Season 1, Episode 3.
As promised at the end of my previous episode, I’d like to share more here about faith, starting with this categorical statement: “…without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).
Terms like ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are so common among Christians. Many know the theory, the theology, and the Scriptures about faith – but unless faith is lived out, it is nothing but an empty word. Yet those words from Hebrews are anything but empty, because a life of faith is not optional to a relationship with God. It is fundamental!
I’d like to take you back to the night before Jesus was crucified, when He gathered His disciples for one last meal together, as He prepared them for what was about to happen. Yet no matter how much He tried, they seemed unable to comprehend.
On the face of it you might think it was okay for Jesus – figuring that, unlike His disciples, He did not need faith for what was ahead. He knew His Father intimately, He knew why He had come into this world, and He also knew what lay ahead. Horrendous though it would be, Jesus also knew what His suffering and death would achieve. So He could embrace the cross, knowing that it would all end, not in death and defeat, but in resurrection and victory.
As for His disciples, even after 3½ years with Jesus, they still knew so little … and understood even less. So, why was it that Jesus – who apparently did not need faith because He knew the whole scenario – expected them to go through it all with nothing but faith to sustain them?
But is that how it really was? If Jesus had not needed faith to carry out and complete His mission in this world – while at the same time calling Himself ‘the son of man’ (one of us) and expecting His disciples to go through it all by faith alone – His life and ministry would have been nothing more than a charade.
But it was no charade. Jesus the man lived exactly as He called His disciples to live – which is also the way He has called us to live. When He came into our world, Jesus deliberately laid aside his Godlikeness to become truly human. Which also means He had the ability to sin …or not to sin. His sinlessness was not inevitable but was the result of His choices.
Even then, you might be tempted to say: “Sure, but I am still saddled with something Jesus did not have to live with. Because of what Adam did in disobeying God, I was already flawed from the day I was born … but Jesus was born perfect!”
Well then, let’s consider Adam. On the day God formed him from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him, Adam was as perfect as Jesus was on the day He was born. Sinning was no more inevitable for Adam than for Jesus. Yet Adam chose to sin… while Jesus chose not to.
This has great implications for you and me, because when Jesus came into this world, He did not come as a ‘one-off’ – but as “the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” through whom God would bring “many sons and daughters to glory”.
That’s why you were born-again, if indeed you have been, and why you need to be, if you have not! And it’s also what the apostle Paul was referring to when he wrote: “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!” (Romans 8:14)
Jesus was ‘the second Adam’ who came to undo what the first Adam did. He was the firstborn of a whole new race of God’s people, through whom God will be seen and known in this world. So that… “In this world we are just like Jesus.” (1 John 4:17)
That's not something spooky. It’s something wonderful – because God gives to us the same Spirit as He gave Jesus!
At the Last Supper Jesus promised His disciples that He would send them the Spirit of Truth, who would lead them into all truth. He did not promise them a manual to study, or a script to follow. He did not burden them with a knowledge base with which to fill their minds. He simply left them with this promise: “…when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth”.
Which is exactly what happened on the Day of Pentecost, just ten days after Jesus left His disciples and ascended into Heaven. I should really say, that’s what began to happen – because on that momentous day the Church was born!
Read about it in Acts chapter 2, and marvel at what took place when 120 fearful followers of Jesus were suddenly filled with the same Spirit who was in Jesus.
So loudly were they praising and worshipping God that a large crowd gathered outside thinking there was a drunken party going on! Then Peter – the same Peter who had so recently denied Jesus three times rather than admit he was one of His disciples – stepped outside, stood before that crowd of thousands, and told them exactly what was taking place and what it was all about.
Peter’s radical transformation and the power with which he spoke were simply because he was now a man filled with the Holy Spirit. By the time Peter had finished speaking, many in the crowd were crying out in anguish: “…what shall we do?” The result? Three thousand people believed in Jesus!
That morning, 120 had gathered in a Jerusalem house to pray. By that evening, their number had swollen to 3,120 … and the Church of Jesus was born into this world.
The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit who indwelt Jesus, the Spirit who was poured out on the Day of Pentecost … is the same Holy Spirit who is here to lead us into all truth today!
How tragic, then, that so few of God’s people experience His Spirit like that. For many, it’s not because they don’t want to, but because they are not even aware that this is what God wants to do in their lives. Yet the reason why Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples – and the reason why that amazing event took place – was because everything from then on totally depended on it.
Some have said that ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ should instead be called ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit’ … and I agree. Until the Holy Spirit was poured out on those first believers on that day, they had neither the ability nor the boldness to do anything in the name and in the power of Jesus. Yet, no sooner were those weak, fearful people filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, than amazing things began to happen …and continued to happen!
Christians have so often looked back longingly at the Early Church, wishing they could experience its life, its power and its zeal. Yet there’s no mystery about it. All it takes – all it has ever taken – is for God’s Spirit to once again be free to take charge of God’s Church!
That should be self-evident – especially so to ‘Bible-believing’ Christians. Yet they are so often the ones who prefer to place their confidence in anything and anyone but the Spirit of God … whose Church it is.
For anyone – whether just one person or a whole body of people – to faithfully and obediently do God's will, they must first know His will. To put it simply: a word from God is the only basis for an act of faith!
But how can you know when God has spoken? Is there a formula … a technique? Is there some sure-fire, foolproof way to know? There is, in fact, just one thing you can rely on, and it’s all to do with what exists between you and God.
Abraham has been called ‘the father of all who have faith’ and is best-known for one amazing act of faith and obedience. Yet that, of itself, was but the climax of a whole series of previous responses to God over many years. Little did Abraham know at the time, that each of those steps was taking him steadily further along the path to that one great climactic expression of his faith in God. By the time that day arrived, he was 112 years old, and Isaac – his precious ‘son of promise’ – was just 12.
It's no exaggeration to say that all of Abraham’s hopes were invested in Isaac – and he was under the impression that God felt exactly the same way. But then came that fateful day, when God said to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love … and sacrifice him … as a burnt offering…”. Impossible! Unthinkable! Yet, Abraham knew God’s voice – that same voice he had responded to many times in the past – and immediately moved to obey.
Read the account in Genesis chapter 22… and be amazed! So totally did Abraham trust and believe God, and so set was he on obeying Him, that God’s angel had to dramatically intervene just as Abraham was about to plunge the knife into Isaac: “Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy. Do not do anything to him.”
What a reprieve! What a massive relief! But then... what was it all about? Was God playing some sort of cosmic game with poor, obedient Abraham? No. It was all about something of great beauty and huge significance – because God then went on to declare: “Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
There was immense joy that day – for God, for Abraham… and not least of all, for Isaac!
It is a thrilling and moving story… but, sadly, there is also a downside to such wonderful events. For the Christian Church as an institution, and believers generally, have a strong tendency to enshrine people like Abraham as heroes. Not only regarding them as standouts, but as larger-than-life standalones – exceptions to venerate rather than examples to emulate.
Yet even Jesus was not a standalone. Yes, He is “the Eternal Son of God” – and yes, He does have “a Name which is above every other name”. But He came into this world as a man … the New Adam … the firstborn of a whole new race of people which we, too, are called to be a part of.
Furthermore, when it comes to the Church – of which Jesus is the Head and we are the Body – He and we are inseparably joined together. So then, how could we possibly live separate lives? If your head went in one direction and your body in another … you'd be dead! That’s pretty graphic, but the really incredible thing is that Jesus – who “loved the church and gave himself for it” – is as incomplete without us, as we are without Him!
This is what Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, when He asked that He, we and the Father would all be one. Imagine that: one with the God of the whole Universe!
As God’s people in this world, our only purpose is to be a true expression – not of ourselves, not of some creed or religious system – but of Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God. If you really do belong to God, and if you really are living in love with Him, it is inevitable that Jesus will be seen and known through you.
Which brings us back to living by faith – in which you not only know God, but you also know His voice and what He is saying to you. All of which is wonderful in itself – but because faith is about relationship with God, what really matters is not what you hear, but who who is saying it.
Never forget that a word from God is not some-thing you respond to … it is some-one!
Abraham pleased God, not because he believed what God said, but because he believed the God who said it. No wonder God called him “Abraham my friend”.
So, instead of trying to believe some-thing, you instead believe God whose friend you are, faith takes on a whole new dimension. The way you live, the things you do, and why you do them, are simply expressions of your relationship with God. This is a most beautiful thing … and it is what God wants with everybody!
One day, when Jesus’ disciples asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child, got him to stand among them, then said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Such simplicity, such utter trust, such uncluttered responsiveness – these are what our Heavenly Father loves to receive from us… His children!