The Basics of Faith

I have to say, that's some of the best singing I've heard in quite a while.

My goodness.

Being up on stage, I get the full bore.

Just inspires everybody else.

Thank you for singing praises to the Lord.

Just a reminder that there is no children's church for the summer.

But children who attended children's church, I have I'm giving a special assignment for the rest of the summer where they can receive special prizes.

I think though that was explained to you.

You've been given some material to take notes during my sermon, and you'll receive a prize after you get so many of them done.

You can write a picture, verse, whatever it is, but just try to follow along, see what God brings to your mind.

The rest of you, take good notes.

Your reward will be in heaven.

Thank you.

We are beginning a new sermon series for the summer on faith.

There's a lot to talk about.

If you'd like an outline of the sermon, Archers have them, just raise your hand, they'll be happy to help you out.

Someone ripped the fifth month out of my calendar.

I spent the whole month dismayed.

Instead, I'm Junendous.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

You know, it just encourages me to keep doing this, right?

Now, in the sermon series this summer, we're going to be studying what the Bible says about faith, what faith is, how to get faith, how to live by faith.

That's where we'll end up.

As you read through the Bible, you're going to run into a lot of passages on faith and belief.

It's one of the great themes of the scripture.

But for today, I'm going to start what we're going to do this summer.

I'm going to start very basic, and then it's gradually going to get a little more involved, deeper, as we go through the summer.

I hope you can last through the whole thing because it's the end that really brings everything together.

Or just come August 30, then you'll get the whole thing.

So for today, I have three three main points I want to talk about.

What faith is, faith's connection to Jesus, and how to get a faith connection to Jesus.

Let's begin with the definition of faith.

Here's a basic dictionary definition of faith.

Faith is a strong, active conviction or complete trust in someone or in something that we are convinced is true and reliable.

The Bible has its own definition of faith, which is somewhat similar.

Hebrews 11:1 says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

In other words, faith is trusting what you cannot see and acting in response to what you are convinced is true and reliable.

There are several parts to that.

We have to to survive.

For example, my doctor gave me these pills for my heart.

I don't understand their chemical composition.

It's hidden to me.

I do trust the doctor.

I think he has my best interest at heart.

Although he keeps telling me to change my diet, which you know it's like okay.

I trust the pharmacist who's filling the prescription.

I don't know these people.

I believe, though, that the information they're giving me is true and reliable.

So I act on it.

That's what we call faith.

By making a commitment, I make a commitment to take these pills, no matter how I feel, because I believe it's true and reliable what they're telling me.

I trust, I believe, I act.

There are so many things in life we do by faith without even realizing it, you see.

You gotta understand faith is huge.

It's it's we can't live without it.

Um we act on things without proof.

Uh we believe things are true and reliable, and we'll we'll get what we hope for.

The food we eat, the car we drive, the person we marry.

It's all by faith because we don't have infinite knowledge of everybody and everything.

It's all by faith in something or someone.

Now let's go this morning to a passage, and what I'm going to do this summer is I'm going to go through several passages where we see faith prominent until I get to the end of the summer, and then we'll spend some time in the book of Habakkuk, looking at how to live out our faith.

But let's go to Mark's gospel, where Jesus, the the master teacher, can teach us what faith in him means.

Mark chapter 5, beginning in verse 21.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

When Jesus had crossed over in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and so he stayed by the seashore.

One of the synagogue officials named Jarius came up and on seeing him fell at his feet, implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter's at the point of death.

Please come and lay your hands on her so that she'll get well and live.

And he went off with him.

And a large, large crowd was following him, pressing in on him.

A woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years and endured much in the hands of physicians and spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had gotten worse.

After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak.

For she thought, if I just touch his garments, I'll get well.

Immediately her flow of blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Immediately, Jesus, perceiving in himself that power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments?

And the disciples said to him, You see the crowds pressing on you all over, and you say, Who touched me?

And he looked around to see the woman who had done this.

But the woman, fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, Daughter, Your faith has made you well.

Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

This little passage teaches us a lot of basic things about faith.

Um, but we want to focus on faith's connection to Jesus here.

Jesus, as the story is told, he just got out of the boat and was immediately surrounded by a huge crowd.

Mark says, a great multitude.

The synagogue official Jarius came to Jesus and begged him to come and heal his daughter, who was at the point of death.

And while on his way to do that, Jesus suddenly stops, turns around, and says, Who touched me?

The crowds who were following Jesus, crowding him, pushing, hugging, hanging on to him, grabbing him.

The disciples are incredulous.

Are you kidding?

You see the multitude pressing around and you say, Who touched me?

And Jesus looked around, saw the woman who touched him.

She fell down his feet, told the whole truth.

Jesus said to her, Your faith has made you well.

Now, one reason I believe this account is given to us here is to emphasize that we need faith to connect with Jesus.

Think of it.

Think of this.

People here are all around Jesus, touching, hugging, grabbing him.

But only one person had the faith to actually connect with him.

That's scary.

The lesson is, you see, you can be around Jesus for a long time.

You can talk about him, you can study him, you can go to church, you can be around other Christians, you can be in the crowd, and not really touch or connect with him.

Faith is how you connect with him.

That's the difference.

There's no other way to connect with him.

When the woman came forward, Jesus told her that her faith had healed her.

And it's here interesting because Jesus had to had to spell that out for her because uh she may have thought Jesus was just a magician or something, uh, or superstitious by just touch his cloak.

Um, and uh Jesus wanted to make sure she and everyone else knew no, your faith healed you.

Um, so how do we do that?

How do we connect with Jesus by faith?

Well, I think I I could see three things here from the woman that kind of teach us how to connect to Jesus by faith.

Three things desperation, information, and identification.

First, the woman's faith in Jesus was triggered by her desperation to get help for a problem she could not solve.

She had ran out of things, she gave up hope.

It's interesting, many people find faith in Jesus through some trouble they face.

I know that's what started it for me many, many moons ago.

When people are in trouble, they begin to search for solutions.

Uh many people begin exploring spiritual questions and answers because of trouble.

One reason God allows it, I think.

As if when we're in trouble, God's saying, Hey, I'm here.

I am here.

Do you hear me?

Do you see me?

Trouble, desperation, triggers.

When something's wrong, leaves a hole in our life because of health or emptiness of soul, we start searching for answers.

And after this woman started bleeding, her search lasted 12 years.

She went from place to place, person to person, doctor after doctor.

Um, who knows what all she went through?

Uh, homemade cures, uh, you know, traditions, everything.

Nothing helped.

And like that woman, I believe many of us before we come to Jesus in desperation, we're gonna we seek out solutions first to whatever's bothering us: emptiness of soul, uh, depression, loneliness, uh you know, some some terrible thing happening.

We start searching for solutions.

We look for cures.

Because we have to do something to alleviate this pain or whatever we're we're facing.

The cures we we use to try to alleviate our pain and trouble may even be things like our career or money or substance abuse or finding a mate, finding love.

Something to patch up that hole, something to patch us up, something we're missing.

Over the years, the woman had gone through to so many physicians, none of them were able to help her, her cures didn't work, which brought her to this point of desperation.

But when this is important to realize this, a woman has gone through 12 years of searching for an answer.

But when she saw Jesus, she's coming to Jesus not only because she's suffering and trouble, she's coming to him because now she's willing to give up all her other efforts and old cures in order to have him, in order to meet, connect with him.

That's when we begin to realize he is the one I really need.

This woman was desperate.

You know, don't forget the crowds all around Jesus, they're they're touching, hugging.

Everybody there that day wanted something from Jesus, they wanted to see a miracle.

Everybody.

That's what they're looking for.

But the woman's desperation brought her to the place of just coming to Jesus in her pain.

He became her only focus.

Faith begins by desperation, admitting I am helpless.

All the other cures I've sought for my life are empty.

That takes us to the second thing about how to connect with Jesus by faith.

Not only does desperation trigger our seeking out uh help and realizing we we are helpless, but the second thing we need to connect with Jesus by faith is information about Jesus.

Information about Jesus.

The woman heard about Jesus, verse 27.

To have faith, you must hear about Jesus and what he's done.

Faith is the is based on the information and evidence that convinces us, remember, convinces us it's true and reliable.

No doubt this woman had heard the stories of Jesus' healings, of his miracles.

She started is true and reliable who he is.

And in desperation, she had enough, listen to me, she had enough information about Jesus to act.

Next.

Act on it.

Reaching out to touch him.

You know, for this woman to come to Jesus, it was very, I it had to be a very scary thing to do.

Um she's bleeding, hemorrhaging, and in public.

I mean, she couldn't stop it.

Um embarrassing.

Um she didn't want to be in public.

But see, here's the thing about faith.

Faith is opposed and conquers your fears.

When you realize it's true and reliable, Jesus can help you.

Which leads us to the third thing, third basic thing about how to connect with Jesus by faith.

I just call it identification.

We need to identify Jesus as the one and only object of our faith and come to him for help.

Jesus said to the woman, I healed you because of your faith.

What does that mean?

This is real important about the concept of faith.

A lot of people misunderstand this.

It's not the strength of your faith that saves and heals you, but the object of your faith.

It's 180 degrees opposite of what most people think.

They think uh to have that kind of faith, uh your faith has to be very strong.

I'm just gonna believe.

No.

Or they think, you know, it doesn't matter what you believe, just believe with all your heart.

No.

Jesus is saying, it doesn't matter how hard you believe, but that you believe and trust what is right and true.

Him.

Let me give you an example.

Three men are in the woods being chased by a bear.

They came to a cliff overhanging a large pond that was down below.

And it was the time of year where ice had formed on the pond.

And the first man, brave guy, comes to the edge of the cliff and looks down, he says, I believe, I believe it'll hold me.

And he jumps.

And he safely lands on this pond covered with ice.

The second man behind him is is skeptical.

Um, ooh, wait a second.

Um, but he goes ahead and jumps, lands safely on the ice.

The third man, scared out of his mind about the bear, uh, the height of the cliff, the frozen pond below, but seeing the others jump, and he they were safe, he jumped.

Which of the three men were more saved?

The one more confident?

Which one was more saved?

They were all saved! How much faith saved them just enough to jump?

To act on what they believed was true and reliable?

How much faith did the woman have to have to be healed just enough to jump?

Just enough to act.

Just enough to come to Jesus.

How much faith in Jesus do we need to have to be saved, to be forgiven of our sin, to have eternal life?

Just enough, just enough to come to Him, believe in Him, that His promise of the free gift of eternal life is true.

In the healing of the woman, God adds one more thing in this passage, uh, very unique, very rare in the Gospels, but I believe God adds it to help us understand why our faith in Jesus saves us.

Something unusual happened in this passage.

Uh, it even surprised Jesus.

Jesus was taken aback.

Uh, but it was meant to give us this last important element of faith in Jesus.

When the woman touched Jesus, Jesus immediately felt power had gone out from him.

This is why our faith in Jesus saves us.

Jesus substitution.

For the woman to get strong, Jesus had to become weak.

For the woman to be healed, Jesus had to be hurt.

Because of her flow of blood, this woman had not been able to go into public worship for a long, long, long time.

Now, the ritual laws of the Old Testament were given by God to show us that we are all sinners.

Unless you're clean, you won't be acceptable to him.

And we're not clean because we're sinners.

We're unacceptable to God in that state.

So all the ritual laws were meant to teach that principle.

You need some sacrifice.

For your sin.

And no matter how hard we try, we can't make ourselves clean before God.

We can't.

This relates to a very cryptic passage we find in the Old Testament book of Exodus.

I found it very curious, but tied to this passage.

In Exodus 28, 29 and 30, Moses is giving instruction for the sacrificial system for the high priest Aaron and for the priest and so on.

And right there in the middle, he says this Aaron shall carry the names of the sons of Israel in a breast piece of judgment over his heart.

When he enters the holy place for a memorial before the Lord continually, you shall put in the breast piece of judgment, the Urim and Thuman, and they shall be over Aaron's heart.

So when he goes in before the Lord, Aaron shall carry the judgment of the sons of Israel over his heart before the Lord continually.

What does that mean?

It means the only way we can be acceptable to God is if the high priest bears the guilt and judgment of our sin on himself.

Substitution.

This foreshadows obviously what we see in the New Testament.

Jesus, what Jesus would do for us as our great high priest.

He's described that way in the book of Hebrews.

Jesus takes our weakness, we receive his strength.

Jesus became weak so we could become strong.

Our sins, you see, when he went to the cross, our sins were placed on him, our great high priest, and bore the judgment for our sins on our behalf, so we could be clean and accepted by God.

Isaiah prophesies much about the coming Messiah.

And this the most famous passage of all is Isaiah chapter 53, describing the Messiah and what he would do and what happened to him.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Isaiah 53, 5 and 6, but he was pierced through for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

The chastening for our well-being fell on him, and by his scourging we are healed.

Substitution.

And then in the New Testament, Paul clarified it to in his letter to the second Corinthians, second letter to the Corinthians 5 21.

God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, substitution, so that we might become the righteousness of God, acceptable to God.

That's the gospel.

Hebrews 11:6.

Hebrews 11:6

Now faith, Hebrews 11:1.

Hebrews 11:1

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Now, if you've learned about Jesus and understand that he died on the cross for your sin and rose from the dead, and that he promised as your substitute to give you forgiveness of sins and eternal life if you believe in him as the Messiah.

If you understand that, you have all the information you need to connect with Jesus by faith and be saved.

All you need is faith in him, the Son of God.

All the faith you need for him to save you is just enough to realize all the other ways you're trying to save yourself, meaningless, empty, and you need Jesus, object.

That's who you need to believe in as your savior.

And you believe him and come to him.

Charlotte Elliot was born in England in 1789 and died in 1871.

I just love her story because she lived as a semi-invalid for 49 years, following a severe illness we don't know that started at the age of 32.

Her illness caused her severe fatigue, physical decline, deep depression, spiritual struggles, doubts, and where's God?

What am I supposed to do?

But one thing God gave her was a great love of poetry and music.

Allowed her to write a hundred and fifty hymns.

The most famous was her hymn, Just As I Am.

Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee.

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within and without.

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thou wilt receive, will welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, because thy promise I believe.

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

The scripture says we are saved by faith in Jesus.

Will you recognize your need for Him and come to Him?

Whatever is going on in your life, whatever doubts your faith is how you connect.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you today for Jesus that He became weak so we could become strong.

Uh He suffered, took our sins on Himself so we could be healed and forgiven and free.

Help us to find our salvation in you, and then help us to live out our faith day by day as we trust in you to continue to help us whatever need we face.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.