Crash Course: Faith

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Crash Course.

I am sitting here with Scott Case.

Pleasure to be here.

Thanks for having me back.

I still haven't figured out the dynamic of how to intro these things.

Like I say your name and then I just wait, and I in my back of my mind, I'm still like, what does Scott know that I'm going to ask him?

But you always do a good job.

And I'm thinking to myself, okay, I think he wants me to talk here.

He's he's not saying anything.

You know.

It's whatever your will is.

My will is bendable.

We just did an episode on God's will, so I'm trying to make a joke, but it wasn't funny at all.

So let's move on.

Uh, crash course.

This is what we do.

We talk about we talk about stuff that is related to our faith.

We're we're Jesus followers, and sometimes what happens is we become a Jesus follower, and we just need someone to give us a crash course.

We need someone to tell us, hey, here's what this means, here's what this is.

Because there's a lot of concepts in our faith that are A, unique to our faith, uh, B, very different than the way the world thinks, than the way our culture thinks.

And we're brought up, conditioned by our culture to think a certain way.

And then we become a Jesus follower, and it takes some time to like get calibrated.

And sometimes part of that process is us going, I'm confused on what this means and how this works.

And we just need someone to take us to the side and say, hey, hey, let me let me just give you the lowdown.

That's what this is.

This is a crash course.

And uh each week we cover a different topic, or say each week, like this isn't a weekly thing.

Each time we record.

Each time, each episode.

Each episode.

Each episode is its own little thing, kind of self-contained.

So today we're gonna talk about faith.

And George Michael's Faith is totally playing in my mind.

You're familiar with that song?

Not at all.

You're not familiar with George Michael's Faith?

Nope.

Well, I guess it would be nice dun dun dun if I could tell Well, that's not an appropriate song as I think about it.

Because I gotta have faith, the faith, the faith.

I gotta have faith, the faith, the faith.

And I have a feeling, having heard I'm still not familiar with it.

It's from the 80s.

It's like a classic 1980s song, George Michael.

Gotcha, I was born again by then and listening to Christian music.

Oh, snap.

Alright, so this is a little bit of a tangent, and then we'll get back on course.

I bet Christian music in the 80s was pretty bad.

Actually, it was.

No, actually, it was good.

That was Petra's heyday.

Yeah, I've listened to Petra.

Petra's good.

I don't know if I agree with that statement.

Oh! Now I tell you, if you want to have a good time, Scott, maybe you've seen this recently.

Go go find a Petra album cover from back in the day.

Like find the Beyond the Belief album cover.

It's it's uh it's good.

We we could talk about the merits or lack of of Christian music on another podcast.

And I bet we would have different opinions on that, and that is okay.

That would be okay.

Now we're I will say worship music, I love.

I think worship music is like its own thing, you know, because it's like Christian music that's sort of like, hey, do you like this band?

Well, here's a Christian band that tries really hard to sound like them.

Listen to that.

I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't do that.

I can't like it boils my blood, and I don't want to we gotta move on.

Let's talk about faith.

Scott, what is what is faith to you?

All right, I'm gonna give you a few thoughts here.

Number one, hit them.

Hit me.

I think we can complicate faith a lot of times.

Faith is just simply what you believe.

Okay.

And a lot of times we try to believe something, we try to exercise faith.

Okay.

It's not that hard.

Faith is just what you believe.

Okay.

But especially in a Christian sense, it goes beyond that.

In Hebrews 11, it says that faith is the conviction of things not seen.

And what that means is there are things that I cannot see, but I believe they are real.

So that is faith.

For instance, it's even right now as we're recording this, I believe there's angels in this room, and we can't see these angels.

I believe there is an angel that protects me.

I believe that there is a spiritual realm that I can't see, but I live my life as though that realm is real, as though God is real, as though Jesus is real.

Well, why do I do that?

Well, that's faith.

I can't see it, but I absolutely am convicted that it's not.

And the things you're saying are are spoken about in scripture, and so you've got faith that is built on what God has revealed, right?

Right.

So, you know, faith for me, I agree.

It's simple, right?

It's it's it's what you believe.

And the funny thing is, I think we live in a world, well, we live in a postmodern society, so a lot of people in our society believe a lot of things that there's no rev evidence for whatsoever.

Right.

And that'd be a long conversation.

But even when we were a modern society, you know, so maybe you go back like 30, 40 years ago when we weren't postmodern yet, where everyone is inventing their own reality and everyone has to submit to that reality, right?

Where people were like, no, what are the facts?

Science.

Okay.

There was this idea that faith is silly because faith is like the opposite of reason.

And the ironic thing is, look, you just gotta every person in the world lives by faith almost every step of the of the way, every day.

When you when you drive through a green light, you have faith that the other light's red.

You can't see that light.

You know, malfunctions happen all the time in equipment, but you you you have total faith that that light that you can't see is not green.

Also, we all live by faith.

You know, and and there have been people in history, I I I think about science, I actually really love science.

You know, things like subatomic particles.

There were there were scientists that believed they existed and yet had never seen them.

And it was their faith that these things existed that led them to search and discover them.

You know, there have been so many scientific discoveries that began because the scientists had faith and belief that this is the way, you know, a hypothesis.

And then they they they pursued that and they found it.

And so sometimes we have this attitude of like, well, I'll I'll believe it when I see it.

But Augustine, who was a really influential Christian early on, said that seeing is the is the reward for believing.

That is a great way of putting it.

And so I just I think we we need to realize first off that like pretty much everyone in the world lives by faith.

And when you live with faith, it's pretty amazing how often you end up finding you know what you what you believe in, if it if it's real, if it exists.

I might have faith in unicorns.

I can look really hard, probably not gonna find a unicorn.

Probably not.

So that brings me to a question.

Unicorns bring you to a question.

But unicorns bring me to a question here.

So I don't know where this is gonna go.

Can you just believe anything you want to?

Can I believe God for anything that I want to and have faith?

Can I have faith that I can fly?

Hmm.

No.

I mean, can you have faith that you can fly?

Yes, unless God has established that you cannot.

Right.

I would say.

And that's my point.

Right.

Faith is based on God's word.

Right.

And that's what I was saying earlier, like the things you were saying, like some people, so you were saying I believe in angels and I have an angel to protect me.

I went to college with some people that um would say, I believe that, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, okay, well, what's that faith based on?

Just your own personal wishes?

Right.

Okay.

If that makes you feel good, great.

But I I think faith, our faith as Jesus followers should be based on what we've been promised by God, what God has revealed to us.

And I think that's the key because we all know, okay, faith has a lot to do with prayer.

We pray by faith.

Right.

And so the prayer offered in faith will heal.

And so sometimes people pray stuff and it doesn't happen and they don't understand why.

Well, again, the reason is faith is faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Faith has to be based on what God has said.

Okay.

And if you're trying to believe things that God hasn't said, that is not a basis for faith.

That's true.

That's a good point.

And what Scott just said is scripture when he said faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, um, that that is direct from the Bible, that God has told us what I mean, in so many situations, God has told us what he actually wants to do.

Yeah.

Right?

And we we have to like have faith that what he says and he's promised will come true, and then we we seek those things out, you know.

Um, you you touched on something just now with faith that hey, the prayer offered in faith.

And I think it's really important to talk about this because on one hand, we need to understand that faith affects God.

You know, I mean it it's it's an interesting dynamic.

You know, the so Jesus is God, He's He's God in the flesh, right?

And I heard a pastor talk about this years ago, and it's always stuck with me.

Um I in fact I wish I could not say that and I could pretend like I was the first person to discover this, but that's just not the truth.

Um there's only two times in the Bible where it says Jesus was amazed.

And the idea of amazing Jesus is pretty pretty cool to think about.

Like it'd probably take a lot to amaze Jesus for him to be like, wow.

Uh only two times in the Bible is Jesus amazed, and the actual word it kind of implies that he was caught off guard.

They both have to do with faith.

One is when he goes to his hometown and he's amazed at the lack of faith that they have.

And it says that and he only did a few miracles there, like just just a f just a few.

And it literally says Jesus was amazed by their lack of faith.

The other is when he speaks with a Roman officer who comes to him, and you know, he says, Hey, I've got a servant who who's ill, he needs healed, and Jesus says, Okay, take me to him.

And he goes, No, no, Jesus, you don't have to go.

I know how powerful you are.

All you gotta do is say it, and it'll be done.

You don't even have to worry, trouble yourself to come.

And Jesus says Jesus was amazed at the the amount of this man's faith.

Um, and then he healed he healed the man from afar.

And he said, That I haven't seen faith like this in all of Israel.

In both situations, Jesus is impacted by faith.

And faith, like it affected Jesus, it stirred him.

It you know, we're we're never told by God, here's why faith impacts me so much, but it's just it's a reality, it's a pattern that we see in Scripture that faith impacts God.

Yeah.

And so when you live with faith and by faith, and especially when that faith is rooted in the promises of God and the word of God, that is a powerful way to live.

And you know, it gets back to this thing.

We're going to do an episode soon on God's sovereignty.

And a lot of people think that, well, God just does whatever he wants to do, and if it happens, it's the will of God.

We talked about that earlier.

Um but so many times Jesus said, for instance, with healing, your faith has made you well.

Right, yeah, that's a phrase he mentions often.

The Bible says, through faith and patience we inherit the promises.

So God has made certain promises to us, but that doesn't mean they're automatically going to happen.

It says we inherit those promises by faith.

And so you're absolutely right.

Faith does change things, faith does impact God.

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

And the cool thing about that too is I mean, this is where this is why it's so important, by the way.

I can't emphasize this enough.

If you're a a new believer or a believer at all, read like read God's word.

Know the Bible.

Absolutely.

Because man, when you know his word, uh, and there's a lot of tools, you know, if you're listening to this through our church's mobile app, the His Hands Church mobile app, we have tools in the learn section that are designed to help you engage God's word.

Because when you know the word of God, you kind of know how to pray, right?

Because you know what God's promised, you know what God has said, and God, like when you read the Old Testament, there's a lot of times where you know the people are reminding God what he's already said.

You know, it's kind of like, hey God, you said, you said, and not that God forgot, he's like, oh, you're right, I forgot I said that.

Okay, I'll do it.

But but it's their faith, they're holding on to the promises of God.

Yes, and they're praying those.

So we sometimes with faith, I think where we get caught up and tripped up is we think, well, man, I wish I had just mountains of faith.

I wish, I wish I I had enough faith, you know, I but I just don't, I don't have, I don't have that much.

Well, the cool thing is, Jesus said, you know, hey, if if you have the faith of a mustard seed, it ha it has power.

You know what I mean?

Like it doesn't To move mountains.

To move mountains, yeah.

I mean, like literally the so the mustard seeds, if you don't know, are small.

Um they're almost like like, what is that?

Is that a speck of dirt?

Oh, it's a mustard seed.

Right.

You know, there's a story uh uh of uh a man who well it's kind of a comparison of a story that you just we were talking about earlier.

You told you talked about the story of the woman.

Go ahead and tell that story again, the woman who's healed of of the bleeding issue.

Yeah, so there was a woman, the Bible says that she had apparently some kind of it was an issue of blood, is what it says.

And so according to the law, she should not be out in public touching people.

Right.

She was ceremonial ceremonially unclean according to Jewish law at that time.

And so she heard Jesus coming through, she had heard how Jesus heals the sick, says she had gone to doctors, I think, for twelve years.

She had spent all of her money on doctors, nothing worked.

Nothing worked.

And so she crawled up through the crowd and touched the hem of his garment.

And what's so cool about this is Jesus didn't know.

See, a lot of people think, well, Jesus makes decisions every time.

Am I going to heal this person or not?

Jesus didn't make any decision there.

He didn't even know who it was who touched him.

Right.

He didn't evaluate the situation, evaluate her life, go, now are you a good person?

Have you been to church?

Have you prayed?

Okay, I'll heal you.

He didn't even know who it was.

But she was healed.

But she was healed, and he said, I felt power go from me.

Who touched me?

And so this lady came up and said, Okay, I gotta confess it was me.

I know that, you know, with the law and everything, I probably shouldn't have done this, but I just believed, and I said, if I touched the hem of your garment, I would be healed.

And he looked at her and he said, Your faith has made you well.

Right.

It wasn't, again, just you know, this choosing that he did.

There were certain scriptures that she just believed.

Right.

She spoke it out, she believed, she did it, she touched him, and she was made home.

And that's a tremendous amount of faith that she had to put herself because she put herself at risk.

She did.

Now, another story that's kind of a comparison of that, but a little bit on the other side is this man who brings his son to Jesus.

His son has been sick for a long time, and nothing's working.

And he brings his son and he says, you know, Lord, heal him if you can.

And Jesus, you know, I almost just see Jesus' face kind of like turn to the side like if I can.

And he says that, what do you what do you mean if I can?

Yeah.

And uh and the man, he says, like, he says, Don't you believe?

You know, like, you don't have faith in me, essentially.

And the man goes, I believe.

Help my unbelief.

Yeah.

It's an amazing moment of of just authenticity, and it's a great example of how you can be genuine in front of God.

He basically says, I believe.

I also don't.

I'm kind of, you know.

And Jesus heals that man's son.

Yeah.

And I I love that because it's it's a story of a man who doesn't have like unshakable faith.

He doesn't have this monstrous amount of faith.

But what he does have is some.

And he goes to Jesus with the faith that he has.

And his son is healed.

You know, and so I I I just mentioned that because look, I think the more faith you have, the better, and faith is a powerful thing.

And when you have faith, I mean, when you have faith in the things that God has promised and made clear, pray for those things and pray with confidence.

You know, faith is believing it's going to happen before it happens.

Right.

But if if all you can muster is some faith, do not do not use that as an as an excuse.

Well, I guess I can't really pray about this.

I just don't have a lot of faith.

No, take whatever amount of faith you have and go to God.

Because he has said, look, if if a little faith, the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains.

So don't disqualify yourself from taking your requests and your needs to God because you only have some faith.

Just give God however much faith you have and trust him with it.

And what's cool about that is then guess how much faith that man probably had after his suffer.

His faith grew.

And you know what I love about that too is the man didn't pretend.

Yeah, he didn't go, um, uh, yeah, I believe.

Absolutely.

I believe more than I believe anything.

Yeah.

He just said, you know something, Lord?

I do believe, but help my unbelief.

And Jesus, how did Jesus help his unbelief?

He healed a son.

He healed his son.

And so, you know, I've had experiences like that where I'm like, I believe this is gonna work out, and I'm almost talking myself into it.

Like, I no, I believe God's gonna show up, I believe.

And then part of me is like, uh, God, you please show up, do your thing.

Um, but when he comes through and he does so, man, he comes through.

He's fake.

I can't honestly look at any part of my life and say, God really whiffed on that one.

Um, there have been times where I thought what I thought you know should happen was actually not what should happen.

Um, and God did something even better than I could have imagined, or different.

You know, God sometimes God's desire is something different, you know.

Um, and I'm okay with that.

I'm at the point where where God's different has been way better than my plan A so many times, and I'll take what God wants over what I want any day.

Um but just have faith and take whatever amount of faith you have, big or small, directly to God and pray in that faith and then trust him.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I mean, um I totally lost my train of thought also.

Not only do I agree, but I totally lost my train of thought.

What I said was so impactful that your brain literally doesn't even have tried, it just tried.

I just but I will make this one comment about faith also, though, and that is um actions follow faith.

People do what they really believe.

I agree.

Um there is there's an old story about there was a great tightrope walker who was walking across the this big canyon.

Okay, and there was big crowds on both sides, and he got to the other side and everybody cheered, and then he took a wheelbarrow and he walked the wheelbarrow back across to the other side, and everybody's just going crazy.

And then he goes, Who believes that I can walk you across in this wheelbarrow, walk a person across?

And everybody's like, Yeah, you're great, you can do it.

And he said, Wonderful.

Who wants to get in?

Right, no one volunteers.

Nobody wanted to get in.

Can you imagine?

You know, and this kind of a reality check for us is sometimes I think I believe something, but then I look at my actions and I go, Yeah, I probably didn't really believe actions are going to follow faith.

Yep.

No, I I agree.

And the cool thing is, God loves us.

We don't have to prove to him that we have faith.

Um but we do we need to remember, too, that like it's just it's biblical.

Faith impacts God.

And I think you might even be able to say that faith impacts God unlike anything else that we can see in the Bible, to the point where Jesus Himself was amazed by faith or lack thereof.

So have faith.

Take even if you only have a crumb of faith, hey, according to Jesus, that's enough to do some things.

Take it to him, watch what he does, and watch your faith grow.

And I'll tell you what, too, faith, how it can really impact your life is it can really give you a winning attitude and never say die attitude.

I remember when I started my business over 30 years ago, and there were some times early on that I almost did not make it.

And the one thing that kept me going was a verse from Psalms that says, the Lord will bless what we put our hands to.

Yep.

And I just said, Lord, I know you have called me to do this, and it was so tempting to quit so many times.

I mean, I was working 80-hour weeks, a lot of weeks, and it just didn't look like it was going to make it.

But I knew, Lord, this is your word, and again, I've prayed.

I know that I heard from you.

The only way that I can fail is if I quit.

And it was that faith in what I felt like God had ministered to me, faith that God would bless what I put my hands to that really gave me the energy I needed to keep going and push through.

And I've I've had the same exact experience with my supermodeling career.

You know, there were times where I was like, I don't think this is gonna work out, you know, and then you just stick with it and you have faith, and I mean look at me now.

Yeah.

I'm I'm a great before picture on any uh any commercial for exercise equipment.

You need a before picture, you come to me.

That's good.

And on that note, now, hey, I agree with everything you said.

Hey, faith keep it's like keep the faith, that whole whole concept.

Look, guys, God follows, he follows through on his promises, and we could talk for hours.

This this episode could be 40 minutes, 50 minutes, an hour long, just with us giving examples of times that God has shown up and done things and and strengthened our faith.

But in your own life, the the best way to experience that is to live with faith and watch what he does.

So, all right.

Thanks for listening.

We will talk to you guys soon.