
13:13 pick up the text to look at is Christianity a stupid faith, which is
13:18 what some people say. Is becoming a Christian leaving your brains behind? Is
13:23 is faith a matter of you know what you you can't think through these things? Is it's just not logical? So don't bother.
13:30 Now, how how do you know that there was an ark? How do you know the world was created in seven days? It's not logical.
13:37 So don't think. But is that what the text tells us? Now look at the text and
13:42 see what he says in verse 18. He says this. Okay, let me pick up the verse. He
13:49 says in verse 19, he faced the fact.
13:54 What does that mean? It means he rationalizes it and he looks at the fact he knew his body was dead. He faced the
14:00 fact. Verse 21, being fully persuaded.
14:06 Now, what we're trying to say is faith is not the absence of reasoning.
14:12 And I'll go so far to say this. If there are things you don't understand about the Bible, you should think it through.
14:18 You should think it through. And here's point number one. We have three points this morning. Point number one, faith is
14:25 a reasoning trust. You should use your brains. Don't believe everything the preacher
14:30 tells you. You should question it. You think it's wrong, run through it. But
14:36 there are two words being used here. Reason and trust. Let me just explore that a little bit. Reasoning,
14:43 unfortunately, is colored by our culture and personal experiences. This is called planking.
14:50 Peter and me won't do it. Brandon Sia may do it.
14:57 You see, to old people, this is stupid. To young people, this is absolutely
15:02 reasonable. So after you go to globe cafe and you see some of the worship team lying horizontally on the dining
15:08 table. No, nobody had a heart attack. They are just planking.
15:13 Now what I'm trying to say is that reason is very much colored by our culture. I I give you example like
15:19 Chinese people. Chinese people are practical people. You know Chinese people are driven by end
15:25 results. If it works for them it's true. They will believe in the Easter Bunny if
15:31 the Easter Bunny makes them rich. They put the Easter Bunny next to Quanin and pray to the Easter Bunny.
15:37 You hear the Chinese people I buy a few crystals, you know, I put in my house. After that, my business 100% increase.
15:45 You believe or not? You don't believe? I believe. I tell you, I know you don't believe
15:52 this. No, but I rearranged my house according to fun. You know, after I change the color to red color, I
15:57 plastered out the beam. the beam that cut my bed. Now me and my wife very happy.
16:03 That's Chinese logic. Now I spent some time in India. Now I'm
16:08 not trying to make bad jokes today but forgive me. And I spent four years in
16:14 India. Then I came speaking like an Indian. Indian logic is synchristic.
16:20 You know what synchristic is? It means everything makes sense. I remember having a discussion with an engineer
16:26 know on on on religion because he decided to be a vegetarian and I say Sri Khan you do you believe in many gods?
16:34 Yes. Many gods do you believe in one god? Yes. One god.
16:41 So you be believing in many gods and you be believing in one god. Yes. Then there is no confusion. No
16:48 confusion. There is no problem. No problem.
16:53 Indian mind is synchristic. The Indians when you tell them about
16:58 Trinity, no problem. God is three, God is one, no problem. You tell it an
17:04 Aussie. O and Aussie is a cynic,
17:10 right? Australia is a cynical. Ask Malcolm. They're all cynical.
17:18 So we are colored. Our reasoning is never objective.
17:24 And here's the point. We think we are reasonable. We're not. We're colored by experiences. And on a serious tone, when
17:31 you have bad things happen to your life, that colors how you face God. How many
17:37 times have you heard people say, "If God is real, why did he allow?" And then
17:44 this list of bad things that happen in our lives. We are colored. We're not
17:50 totally reasonable. Let me just go on here. The other verse
17:55 I want to pick up in Romans chapter 1. Because we're not totally reasonable, Paul says this, "The wrath of God is
18:03 being revealed from heaven against all the godliness and wickedness of men who
18:09 suppress the truth by the wickedness." In Romans 1, Paul says this.
18:14 Instinctively, we all know God. But because we don't like to hear what
18:21 God wants to say, we suppress the truth. Then what we do? We shift it to
18:26 something else that we want to believe. Here's a classic case.
18:32 A wife has a husband who travels overseas. He comes back and tells the wife, "You
18:38 know what? I'm just going there for business." Afterward, she suspects that's more than it. But she can't
18:45 accept that he's actually fooling around. So she tells herself, "No, he's not. He's going for business. He's going
18:52 for business." Even though the clothes have smell of perfume, he's getting strange phone numbers on a handphone.
19:00 The the the the bank statements money is going out. Why? Because the wife cannot
19:07 accept the fact that he's an adulterer. She suppresses the truth.
19:14 And if you think about it, we're all guilty of that. Sometime God gives us a truth we can't handle.
19:22 Faith is a reasoning trust. The question you ask yourself
19:27 this morning, how much reason do you have? Or are you suppressing certain truths in the Bible to believe what you
19:34 want to believe? Here is a classic case. Again, not here to slander people, but
19:40 everyone here locally knows about the case of this pastor who's on trial for
19:46 criminal breach of trust in Singapore. Major case. Now, the whole church has
19:52 rallied behind this pastor. and I read the blogs, you know, of some of the church people and their defense of the
19:59 pastor. Here is one email blog. Now, it's quite long. It's quite
20:04 emotional. In fact, this is one of the less rhetorical
20:10 emotionally ones. This is one of the more objective ones. But, but let me just read you line two. Okay. Line one
20:17 says it. What is wrong with the charity funding? We are not charity organization. We are church, God's house. Don't you read? He's getting
20:23 worked up. When we give our tithes and offerings into the house of God, we're giving willingly to the priests and the
20:28 workers of his kingdom. Okay. Now, let's go to paragraph two. Now, this one quite disturbs me. You know, he says this,
20:35 "When I give willingly to the church, I also want to honor the elders and the pastors. So, whatever has been given to
20:41 them, read this, is theirs. whether they want to do with it, whether to expand
20:47 our church, provide for their family with luxuries
20:53 is okay. And the author of this quote scripture, and I tell you, I've been reading a
20:59 whole host of them. They are beyond being stupid. You know,
21:06 it is stupidity to the max. Hey, Peter, good news for you. You see
21:12 these tides
21:18 I think you should upgrade your car. Hey, you gave your money to the elders.
21:24 What did he just say? He can give luxuries to himself. It's crazy.
21:30 Scripture doesn't teach that. But here's the point. You know what I'm trying to say is this. The point is when you read
21:37 emails like this, you know something's going to happen. That means even if the courts of Singapore declare the pastor
21:45 to be guilty with insurmountable evidence, guess how the church is going
21:50 to react? Are they going to take it? No.
21:56 Because there's no reasoning. Now, never underestimate our ability to
22:03 believe lies and to be selfdeceived.
22:08 So let's turn it around a little bit and look at ourselves as we look through what is faith. Faith is a reasoning
22:14 trust. Our reasoning is colored by two things. Our culture, personal experiences, and
22:22 number two, our innate ability to suppress the truth. Faith is a reasoning
22:28 trust. Here's the second thing we want to go on. Some people say, you know what, so long you're sincere is okay,
22:35 Joey. Yep. Master funoy master says prayer said in sincerity and spoken in full trust go not unheard in the cosmos
22:44 meaning so long you're sincere in your faith it doesn't matter what you believe what's important is you must be sincere
22:50 haven't you heard that quite often you believe this is okay I believe this you can believe your way I believe my way I
22:57 must be sincere now we call this the chair test you know we don't have a chair here but we have one of Adrian Mal
23:04 let's use this Adrian I hope you don't mind Yeah. Okay. Let's do a test. Yeah. Now, let's
23:09 just say, do you think if I lean on this or I I plank on this, I plank on this, I would
23:18 fall. Wow. That didn't go at the way I wanted.
23:24 Okay. Okay. Now, I'm going to be bit nasty here. Can you imagine if I asked
23:29 Uncle Ying to sit on this? Would he fall?
23:35 Shame on y'all. No, I I I have faith that this can hold
23:41 Uncle Ying. What am I going to do? I'm going to pray. Lord, I pray I pray I pray that
23:49 this this what what do you call this, Adrian? Sorry. This music stand will hold Uncle Ying. I
23:57 pray, Lord. I believe it will hold Uncle Ying. Strengthen his legs, oh Lord.
24:03 strengthen it. Be gone. Evil spirit of weakness, be gone. I pray. I pray.
24:09 Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Lord, you here. Come and sit.
24:15 [Applause] Now,
24:22 on a serious note, haven't you heard that before? Lord, I I I want
24:30 I want my mother to be healed. I'm going to pray like never before. And
24:35 I pray and I pray and I fast and I come to church and people tell me if I have
24:44 great faith I will believe. Then what happens?
24:51 My mother doesn't get healed. And what do I say?
24:56 Why God and my faith is broken?
25:01 Not so funny after all, isn't it? You see the point is this. What saves you
25:07 the object or your faith or your act of faith? And we find in verse three, Abraham
25:15 believed God. It was credit to him as righteousness.
25:22 Who saved Abraham? His faith or God? It was God. That is the point. Now then
25:30 people say I believe God. The question is this. What do you believe of God? Now
25:36 we're not saying that praying persevering is wrong. But if you have a
25:42 misunderstanding of God then your faith is not on sure foundation. Yes, we should pray for the
25:50 sick. We should intercede. But does the Bible teach us that God will guarantee
25:57 healing if we pray like never before? No.
26:03 What does the Bible tell us? Verse 16. Therefore, the promise comes by faith.
26:10 Your faith must be dependent on promises. Here's point number two. Faith
26:16 is maintaining your hope in the promises of God.
26:21 in the promises of God. In Hebrews, Paul picks it up. Faith is
26:28 being sure of what we hope for and is certain of what we do not see.
26:34 So, what did exactly God promise by faith? Verse 16 tells us number one,
26:40 Abraham will be the father of many nations. Verse 17, he is our father. All of us
26:48 are many nations. Why did he believe it? What did he believe in God? Two things.
26:54 Verse 17. Number one, God gives life to the dead. What is that? That's called
27:01 resurrection or the power of resurrection. Second thing, he believed things that
27:08 are not as though they were. You know what we call that? It's called new life.
27:13 What is resurrection and what is new life? It's called the gospel.
27:18 If your faith isn't anchored on the gospel is not faith. And today most
27:25 people get very disappointed in God because their faith is not anchored on
27:30 the promises of God. They're anchored on all sorts of strange things. And here's
27:36 the other way we look at uh you know Chinese people again today a
27:42 lot of people Chinese business people keep three sets of accounts you know. Yes sir. Okay,
27:48 three sets of accounts. One is for themselves, one is for their shareholders, and one is to set submit
27:54 to IRB. Guess which one has the highest profit margin and which has the lowest profit
27:59 margin. Nob brainer, isn't it? The one that's given to the IRB is
28:04 creative accountant accountancy. The one that's to themsel, that's the one that really make money.
28:11 So, Chinese people are very good with creative accounting. Now the thing is because they do it so
28:17 often when they come before God they also have creative accounting. The way he works is this and Paul says this in
28:23 verse four. Now when a man works his wages are not credited to him as a gift
28:28 but as an obligation. However to the man who does not work but trust God who
28:33 justifies the wicked. His faith is credited as righteousness.
28:39 Now what is Paul saying? Paul is saying the Jew has a problem. The Jew thinks just because he does good deeds,
28:47 just because he's circumcised, just because he follows the law, you know, God, you owe me.
28:56 It's like that picture now. So, they take their feather and they think the feather is worth the weight in gold. And
29:01 here is a misunderstanding of faith. We think if we serve in church, if we do a
29:07 lot of good and we do many many things, God you owe me.
29:14 And when I do a lot of service, I I I I help out in church. I do a lot of ministry
29:20 and God doesn't help me my business. My relationship goes bad.
29:26 God, you owe me. And what is Paul saying?
29:31 Paul is saying God doesn't owe you. Verse six, David says the same thing
29:36 when he speaks of the blessed of the man whom God credits righteousness apart from works. Blessed are they whose
29:43 transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose
29:48 sin the Lord will never count against him. Do you know how God's uh accounting
29:54 work? Our accounting is creative. God's accounting is what we call imputed righteousness. It means God takes his
30:01 righteousness and puts it inside us. He credits us to us. I'm going to unpack
30:07 that a little bit. But here, let me just wrap up point number two. Point number two is this. When bad things happen to
30:14 you, when you go through a difficult period, when you when when when life
30:20 doesn't go the way you want, who the first person we blame?
30:25 And then we see you know God if if you are a good God if you if you are real
30:31 why do you allow that to happen but the point is scripture never promises you
30:37 that a lot of you are new so let me share a bit about myself something the older
30:43 members know years ago I lost a son not easy to lose a firstborn son
30:50 and very hard to hold your firstborn son in your hands and watch him
30:56 Instinctively, I remember that because Peter was with me in the hospital.
31:01 And what the first thoughts that ran through my mind? One word. Why?
31:07 Why God? That's instinctive, isn't it? But as the years go by, I recognize this
31:13 is a fallen world. God never promise that if I became a Christian is smooth sailing. Anchor your faith in the
31:21 gospel. Secular hope is dependent on what God has done. Spiritual hope is
31:27 anchored on what God has done. If the gospel is the foundation of your faith,
31:34 you find that faith is much more unshakable. The moment your faith is
31:39 dependent on all sorts of other strange things, very quickly it will break. And
31:45 Timothy Keller puts this about faith. Faith starts with reasoning. A reasoning
31:51 trust as John Sto puts it for a reasoning trust it takes you to
31:56 conviction from conviction it takes you to commitment
32:02 and you find this is gospel life and this morning God is asking you how much
32:08 commitment do we have in our faith and Abraham journey of faith is very similar
32:15 God called him to leave his homeland he struggled he did certain wrong things but his faith grew until he was prepared
32:22 to sacrifice his own son. Faith is not like absence of doubt. We find in verse
32:29 18 against all hope Abraham believed. And here we want to ask if you have any doubts. If you struggle and you say you
32:36 know what I I I can't accept God did this. I can't accept God. You know I can't. Then talk about it. Ask.
32:45 Scripture never says not to do it. Nathaniel, not our key bodies, Nathaniel, but Nathaniel in John said,
32:51 "Hey, what good can come out of Galilee?" Jesus said, "Come and see." Gideon couldn't believe God and say,
32:57 "God, you know, show me something." God did. Our God is a God that requires you
33:04 to talk to him to what Adrian say, find that moment and if in doubt, ask. Here's
33:12 the last point. Faith is trusting in advance God's plans for your life. And I
33:17 want to tell you something. God has many plans for your life. I just noticed that many Melvinites here today. I don't know
33:23 why. I just picked another two at the back. David and M. Why is this Melanites
33:28 not here? You know now the Melbourites have a wellies. Yeah.
33:34 The all the oldies have a saying. If you meet an Aussie, they say good day mate.
33:39 Yeah. How's it going? I'm fine. Yeah. Good on your mic. Then they'll say fairincome is a strange word. Do you
33:46 know what fairink means? Ask any audi here. Fair dinkham means bonafide.
33:52 Bonafide. Now we're going to ask yourself what is bonafide belief? Okay, bonafide belief. Now you see statistics
33:60 shows you many people believe in God. But belief in God the way the Bible says
34:06 it and believe what the word does it is two different things. You see out there when they say believe is this I believe
34:12 I'm handsome. You don't have to believe I believe I'm handsome.
34:17 You see does that belief change me? No. No. You can believe anything you know
34:24 but the but biblical belief is different. When scripture says Abraham believe God there's actually an action
34:32 word attached to it. You know let me give you example. Here is a remote
34:37 village in China. Now to go to school the kids have to climb these ladders every day.
34:45 Can you imagine you want to go to school you climb this every day so you can sit there to study.
34:54 Now what is the point? The point is you take that step of faith then only
35:01 you learn. You don't learn then take the step of faith. Now the very profound and
35:08 important Christian principle, the Christian principle is this. God gives you enough for you to believe. He's not
35:16 going to fully satisfy all your rational thinking. But once you do that, you take
35:21 that step of faith. You then learn. And you'll find this most obviously in the
35:27 story of Nathaniel because Nathaniel doubted. He says, "You know what? Nazareth, how can a savior come from
35:33 Nazareth?" He tells Peter, Philip, and Philip says, "Come and see." As Philillip was walking, as Mina was
35:40 walking, Jesus says, "Here is the true Israelite in whom there's nothing false." Now, you follow that chapter,
35:46 the word come and see occurs twice. It occurs earlier to Andrew. Now, what God
35:51 does is this to you and I. You doubt, you struggle. You know, I'm not so sure
35:57 about all of this, Lord. I I really don't know. I'm not very clear.
36:02 Then God says, "Okay, come and see." He did the same thing to Abraham. He
36:08 told Abraham, "Leave your land. Come." Abraham went. As Abraham went, he
36:14 learned. And you find that as a continual biblical principle. Philip
36:20 Yansy said this, "I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what only makes sense in reverse." And you
36:27 find this in chapter 4. Abraham believed, then he did good works.
36:32 Abraham believed, then was circumcised. Abraham believed, then the law came.
36:40 Like I said, years ago, I went through a difficult period. Ask God why. Up to now, I don't have the answer. But
36:48 as the years go by, God teaches me about other things. God teaches me about the sanctity of life. Now, I I never
36:55 answered my question, but God taught me many other things. As you take the step of faith, you learn
37:00 other things. I give you another example. A person says, you know what? I'm not sure whether I should be a
37:06 Christian, but I'm going to take the step of faith. Then he says, you know what? Now I'm going to be a Christian. I
37:11 have to be honest. You know, Chinese businessman. I don't want to be poor. Lord, make me a
37:18 Christian and keep me rich. Young believer, wrong prayer. But now,
37:24 what happens when he takes a step of faith? Does God honor that prayer? God
37:30 may or God may not. But what very likely will happen if he takes that step of faith? He will discover true riches.
37:39 So what will happen as he goes on? He learns that you know what being rich is not so important. What's important is
37:46 I'm rich towards God. Take a step of faith. God will open your
37:52 eyes. And this morning God is asking you that. Take that step of faith. Abraham
37:57 in many ways never fully realized the extent of God's covenant with him. Every one of us here is God's children. We are
38:05 the children of Abraham. You think he ever knew it? And when you step out in faith, God will do things in life you
38:12 will never imagine. And the extent of his covenant with you will stretch in
38:18 ways you just will never know. Faith is a reasoning trust.
38:24 Faith is maintaining your hope in the promises of God. Faith is trusting in
38:30 advance God's plans for your life. I'd like the musicians to come up and I want
38:37 to close with this story and this is since we have so many people from North Carolina here. Okay, this is one of
38:43 North Carolina most celebrated musician John Mark Millian.
38:48 Now in 207, his best friend prayed in a church
38:53 meeting, "God, if you would take my life away to awaken
38:58 the youth of this nation, then take my life away." Later that night, his best friend Steven
39:05 Duffy died in a car accident. And what did what did John Mark
39:11 McMillian do? Like most of us, he said, "God, why? God, why?"
39:17 Then he went out and did what most musicians do. He wrote a song. A song we
39:23 sung just now when we were doing our tien offering.
39:29 I remember singing this when I was in Manila. I was in Manila about a month ago and I didn't really know the song
39:36 and and and when the song came in, tears just went down my just just came down me.
39:43 Just hear the words. He is jealous for me. Love like a hurricane. I am a tree
39:50 bending beneath the wave of his wind and mercy. And this this was the verse that really struck me when all of a sudden
39:58 I'm un unaware of this afflictions eclipsed by glory
40:05 and I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for
40:10 me. Have you ever had that where where you you go through such a bad time in life you know and you are at a point of
40:17 breaking and you say God I I'm not so sure but because you are still
40:24 God's presence just descends on you and God just says one word he says I love
40:30 you. You see the last line of the song is never sung in church. This is what he
40:36 says. I thought about you the day Steven died and you met me between my breaking.
40:45 I know that I still love you God despite the agony. See people they want to tell
40:51 me you are cruel but if Steven could sing he did say it's not true cuz you're
40:59 good. Just now when when brother Adrien asked you to find a quiet moment, what was the
41:05 first word that came to your mind? I tell you what was the first word that came to my mind, it was this word, God,
41:10 I'm scared. You may not realize it after I speak. I'm terrified. You know, you just don't realize it.
41:17 Then then then as Adrian led us into worship, a next word came to my mind and he says, "And I love you."
41:26 If your faith is anchored on the gospel, you will realize God's love will carry
41:32 you through the storm. You see, life is a road and you don't know what's beyond
41:38 that horizon. And sometimes that road is very lonely.
41:45 And at breaking point, you will say, "Lord, where are you?" And this is what the word of God says to you. This is how
41:51 God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him.
41:59 This is love. Not that we love God, but yet he loved us and sent his son as an
42:04 atoning sacrifice for our sins. When the gospel anchors us in our faith, we can
42:10 walk that road. It may be lonely. It may be dark. But we remember Romans 4:25.
42:17 He were delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
42:23 Can we have the song up? It's a song that most of us don't know, but I I I
42:29 would like to ask you to sing it meditatively. And may God just bring your faith to a
42:37 solid ground. Shall we stand?
42:43 [Music] Oh, how he loves us. and know
42:53 how he loves us so. Oh, how he loves us.
43:02 How he loves us so
43:11 [Music]
43:26 We're important. We are his portion and he is our prize.
43:33 Drawn to redemption by the grace in his eyes. Grace is an ocean where all
43:44 sinking. So heaven meets earth like an unforeseen
43:52 kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest. I don't have time to
43:60 maintain these regrets when I think about the way
44:07 and the door. How he loves us so
44:16 how he loves us. how he loves us so
44:25 we look and know how he loves us so
44:34 oh how he loves us. How he loves us so.
44:46 Father God, we come before you now in our presence. Give us a faith that is based on
44:52 reasonable trust. Some of us here Lord we struggle because our reasoning
44:59 is colored by lot of bad experiences. Lord teach us Lord to trust you.
45:05 Lord teach us to put our hope in your promises and not promises that we make
45:10 up ourselves. Teach us to know what your promises are in your word. And Lord, we don't know
45:17 what the future is like. We don't know what the world is out for us. We don't know what the road is like out there,
45:23 Lord. But Lord, teach us to have faith, to believe, to trust in you in advance for
45:33 what we will learn tomorrow, oh Lord. And right now in this midst, as a song,
45:38 as we are as a song is being sung, as as the spirit moves in our midst, the Lord
45:44 is just asking you one thing. We're not going to do an altar call this morning, but we want you if you if you're
45:50 standing there and and you're struggling in your faith, you you have certain things you're struggling with, you're
45:55 saying, "God is not fair, would you just put up your hand and can we pray for you?" Thank you. Can you just put up
46:02 your hands? If you're struggling with your faith, anyone just put up your hands and say, "Lord, I I I want to pray
46:08 for my faith. My faith, I'm struggling my faith." Would you just put up your hand and then just put it down? Thank
46:15 you, sister. Thank you. We see you. Thank you. We see your hand. Put it up. Thank you. At the back, put on your
46:21 hand, brother. Anyone else? Just put up your hand. Thank you, sister. The back, we see your hand. Put it down. Anyone
46:27 else at the back? Just put out your hand and then put it down again. Anyone else at the back? Anyone? Anyone else? Thank
46:35 you, sister. You can put your hand down. Thank you. Anyone else? We just ask you
46:40 to just put your hand. Thank you. We saw your hand. Just put your hand up. Thank you, sister. You can put your hand down.
46:46 Thank you. Just put your hand up and then put it down again and we will pray for you. Anyone else? No one is looking.
46:54 Just put your hand up. No, if you're struggling in your faith, thank you, sister. We see that hand. You can put it
46:60 down. Thank you, brother. You can put your hand down. Anyone else? Anyone else? Let us pray for you. Just put your
47:06 hand up. Thank you. At the back and put your hand down. We've seen your hand. Thank you, Lord. We thank you for the
47:12 hands that went up and we know in our midst life can be hard for us. There are
47:18 questions we don't understand and in the quietness of night sometime we say God I don't know. I'm not sure. I've been
47:26 coming to ABC all this time but Lord I'm not sure. Are you real?
47:32 Lord if you're real why did this happen to me? And the word of the Lord comes out
47:38 tonight today. This morning, the word of the Lord says, "Come and see, for he is faithful." And the word of the Lord is
47:45 saying right now to base your faith on just this verse. He loves you. He loved
47:52 you so much. He sent his son to die for your sins.
47:58 And by that, we have grace. We have promise. And we have hope for a future
48:04 because he loves us so. How he loves us
48:09 so singing along church. Oh how he loves us.
48:17 How he loves us so
48:24 and know how he loves us so
48:31 [Music] how he loves us.
48:37 Love you.
48:44 Know how he loves us.
48:51 Oh, how he loves us.
48:57 [Music]
49:05 How he loves us so. Oh, how he loves us.
49:15 How he comes our soul.
