Habits of Effective Disciples: Faith
Disciples come to Jesus through faith and live by faith.
We receive Christ by faith and we place our trust in God for salvation. We must also place our trust in Him daily as we follow Him in obedience.
We who are His trust Him completely with our eternal life but do we trust Him with our life today and tomorrow?
Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The writer of Hebrews goes on to say that it is impossible to please God without faith.
In the New Testament the words "faith" and "believe" are the noun and verb form of the same word. If I have faith I believe and if I believe I have faith. Faith expresses our absolute confidence in the object of that belief, which is the Lord. Our faith is first of all the knowledge and acceptance of His truth.
TRUSTING FAITH
Proverbs 3:5-6
Solomon reminds us that the Lord is the object of our trust. Trust in the Lord with all of our heart is Solomon's teaching, not in ourselves. So trust in the Lord involves a commitment on our part. One cannot trust from the sidelines. When we trust, we must go all in and reserve nothing within us that is not toward God.
The contrast to trusting in the Lord is to put our trust in our own understanding. The writer of Proverbs knew that our understanding is limited. Our minds are finite and limited but the Lord is neither finite nor limited.
So instead of trusting in our own knowledge, we acknowledge God. This command speaks of a close and deep relationship with God. We are to welcome His wisdom and His will because we know how He is, and we place our faith in His proven love for us. After all, while we are yet lost sinners, He sent His Son to die for our sin. What greater proof of love can there possibly be than this proof?
Paul teaches us in even greater detail on this matter in Romans, especially in chapter 10. First we must know, accept, and affirm certain important truths the first of which is that Jesus is Lord and God has raised Him from the dead. This truth is central to our faith.
Second, Paul teaches us that believing is more than just acknowledging a few important truths. It necessarily involves the heart. James taught us in 2:19 that even the demons acknowledge and believe in the one true God. They know this because it was Him that expelled them from heaven for their rebellion.
Paul says that faith believes both with the mind and the heart. Faith trusts and puts its hope in the things it knows about God, just as it trusts and puts its hope in God Himself to fulfill the promise of eternal life gifted to those who accept, trust, believe, and obey.
Paul puts even a third component to believing. Not only must we believe in our heart, but we must confess with our mouth (10:9-10). True faith is reflected in our speech and actions. If we are unwilling to confess Him openly with our own words, then what we think is faith is not a real faith, but actually is unbelief of the heart in its worst form. Genuine faith submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and those who truly believe are not ashamed to reflect it in heart or tongue.
When we trust in God He will direct our steps in ways that will lead us closer to Him as His disciples. So Proverbs 3:5-6 lays a foundation upon which the New Testament writers have built.
SAVING FAITH
Galatians 2:15-21
The Apostle Paul expands on this thought in his letter to the church in Galatia. He describes a large struggle he has with Peter. These two men are the heavyweights of the early church and in the book of Acts, Peter seems to dominate the first half while Paul does the same in the last half.
When Paul arrived in Galatia, Peter was agreeable to fellowship with the new Gentile believers. But when the Judaizers arrive with their belief in the priority of the Law, Peter changed his tune, moving away from the Gentiles and refusing to mix or eat with them. He treated them as second class citizens of believers. Peter's hypocrisy even affected Barnabas to act in the same way toward these Gentiles.
Paul attacked the entire attitude with a clear explanation of the good news of the Gospel. We are not justified or made right with God by works of the Law, but through faith in Jesus Christ through faith gifted ONLY by the grace of God.
As we seek to live as disciples, we must not take God's grace for granted. Instead we must die to the idea that the Law or any works we may do can save us so that we might live for the Lord. Such a thought is untrue and is heresy (false doctrine) toward the Gospel.
Out of gratitude for God's saving grace, we choose to use our freedom from the Law (or works) not to continue in our old patterns of sin, but to live transformed lives. Instead of obeying God because of external commands we are motivated by the presence of the Holy Spirit within us.
What does Paul mean here when he says "I have been crucified with Christ..."? Paul saw the crucifixion of Jesus not only as a historical event, but as a part of his own personal experience. Believers are indeed crucified with Christ because in him we die to sin and to our old ways of self-centered belief that we could save ourselves. Christians in faith have died to themselves, but now live because Christ lives in us.
How do Christians who have been united with Christ in His death actually live?
By faith.
The same faith which saves us also strengthens us and sustains us in the Christian life. Our everyday life as believers is marked by our constant trust in the Lord who has granted us this newness of different and far better life.
LIVING FAITH
RECREATED IN CHRIST TO DO GOOD
Ephesians 2:1-10
Paul's entire explanation comes clear in the letter to the Ephesians. His entire argument is rooted in the concept of grace or God's unmerited favor. Paul paints a dark picture of our lives before we came to Christ in 2:1-3. Before Christ we were dead in our trespasses and sins, under the influence of the prince of the power of the air here on earth, Satan.
Paul explodes this desperate situation with two powerful words, "But God" in Ephesians 2:4. God's mercy and great love made us alive (quickened us) by grace and he raised us up with Him. So the Christian is not only crucified with Christ but raised up and ascended with him (in spirit now and in body later). We have gone from the depths to the heavens all by God's unmerited favor.
Understanding, grace is essential to Christian growth and living in faith.
Paul contends here that the whole experience of salvation (and the later process of sanctification through the Spirit) is not something we have done, but is the gift of God in whom we have come to full trust. Since we are unable to earn God's favor, we cannot boast about receiving it.
Immediately after this great teaching Paul wastes no time in answering the next question even before it is asked. He says that God's grace not only saves us but it also empowers us to do good for God as are now His possession. Verse 10 says that God ordained these things for us. These works become the evidence and confirmation that we have received new life. So we do not earn salvation by fulfilling good works or works of the Law, but instead we demonstrate the reality of salvation by doing good after we are saved.
Paul uses beautiful words to describe the new life of salvation and living faith after the salvation moment. Not only is it resurrection over the death of sin in our lives but also a recreation of life itself in a new and better direction. He says we are God's workmanship. God made us and has now remade us in Jesus Christ. Paul explains exactly why we are saved. God has saved us for His own purpose which is for us to live in faith for Him and to accomplish his intended works while we remain here.
God anticipated and foreordained that His people would do good works. We show our gratitude for His gift of a better life now and an eternal life later by our obedience in those works. The best term possible for this matter is living faith.
We have learned that our conversion into the life of the Spirit occurs in different ways. But as we grow in Christ we begin to accept that any professed conversion is truly God's work and it always brings the following to the renewed life of the believer:
A life of growing communion with Christ (1 Cor 1:9 & Phil 3:8-10).
A life of increasing conformity to Christ (2 Cor 3:18).
A life of continuous abiding in Christ (John 15:1-11).
A life of principled obedience to Christ (John 14:21 & 1 John 2:3-4).
These are the precious aspects of faith that are gifted and guided into the life of the new creature we become when we become His.
