Good Christadelphian Talks Extended Bible Class

Jason Bobis - Class 2: Thorns to Our Faith and How God Grows Our Faith

March 30, 2020 1h 8m

Class 2 from Bro. Jason Bobis’s series on “Pursuit of Biblical Faith”.

Classes 1 and 2 from this series was used for GCT Episode 044.

Topics

Faith & Trust

Transcript 155 sections, automatically transcribed

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

0:00
Our brother Jason's second class this afternoon is entitled Thorns to Our Faith and How God Grows Our Faith. And the introductory reading was taken from 1 Peter 1, verses 1-9. Brother Jason?
0:19
Thank you, Brother Paul. Thank you, Brother Paul. Thank you, Brother Paul. That in him is the forgiveness of sins that I so need. I don't know how it works for you, but the point of delineation for me is usually when we take the cup. When I take the bread, I usually think of my hang-ups.
1:33
And when I take the cup, I thank God for the forgiveness of sins. You see, the emblem of wine isn't designed only to represent the blood of Christ and thus a life of total dedication and obedience poured out. It's personal. It also represents the fact that my sins are covered by his blood.
1:53
And he did it for us. Paul felt this way in Galatians 2, where it says, You see, it was intensely personal for him. But there has to be a point at which I personally stop looking at myself and all my hang-ups, and I endeavor to remember the Lord Jesus Christ. For me personally, that's when I would take the wine.
2:22
I say that I had to learn that over time because there was a portion of my life in which the breaking of bread wasn't a very joyful thing, that the scrutiny with which I would examine myself consumed me. And it made me feel immense guilt. And while that is critically important to the part of examining oneself at the breaking of bread, Christ initially instituted it for us to remember him.
2:44
It's a memorial service. So there has to be a break from looking at oneself in clear terms and loathing the flesh to looking at the one that saves us from what we deserve. The Corinthians, they were guilty of not even looking at themselves whatsoever. And thus, they didn't even realize that the Spirit of Christ was not at their memorial.
3:04
This was proven by the fact that Paul had to write them a letter to instruct them as to what the whole thing was even about, that they shouldn't get drunk at the memorial, and that they should share their food with one another, and that they should tarry or wait for one another. You see, the problem that I was dealing with is that I was not actually seeing myself as God sees me.
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But when you go back through Scripture, it's quite astonishing what God says about those who commit their lives to him through a rather simple yet serious act called baptism. It's amazing how God views you once you make a covenant with him. We know from Acts 15 that God is calling out a people for his name.
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And while we know from the first chapters of Romans that the holy oracles of God were initially committed to the Jews, the Gentiles were grafted in. And since the Jews largely rejected the teaching of the apostles, lo, they turned to the Gentiles. And that's how you and I have come to know the plan and purpose of God.
4:04
You see, God has been calling out a people for his name, a remnant throughout time. You probably know the metaphor that the Son is lifting up little droplets of water out of the oceans of humanities to make up his cloud of witnesses. And that cloud of witnesses doesn't just include the faithful of ages past, but God is continuing to do it.
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I was just talking with Jerry Asbury, my sister's father-in-law, earlier this week, and we were talking about the near return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it dawned on me that so long as God continues to call out a people for his name, I can patiently endure and wait for Christ's return. I have very personal reasons why I want the return of Christ.
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But people are still being baptized and being brought into the family of God. And what I want to show you is what God thinks of you and me once we make a vow into him at baptism. When we make a covenant with the living God and the blood of his only begotten Son covers our sins, everything changes.
5:03
In clear terms, we go from death to life. As I mentioned, Brother Thomas is taught that we undergo a change in constitution. Scripture says we're a new creation created in Christ Jesus unto good works. And once we emerge out of the waters anew, we are called saints. Now, the majority of the letters of the New Testament open with to the saints at Corinth, for example, to the saints at Ephesus, to the saints at Philippi, to the saints at Colossae, and so on.
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And it's rather clear that the saints are the believers. Now, the Catholics believe something that's completely different. They believe that a canonized saint in their tradition, not from scripture, but from their tradition, as a canonized saint, you have to perform two miracles after you're already dead and you're up in heaven. They have to be thoroughly corroborated by the Vatican and proven, and then that saint is alive and can receive prayers from those that especially like you and want to pray to you instead of Christ.
6:02
So you have this raft of patron saints. And so if you were fond of, for example, the Virgin of Guadalupe, you could pray to that saint. Now, we know that that's absurd because we know what happens to someone when they die. They return to dust and they await the resurrection and the judgment.
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But if you do a simple word study using Strong's Concordance, it teaches us what that word saint means. If you have any idea what it means, this is what it means. It means sacred. It means that as a baptized believer, you are sacred to God, which is why the psalmist in Psalm 116 tells us, precious in the eyes of God is the death of his saints.
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So Paul tells the Ephesians, now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and you're part of the household of God. In chapter two, he says, you are the holy temple, a habitation of God. How is that possible? It's through the spirit. Romans says that once you're baptized, you are made free from sin, and you became a servant of righteousness.
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That's in chapter six. Jesus says, henceforth, or from here on out, I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what the Lord doeth, but I call you friends. For all things of my father have I made known unto you. And that is exactly the moniker that's used of Moses, the friend of God.
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He was, in fact, the friend of God because he did what the Lord commanded. And brothers and sisters, it's even more intimate than that. And you can understand this because you have friends. And you would do a lot for your friends because you really care about them. And if you need help, you'll help them.
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And they call upon you for support and for strength. But then there's family. And that's supposed to be on another level of connection altogether. And if you didn't grow up in a particularly loyal and loving family, we can all get some sense of what Christ means when he says we are his brethren.
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We find this in Hebrews 2 at verse 10 through 13. And he quotes Psalm 22 there. This parallels Matthew 12 where Christ asks the question, well, who are my brethren? And this is where it is found that we take the name Christadelphians as a body of believers, the brethren in Christ. Brethren being a word that incorporates both males and females.
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And in other words, we are ones who will do the will of God, or we intend to. Now, what's so interesting is that Hebrews chapter 2 says that Christ is not ashamed to call us his brethren. But God takes it one step further. And in Isaiah chapter 8 at verse 18, it's quoted, and it's describing the saints or the sacred ones to be gods in Christ's children.
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I know that children can drive parents crazy in the same manner in which students drive teachers crazy, but I also know that good parents love their kids to bits. And how much more does the Lord Jesus Christ love us, whom God has given him as his children, and as Christ is God's son, and we become the children of God?
9:05
This is precisely what Galatians 4 says, and it teaches us. It says that once we are baptized, we have received the adoption as sons, because we are sons and daughters of God. God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, and we cry, Abba, Father. And then Paul concludes with something that we already know from Christ, where he says, wherefore thou art no longer a servant, but a son.
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And if a son, then you are an heir through Christ. John, in his first epistle, has this beautiful verse that has been turned into a song, and I can sing it for you. Okay, I won't sing it for you. But you know this song, and it's something that we can sing when we lose sight of what it is that God thinks of us.
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It goes like this. It goes, Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God. And it repeats five times, or three times or whatever. And then it tells the next part of the story, and so on. And John reminds us, he says, when he shall appear, we shall be like him.
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I'm not going to sing that song. We shall be like him. Thankfully, you're probably thinking. Galatians 3 says, You are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek nor bond nor free.
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There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. You see, we are the family of God. And that trumps any identifier that we would have had previously. You see, we are Christ's. Paul finishes, And if you be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and you are heirs according to the promise.
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And this is why in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 5, Paul reminds the Thessalonians and us. He says, You are all the children of light and the children of day. We are not of darkness. We are not of the night. And there's another song or a CD. And so again, the level of detail, the level of care that God has for us continues to become even more pronounced in Scripture.
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In Matthew 10 and in Luke 12, Christ teaches us that we are more valuable to God than the sparrows, and that even the very hairs of our head are numbered. It goes beyond that, to almost defy our ability to understand. Again, in Ephesians, we learn that God has chosen us in Christ before the foundations of the world, and that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
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That he predestinated us to be adopted by Christ according to the pleasure of his goodwill and to the praise of his grace. You see, I cannot help but wonder why God included this concept of predestination and election in the Bible. You know, sometimes it's hard to wrap your mind around when you start considering the idea of free will, and it can be very tricky.
11:59
Sometimes I wonder why God includes stuff like that in his word. I know a brother that got so tangled up in this that he left the truth. And I cannot help but wonder why would God bring up the idea of predestination? Is it just to simply say, I'm powerful and I knew you before you were in the womb?
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I don't think so. I believe that he included it because it's intended to make us realize how incredibly special we are to him. It's there to comfort our souls as we rest our thoughts in the stability of God's steadfastness. It's there to make us feel incredibly special and to indicate the depth and the height and the breadth of his love for us.
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He knew us before we were even in the womb, like he told Jeremiah. And he told him that to comfort him and to give him something to believe in. And so sometimes we believe that we have chosen God. And in some sense that's correct.
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But it's actually that we have been chosen by God. That's what Colossians tells us. God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through the sanctification of the spirit and the belief of the truth. We can't just believe whatever we want. Just as Christ told the woman at the well in Samaria, it's not just enough to have faith.
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We have to have faith in true things. We have to worship not only in spirit, but in biblical truth. And so we're exhorted in Colossians that as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on the bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and longsuffering. So you see, that's how he wants us to respond to his love.
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And we can, if we first accept his love in faith. What does God think of us, brothers and sisters, in Romans 8? It says that there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. And if you can believe that, that you're not condemned and you won't be at the judgment seat, how would that make you respond?
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If you knew you were going to be in the kingdom, in other words, how would that make you feel? And what would that inspire you to do? Well, the New Testament, it inspired men and women to turn the world upside down because they fully believed in the sufficiency of God. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believing in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but rather that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is already condemned because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And yet sometimes, brothers and sisters, we act like we're already condemned.
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But right here, John says that God loves us and that he's given his only begotten son for me and you. And so we have to stop acting like we're condemned. We have to start acting like our names are actually written in the book of life. This is the admonition of the apostle Paul where he says, walk worthy of your high calling.
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Brothers and sisters, Christ came to deliver us from fear, specifically the fear of death. And therefore, if you don't have to fear death, well, what do we do? What do we have to fear? It says that he tasted death for every man. And you know the verse because it's the one that separates us from the throngs of Trinitarians.
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But let's take a look at the verse afterwards. It's in Hebrews 2, chapter 2, verses 14 and 15. This is where it talks about Christ coming to deliver us from the fear of death.
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Verse 14 is a first principle verse, one that we know quite well. It says, for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death. That is the diabolos, or the devil, the false accuser.
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Verse 15 is the one I want to call your attention to. And this was part of the reason that he came and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life subject to bondage. Now can you believe that? That it's part of the express purpose for which Christ came forth. Why should we think that God doesn't really want to be involved in every detail of our life if Christ came to deliver us from the fear of death?
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Or is it that we don't know how to invite him in, in faith? And so, brothers and sisters, in our right minds, we know that it is God's intention to save us, and yet in our wrong minds, we still entertain doubts about whether or not God permits things into our life to develop our faith and our connection to him.
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Sometimes we think that God is only in the big things, and yet we don't use Scripture to define what is a big thing. What might be a big thing to me may be nothing to you and vice versa. How do we make that determination? On what basis? In some sense, it's akin to saying when somebody says, oh, only part of the Bible is inspired and true.
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You say, well, how are you going to make that determination? And they have no basis. The parts that they like and they understand, well, they accept that, and that's true, but the parts they don't understand, they say it's not true. And we say, in a similar sense, we use the same logic and we say, God's involved in the big things, but there's no criteria on which we make that judgment.
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If you're going to say that God is only in the big things, how are you going to make that determination? What is a big thing? And so it makes far more sense to say, no, God is actually involved in every detail of our lives, and therefore, we can call upon him and ask for his guidance and give him thanks when things go well.
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Here it is from the Word of God, this beautiful, reassuring verse in Hebrews 7, verse 25. If you're still in Hebrews, you can turn over the page. This is such a stunning verse. It says that Christ is able to save us to the uttermost and all them that come unto God by him, seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for us.
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Now just think about that for a minute. He ever liveth. In other words, one of the reasons that Christ is alive is to make intercession for me and you. That's why he laid down his life in the first place. That was his motivation. That was part of the joy that was set before him.
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That's how he could, in the same night in which he was betrayed, break bread and drink wine and leave us away to remember him. He did it for us. It's why he gave his life to reconnect us to God, to make intercession, to bridge the gap that we've created between God and us by our sins.
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Our iniquities have separated us from God, but we are brought nigh or near by the blood of Christ, and we are saved by his life. Jew tells us this beautiful verse praising God. It says, Now unto him that is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God and our Savior be glory and majesty and dominion forever, both now and forever.
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Amen. And yet we think we think sometimes he's got to be talking about somebody else. He's got to be talking about anybody but me. And if you go to Revelation 14, God gives us a picture of that very verse being fulfilled of us being presented faultless before the throne of his grace singing a new song.
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When it comes time for judgment, this is what he says about us. Isaiah 26 tells us what God says to his sacred ones, those that are in his family. He says, Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, shut the doors behind thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpassed.
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For behold, Yahweh comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain. And he hides us from that. This harmonizes with the words of Christ where he says, Fear not, little flock. It is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
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And he tells us that detail so that we can hold the vision sure in our minds. It says, he adds a little bit more. He says, Then the king shall say unto them on his right hand, Come ye, blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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And so these things, as John states in his first epistle, have been written unto us that we might believe on the name of the Son of God and that we may know that we have eternal life and that we may believe on the name of the Son of God. And yet we say, I can't believe it.
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There must be some sort of qualifier. What do you mean that I have eternal life? My back hurts when I get out of the chair. My neck is stiff. I feel pretty mortal. Well, brothers and sisters, God calls those things which are, are not, as though they are. The scripture is very clear.
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It says that we have eternal life. And that's what God thinks of us. You see, just as Paul was teaching the believers in Philippi, our names are written in the book of life. Jesus told his disciples to not be too pleased with themselves after being able to drive out spirits and that the spirits were subject to them in Luke chapter 10.
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But he said, don't be so happy with yourselves for that. He says, rejoice that your name is written in the book of life. Revelation 3 verse 5 says a similar thing. And we doubting say, I might have done some bad things this week. And perhaps Christ has erased my name out of the book.
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Is that what's going on? Christ is erasing our name out of the book and then he's adding it back in based on whether or not we had a good week. In other words, can we get our names written back into the book of life based on our works? Not so. You'd think he's tearing the page for all the rubbing out and putting back in that we think that he's doing.
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Not so. Your names are written in the book of life. You are a son and a daughter or a daughter of God. And with that in mind, apprehended in faith, God is simply saying, serve me in love and appreciation. Paul similarly entreats the Colossians when he says, do you not know that you are the temple of the living God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?
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And yet we compartmentalize that to say, well, yes, as long as we remember God's spirit word and his word dwells in us and it's in our mind because we know that the Holy Spirit gifts are no longer in possession as they were and men didn't have them like they do now as they did in the first century.
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But it's far more dynamic than that, brothers and sisters. Those who are the sons and the daughters of the living God are led by the spirit if they continue to commit themselves to seeking to do the will of God prayerfully. If we don't lean into our own understanding. But we can't do whatever we want and say, well, I'm led by the spirit.
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But if we wait on the Lord prayerfully and if we look to him for guidance and direction, he promises to direct our paths. And that's the way scripture explains how all this works is simply by saying in Colossians 1, he says, well, it's God in you. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory.
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And surely it makes sense that God would dwell in us and do works if we humble ourselves, if we make a little room in ourselves for him to do so because that's precisely the method in which God worked in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ said, I can do nothing of my own self.
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Christ never claimed that the miracles that he performed were his in any way. Better said, they were performed through him. Philippians 2 says, he did not grasp at equality with God, but the miracles were intended to work on the witnesses' faith or on their belief. Christ was working on their faith. Let me just get this computer back, sorry.
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John 14 says, the Lord says, believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works. And right at the end of the first chapter of Colossians, Paul is telling that his job is to tell the whole world about something that has been hidden for the ages and from generations.
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But now he says it's made manifest for us, the saints. And that is the idea of Christ dwelling in us. It's in Colossians 1 at verse 27. He says, the mystery that's been hidden from the ages is Christ in you, the hope of glory. As a community, we know this. We call this God manifestation.
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But is that really possible? That Christ can dwell in us? Of course it is because God has promised it. This is God's promise to work in us. But we short-circuit the entire process if we don't believe it to be possible. You see, you have to have faith that this is even possible for it to happen.
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But it makes sense, brothers and sisters, that God would be willing to dwell in us, both to will and to do his good pleasure. Well, why does it make sense? Well, here's how Romans 8 puts it. It says, he spared not his own son, but he delivered him up for us all. How shall not he then also with him give us all things freely?
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If God has not spared his own son for us, what greater gift can he give us than that? He has given us all things. And yet sometimes we think like the second son in the prodigal story, and we don't even realize that we have access to it by God's grace. You see, in the parable of the two lost sons, we learn that the father tells the other disgruntled son, son, thou art forever with me.
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All that I have is thine. And we know that God's hand is open. He is the almighty. Psalm 84 reminds us, the Lord our God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those that walk uprightly. 1 Corinthians 2 shows us, now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God.
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Why? That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 2 Corinthians, Paul reminds us and he says, all things are for your sake. Why? That the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God. That's in chapter 4 at verse 15. And so, we can only conclude that God must be involved in every detail of our lives.
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That while he may not be the cause of all things in our lives, he certainly knows about every detail. And that he's allowing even challenging things, that he's allowing even the challenging things as a mechanism to grow our faith and to deepen our connection with him on a daily basis. And so, it's our response to the issues of life that become especially important.
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And that the Father wants to help us overcome. That we're not going to do it in our own strength. And thus, we must be instant in prayer and in everything give thanks. Now, some of you will probably be wondering if I've simply stacked the deck. Am I just bringing up the verses to the top to make the point that I want to make?
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Have I presented only one side of the argument or is this actual? In an intellectual sense, we know that God is omnipotent and omniscient or all-knowing and omnipresent, the three omnis, and yet we run from him like Jonah. We just have trouble accepting that God is in everything. And when I say that God is in everything, some of you may debate the idea saying that God is not the cause of all things and that's true.
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Man has a will and he exerts that will. And we all know that when man's will collides with another man's will, we call that a power struggle. And it causes so much grief in this world. For example, some men have the will to drink themselves drunk and then get in a car and drive.
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And others have been the victim of their drunk driving and have died. And you say, well, how can you say that God is in that? How is God in everything? Well, God did not cause the drunk driver to take somebody's life or to drink beer or whatever it is in the first place, but he certainly allowed it to happen.
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And this is the very idea that makes shipwreck of people's faith. This is very personal stuff. And naturally, we come to questions like, well, why didn't you stop it? I thought you were a loving God. When it comes to suffering, cause is not the issue. The effect is the issue. Does it drive you to connect with God like never before?
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Or does it cause you to go on strike from God? How you respond does not change the fact that God knows about it, that he permitted it to happen, and that the only reason that he's done so is to strengthen our faith, which is more precious to him than gold. That is the only thing that we can offer him.
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It's the only thing that will bring us to salvation by God's grace. You see, on some level, we know that God is in everything. We know that he's in the good things, the things that we call blessings, which are often just the things that we want. We thank God for the house or the car or the job or the new clothes or the food.
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We're blessed to know the truth as revealed in the Bible, but it's not particularly challenging to believe that God is in what we perceive as good. Sometimes it is challenging to be thankful, but that's another story. We'll look at how God grows our faith in our next session, Lord willing, but have I only presented one side of the argument or is this actually a biblical perspective?
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You may think that I'm making it sound as though once we're baptized, there's nothing we can do to not be in the kingdom, and you and I both know that that's rubbish. We are not Calvinists who believe once we're saved, we're always saved. The point of God telling us over and over and over again of our status in Jesus Christ is to inspire us, to build our faith in him, to make us feel loved, and it's not to allow us to run amok.
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I must conclude by finally saying that all these verses come with a warning, which can be summed up simply by saying our liberty in Jesus Christ cannot breed license to do whatever we want in our own eyes. We cannot say that we're led by the Spirit and do unseemly things. Can we lose the kingdom?
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Of course we can lose the kingdom. How? Well, what we do is we invert the truth. In other words, what we do is we stop believing. In some kind of strange sense, it's kind of weird to think about how we can disqualify ourselves from the kingdom. And to be clear, the Bible doesn't exactly explain how that happens other than simply identify behaviors that reveal a mind that stop believing.
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For example, in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10, it says, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? You see, if righteousness is by faith, well, the unrighteous are not believing anymore. And so we get the description of the actions of the faithless mind when Paul says, Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners.
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They will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5, 19, and 20 says a similar thing, and it outlines the mind of unbelief where it says, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revilings, and such like, of which I tell you before, as I've told you in past times, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
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Paul tells Timothy at the beginning of his first letter that some haven't held the faith and kept a clean conscience. In fact, some have put away those things which have shipwrecked or destroyed their faith. If you read the letter to Jude, for example, you'll see that he's using a very similar metaphor. To paraphrase, he says, some not only have turned from the one true faith, but they have also stopped having faith.
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They've stopped believing. And so, his exhortation is not only to contend earnestly for the faith as it was once delivered to the saints, but in verse 20, it says, but you, beloved, building yourself up in your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit and keep sight of the love of God which he has for you.
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And so, what's the point? The point is that we cannot, the point is that we cannot wonder what God thinks of us once we're, we cannot let God's, God's, what God thinks of us breed complacency like it did in those who said, we have Abraham as our father. But rather, the point is that it's supposed to inspire us and motivate us to love each other and to love our God as he has foreshown us.
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But brothers and sisters, let us never forget that our God is a consuming fire. Now, what I want to do with our time together is I want to show you that there is every reason to believe that God is intimately involved in every detail of our lives and that he cares for us and that the way you and I should respond daily is in faith.
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So, what we're going to do next is we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at the thorns to our faith. And then I don't believe there's going to be enough time, sadly, to look at ways in which God grows our faith and ways in which we can increase our faith.
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Lord willing, those are things we'll do tomorrow morning. So, here is the learning attention. We've talked about this. We'll just kind of move through this quickly. We've talked about the importance of faith. We've talked about what faith actually is. It's our thoughts which have substance. We've talked about getting the root of the tree right which is our faith.
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And we've talked about not simply just working on the fruit and wondering why it's not there. and we are now going to spend a little bit of time talking about what limits our faith. Here's just an overview of what's going to come tomorrow. Lord willing, how does God generate or increase our faith?
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And then we'll spend there's a lot. Not sure how we'll get through it but we'll do our best by God's grace and we'll look at how we can increase our faith. So, what limits faith? And we talked about this from the very beginning. The degree to which you believe that God is active and present in your life has a profound impact on your faith.
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The angel of the Lord encamps around about those that fear him and he delivers them. Now, I asked you to do some homework and it's something that I hope you'll do after we spend some time together this weekend. It's a challenge. It's a challenge to make these things tangible and that's what the homework is designed to try to do.
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And it helps to ask a few questions. For example, can you suspend your disbelief for two weeks and try to believe that God isn't everything that he's permitting everything into your life? When something good comes into your life, do you thank God immediately? When something challenging occurs, will you think to yourself, well, this is about developing my faith, my connection in God?
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In sharing this stuff previously, some have thought that the homework was to try to figure out how God is in everything. And I wish in the past that I had made the homework more clear. It's very, very difficult to understand how God is involved in everything, even though it's something that we're all naturally curious about.
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You remember that that was the Virgin Mary's question, irrespective of her belief. She said, how shall this be seeing that I know not a man? You see, rarely do we get to understand how it is that God works. Instead, our attention must first be placed in the fact that he is working in every aspect of our life.
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So, just to clarify, it's not the point of the homework to try and figure out how God's working. it's just to believe that he is. The goal of the homework is to develop a mindset which always affirms that that which is going on right now, whatever it may be in my life, not only is God aware of, but that he's permitted to happen for the sole purpose of deepening my connection to him.
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Part of the great challenge, especially when it comes to faith and suffering, is that our thoughts generally go into one of two directions. One, why is this happening to me? And two, how is God in this? In other words, how is this going to work out? I've spent time in both camps and I've tried that homework before and it can be disheartening for the simple fact that we just don't know how God is working.
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We don't know the path or the means or the mechanisms by which he works. We simply have to have faith that he is working. Now, this isn't just my thoughts, this is scriptural. When perplexed about how a man could be reborn, Nicodemus was not told the process by which the ministering spirits or the angels bring a man to lay down his life symbolically in baptism and be reborn.
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But he was required to have faith that God could do it and that God could remake a man after the spirit. Jesus said to Nicodemus, the wind blows where it listed and you hear the sound thereof but you cannot tell from whence it comes and whither it goes. So is everyone that is born of the spirit.
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Now, a very simple way of making this practical and viewing eyes through the life of faith came to me from a close friend and a brother and he said that when you go to a Bible school or a study weekend or a special effort or that kind of thing that God will bring into your life the very principles that you are just learning about and he said that this would happen within 48 hours of the completion of the study and that the point of God doing so and bringing this into our experience is to move our understanding from ideas and theory to the experiential to where you actually experience it.
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You see, when you experience a lesson you don't forget it but if you hear it, well, you tend to forget 90% of what we hear. So I believe that this is akin to what the Bible talks about as an enacted parable. You see, at some point in our lives we have to go through something that God is going through himself for what his son has experienced and the reason that we do so is that we have a better understanding of his feelings and his point of view.
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The prophets in the Old Testament went through this sort of experience to grow their faith and their connection and so also that God's people might recognize the principles and the ways of God manifest in the physical realm. In short, enacted parables are a teaching aid. Now, the skeptic in us would say that well, that just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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To a hammer everything looks like a nail. Once you have that perspective in mind, once you've got those Bible principles in mind, you're bound to see them transpire because you're simply thinking about them. You've put on those sorts of glasses and therefore the world can't help but look the way you expected. Well, I'm of the persuasion that God is active and that he's present in our lives and it's his work to draw us closer to him and that he's preparing us for the kingdom.
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I believe that those myriad of angels are actually working and working diligently to bring us to salvation and not that we're creating coincidences because we simply want to see them but you can test that out for yourself. What I want to look at next is what limits our faith. In spending some time on this topic, I've come to conclude that what you and I think about the level of God's involvement in our lives has a profound effect on whether our faith grows, whether it stays the same or whether it shrinks back.
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In other words, the degree to which we believe God is active and present in our life has an enormous impact on our faith and we've gone over some of these scriptures already.
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Let me just fast forward a little bit here in my notes for the sake of time. Let's take a look at this first one. One of the great thorns to our faith is fear. Although I don't think it's the opposite of faith, I think pride is the opposite of faith. But fear is a great detriment to our faith.
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What really prevents us from growing in faith and drawing closer to God is fear. Fear in all its many forms and varieties except for godly fear which is reverence. And so we read in 1 John 4 verse 18 the instruction of how to overcome fear and that is to think deeply over and over again about God's love for us.
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You see, John says there is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Notice that John doesn't say because you know that God's love you will never fear again. It's not what God is asking nor expecting. When Daniel was thrown into the lion's den did he fear?
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Of course he did. He was human but his faith in God was so developed that it overcame his fear and the angel that encamped around him shut the mouth of the lions to the honor and the glory of God and to the development of Darius the king's faith and the faith of countless others but it's about faith overcoming fear.
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It's not that we won't feel afraid or doubtful or stressed out and so what we're learning is we're learning what to do when we feel that pointy edge of the thorn of fear and how it can possibly cause doubt. What do we do when we feel fear? Well we pray. Lord help my unbelief as Nate talked about in his prayer a few minutes ago.
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We boldly say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what shall man do unto me? That's in Hebrews and the Psalms as well. Because we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear as Paul tells us in Romans 8 but what do we do when we fear? We cry out to God Abba Father which is exactly what we see in the example of the Lord Jesus Christ when he suffered he threatened not but he committed himself to him that judges righteously.
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That's what faithful men and women did all throughout scripture. Think of Moses and Joshua who had fear. Think of Paul Hannah Elizabeth and Mary. There are numerous passages in your notes in your Bibles and examples of faithful men and women who when they were weak were made strong. You see God doesn't want us to have a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
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That's what Paul told his son in the faith Timothy because Timothy like all of us had some fear to get around. But why is this? In Luke 1 at verse 74 Zacharias after not speaking for many months finally breaks forth and says that God is performing the oath that he has sworn to Abraham in the birth of the Messiah and so that we are delivered out of the hands of our enemies and we might serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.
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Part of the reason that Jesus Christ came was to deliver us from fear. Now a second thorn to our faith is believing untruths or lies and thus the hardening of our heart. This is exactly what happened to the children of Israel after the exodus as they marched through the wilderness in unbelief. We get this from a commentary in Psalm 81 verses 11 and 12.
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But my people would not hearken unto my voice and Israel would have none of me. So I gave them unto their own hearts lust and they walked in their own counsels. You may have heard it said before that that God loves us too much to force us into his kingdom that he will not take away our free will if we stubbornly and persistently and defiantly choose to believe lies or go our own way God will give us over to that mind for a season.
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I don't believe that he completely cuts us off because he hasn't completely cut off his people Israel despite all their unbelief but he will let us taste the folly of our own choices. Why? Because he can use it as a teaching tool to recover us again. It's not the preferred way but each of us at times like sheep have gone astray.
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The other problem with really really with believing the wrong things is that it limits our spiritual growth. Now I'd like to believe that we as Christadelphians and as Bible students and as seekers of truth have everything perfect but I'd be surprised if that was the case. I don't think for a moment that I think that we have wrong doctrine.
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I'm not talking about that. My question is what is so wrong about what is so bad about wrong belief? And what I think the answer to that question is that wrong belief stifles your spiritual growth. Wrong doctrine limits how much you can grow spiritually. Let me give you an example. If for example you absolutely believe that Jesus is God that he is the father that he is Yahweh and he's come down in the form of a man you automatically are limited in your ability to overcome the tendencies of sin.
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If you consciously or even subconsciously believe this you can't help but think on some level that Jesus could do things that I could never do. He was God on earth. He was above temptation. He was unable to sin. In fact he could never really die. You see the whole method that God has given us to overcome that has been shown to us in Jesus Christ is null and void.
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And so what Christ did is he looked to the father and that's the method that you and I are supposed to do. But if you believe that Jesus is God that whole method for overcoming temptation and sin doesn't really exist in your mind. If you understand that he was in fact in all points tempted as we are then you learn that he overcame sin and you learn the method and how he did that and you can use the same method.
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It's the same with the doctrine of the supernatural devil. If you believe that God has allowed a supernatural being to run around and wreak havoc on God's earth on some level you can't help but wonder how much does this God love me? That question subconsciously erodes your relationship with God. Why would he let this being do this to me?
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Is God really in control? But if you know that the devil in the Bible is human nature and that's what we're fighting against in ourselves not just in the government and in society and high places but the age in which we live and in ourselves you know what you're battling and you can learn methods for overcoming in God's strength.
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If you don't know this well you're fighting a losing battle and your relationship with the living God suffers because you're believing a lie. The problem with believing lies and untruths is it limits your spiritual growth. Another thorn to our faith is our lack of perception and this I believe is one of the expressed purposes of reading God's word daily.
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By doing the Bible readings it makes us as Brian Stiles would say more God conscious. The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. We need to become more aware. We can't help or even pray about that which we don't know. And how do we know about things?
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Because of the phone tree or because of Facebook or gossip? No, we have to learn how to be perceptive to the needs of others. And moreover we have to be perceptive to the hand of God in our lives. And so one of the conclusions the writer of the Hebrews draws in chapter 13 is he draws our awareness to it says in verse 22 but you are coming to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God and the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of angels.
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He wants us to be aware of this. He says you have come to the general assembly of the ecclesia of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. You are coming to God the judge of all the earth and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus Christ the mediator of the new government.
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And yet much of the time we don't perceive it. We're not aware of it. If we want to grow in faith we have to grow in awareness.
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Another thorn to our faith and to the growth and development of it is pride and arrogance and really self-will. And this goes hand in hand with another potential thorn which we'll talk about in a minute of having too much ability and relying on one's strength. But here's the classic scripture for this one.
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Proverbs 16 verse 18 Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. You know that it's the pride of life that is one of the gateways of sin that we have to be aware of. You can also review the pride of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 and even in Romans the pride of the Gentiles with respect to the Jews to see how pride is the great enemy of faith.
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We tend to think it's fear that's the enemy of faith but really it's pride. Nevertheless these are thorns. The next one and I'd like you to turn up Ecclesiastes 9 verse 11. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 11 with me.
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Now when we analyze the idea that God is intimately involved in the life of his covenant people either by creating scenarios or allowing scenarios into our life to grow our faith many brothers and sisters will automatically bring up this verse in Ecclesiastes 9 11 so we gotta go there and have a look.
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You'll probably know it well or at least part of this verse well the part that says time and chance happens to all men but what about the rest of the verse? What's the context about? You see it's a bit tricky to quote from Ecclesiastes because we know that Solomon is working things through it's a work in progress and so the conclusions at the end of the book are especially important but what about chapter 3 chapter 9 verse 11 what's the context of this verse?
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Let's read it slowly and carefully. This is what it says in Ecclesiastes 9 11 it says I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong neither yet bread to the wise neither yet riches to men of understanding nor yet favor to men of skill but time and chance happeneth to them all.
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You hear my questions. Race to the swift is that you? Is that how you think of yourself? Is the swift? The second class of people and there are five is nor is the battle to the strong. Are you strong? Is that how you overcome in your strength? The third class of people is neither is there bread to the wise.
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Is that how you get your bread? Because you're wise or you're clever or is it God that's providing providing the bread for you to sustain you? The fourth class of people in that verse nor yet riches to men of understanding. Are you rich because of your understanding or has God blessed you that way?
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Number five it says nor yet favor to men of skill. Is your skill so high that everything seems to work out in your favor? In other words brothers and sisters is this verse talking about you and I? Or is it talking about someone who trusts in themselves? Is Solomon looking at believers in God or everyone else under the sun?
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You see I don't think that we are under the S-U-N. That's an expression of the countless masses of humanity who care not for the things of the living God. I don't believe that this is a verse that's talking about those who have a covenant relationship with God. You see I believe that we are under the S-O-N the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God that our banner is the Lord our righteousness that's what we're under and to take it one step further when the Apostle Paul saw the risen Lord on the way to Damascus he was enveloped in a brightness that was the brightness above the sun and that was the countenance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That's in Acts 26 when he's recounting the story to King Agrippa. Now notice at the end of that verse it says time and chance happens to them all and that's a qualifier that's talking about the five categories of people in that verse and therefore I don't believe it's that time and chance happens to us all that doesn't mean that bad things don't happen to us surely I know that doesn't mean that a man doesn't have free will and it opinges upon our free will as we spoke about earlier in the drunk driving example but it isn't a matter of happenstance in our lives brothers and sisters it's not chance God knows about every detail of our life and while we know that he could intervene nothing happens that's outside of his control that he can't reverse he is the almighty and so why does God let those things happen to Job for example in 1 Peter 1 verse 7 it tells us the answer which is what Paul read earlier it happens to deepen his faith which is more precious than gold and by the end of the story Job's understanding and his appreciation for the love of God is all the more enriched and that's precious to God if we misunderstand scripture or the idea of providence or how God works in our life it can certainly limit our faith what are other thorns to our faith well we can have faith in the wrong things and we've touched on this already you see God didn't write 1189 chapters of scripture for us to believe whatever we want we can't just make it up
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as we go we've already talked about the woman in the well and worshiping in spirit and truth but really this is a battle for all throughout the Bible as God instructed his people from the outset not to worship graven images or idols that's exactly what Paul was instructing on Mars Hill in Athens in Acts 17 when they had an altar to the unknown God they ignorantly worshipped this unknown God and the Psalms rightly conclude the idols of the heathen are gold and silver they're works of men's hands they are a snare unto them you see our faith must be in biblical faith and that's why Romans 10 tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God it must be God's words we can't have faith in the wrong things you see everybody has faith in something you can't say I don't have any beliefs because that's a belief too actually on some level everybody has faith most of the world doesn't have biblical faith and that's what you and I have to strive for having faith in the wrong things will certainly be a thorn to our growth and development and our connection to God another thorn to our faith can be continually wounding our conscience you see one of the goals of reading the Bible must be to develop a godly conscience to be able to discern right and wrong to choose the good and to eschew the evil it's pointless to know the right path and say well it doesn't matter I can do such and such and it really doesn't affect my connection to God and so believing a lie
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one of the most famous of which is it doesn't really matter is a huge thorn to our connection with God it's probably the biggest lie ever told effectively that's what the serpent told Eve in the garden it doesn't really matter if you eat that fruit thou shall not surely die it's the biggest lie and it's one that we have to become aware of and it's so prevalent as young people to be aware of that it does matter and what happens when you continually wound godly god's conscience your godly conscience the one that God is trying to help you develop through his living word is that you end up permitting all sorts of rubbish into your life you defile yourself and God cannot dwell in a filthy temple he's too holy for that so what's the antidote for that are we lost forever once we go down the wrong track well no Hebrews 11 or 9 verse 9 tells us the only antidote is the contemplation of what Christ does for you has done for you personally you see it's not the blood of bulls and goats and animal sacrifices that can affect a man's heart like the blood of Christ can the only remedy is to consider what God has done for you personally and then once the love of Christ has broken your heart and you've asked for forgiveness you do as David describes in Psalm 119 where he asks that very question wherewith wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his ways and the answer comes back by taking heed according to thy word you see discernment is not the ability to know the difference
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between right and wrong it's knowing the difference between right and almost right and there probably isn't a time in the history of the world where that ability has been more needed than right now we live in treacherous times now we only have a couple more thorns to our faith to go and we'll finish up for this evening but another thorn to our faith and it might seem to be a little counterintuitive is being too capable and what I mean by that is leaning unto one's own strength or one's own understanding God says in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 19 for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent where is the wise where is the scribe where is the disputer of this world has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world for after that in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom did not know God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe you see even though you may think what you have is a really good solution to an issue or you may feel really capable of helping somebody in need wouldn't the guidance of God in prayer always improve things wouldn't it make sense to run it by the master of the universe and so we get this classic principle in Zechariah 4 where it says not by might nor by power but by my spirit sayeth the Lord of hosts Proverbs 3 verse 5 says trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding
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in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths be not wise in thine own eyes fear Yahweh and depart from evil another thorn to our faith that we've discussed in great detail is not clearly understanding what God thinks of you and really up until this point we've only talked about what God thinks of those who have made a covenant relationship with him in baptism but it's important to realize especially for the young people that haven't been baptized that your relationship with God begins long before baptism baptism formalizes it you see God is the initiator of our salvation and he begins working in our lives long before we ever get baptized in fact one of the reasons people often get baptized is because they can't deny that God has been working in their life and calling them and their baptism is simply a response to how good he's been to us especially when we well and we don't deserve it that's called the gift of grace this is demonstrated by the simple fact that God heard the prayer of this faithful albeit unbaptized man named Cornelius in Acts 10 it's also shown that while we were yet without strength Christ died for the ungodly while we were yet sinners that God has no pleasure in the death of the unrighteous he sends the rain on the just and the unjust God is calling out a people for his name and while many are called few are chosen number 10 what are some of the thorns that choke our faith and keep us from growing in our relationship with God while being overly self-conscious
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or looking at oneself instead of Christ and forgive the example from the first class but that's what I was alluding to when I said I had to learn to stop thinking about myself and my hang-ups at the breaking of bread and to shift my focus to thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ who I was endeavoring to remember at the breaking of bread one of the easiest ways to find the root of any problem is to find the focus and if the focus is self it's not going to go well and we all do this because it's human nature the classic example of this is Peter walking on the water right so as long as he was looking at Christ he was doing the impossible and as soon as he looked at the sea and the waves roaring around him he lost focus and began to think about himself and began to sink looking at oneself as a thorn to our faith number 11 the cares of this life have overwhelmed you another thorn to our faith is that very thing thus we aren't able to lift up our heads to look at our provider we're told to cast our cares upon the Lord we're told that the Lord cares for us but in this one what I want you to think about is our responsibility as those that are so-called living in the first world to our brothers and sisters who are living in the third world so-called some of them are so ground down in poverty that it's difficult for them to even lift up their head unto God and so it is our
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responsibility as the privileged it's our duty to give unto every man as they have need which is what we get from Acts 2 so that they don't have to worry about the necessities of life and that they can worship God without worry the ironic thing is that even despite having all of our personal needs met we can get caught up in the consumer culture which is this age and let the cares of this life crowd out our relationship with God and diminish our faith in him well we're getting close to the end thank you for your patience but here's another thorn to our faith not understanding your purpose or your destiny in life and that's not to mean that we should be high minded but it does help to know exactly why we are on planet earth and this hopefully isn't too mystical or woohoo what does the Bible say about your future you see Christ knew exactly it was very clear in his mind why he was alive and most of the world has no clue why they're on planet earth many think well it's all about eating and drinking and being merry for tomorrow we die but that's believing a lie so clear was Christ's purpose in his mind that under the great stress of eminent crucifixion he could clearly articulate why he was born this is the famous exchange with Pilate and I'm sure you remember it Pilate says unto him are you a king then and Jesus answered thou sayest I'm a king to this end was I born and for this cause came I unto the world that I should bear
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witness to the truth for everyone that is of the truth hears my voice and this is when Pilate asks that famous question the one for the ages what is truth when Christ was 12 years old he told his parents wish she not that I must be about my father's business Samuel also from a very young age knew why he was alive and what his destiny was and he fulfilled the mission David understood it Daniel the same and scores of others how long will it take us to figure out and moreover once we have that based on God's word not our own how long will it take before we actually believe that we are destined to live forever in Christ's kingdom you see brothers and sisters our problem isn't necessarily Bible study although each of us can do more I'm sure the issue is actually believing what we already intellectually know and while we know that the adversary of the Bible isn't some supernatural temper that runs around with a pitchfork and scrambles our brain to do things that we don't really want to do what the supernatural devil or what the devil is in the Bible is that resident voice in our heads that hears the word of God and simply refuses to believe it it's listening to all these verses about what God thinks about you and me and it's the response that says well yeah that's all very well for somebody else but it has nothing to do with me that's the Satan of the Bible it's the voice inside us that makes an accusation against God that calls him a liar and
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refuses his words the Satan of the Bible is the doubting voice within each of us that slanders the word of God and refuses to believe what the creator of the universe has said about us it's the doubt that he can do it
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without sin with him forever more now I'm not suggesting that believing is easy I know from an experience that it requires effort in the sense of continually refreshing and relayering these things in our mind because we're leaky vessels but there is a way to dwell in this new mindset the mindset of faith in Christ Jesus our Lord and that's what I want to talk about in our session tomorrow morning how God generates our faith just give me three more minutes maybe five and I'll close this session please now the question that we have to ask ourselves is that when this is what God thinks of us why is it that we have such trouble believing it well it's interesting that on our first principle levels we rightly concluded that there is no supernatural devil but there isn't an entity out there running around the world wreaking havoc on God's creation tempting and poking and prodding men and women to do the wrong thing we know that to be ourselves we know that temptation comes from man's heart and we are drawn away of our own lust but it's important to remember that the hallmark characteristic of the adversary or the opponent in scripture is one who denies the truth one who hears the word of God and inverts it one who makes a false accusation against God if we believe that way brothers and sisters there's a problem in our thinking I believe before the foundations of the earth God asked a rather simple question and I'm not trying to be facetious here I'm not being flippant I imagine it's a question that all good
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parents ask themselves at some point in time about their children and that question is what do my children need to be successful it's one that I can't help but ask about my students at heritage college because I only care about them and want the best for them in some non mushy way I love them right I'm only a teacher I'm not a parent but I can imagine that every good parent would ask this question about their own children what is it that I could provide whatever it is I would so that they could be successful and I reckon in all seriousness that God asked his angels before the world began what would my creation need before giving me the free will offering of their love what reassurance would they need that I deeply care about them and desire them to be with !
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me forever what would be the ultimate expression of love that would inspire a reciprocal love from them I think you know the answer he said I will give them my only begotten son he will declare my righteousness that sin is worthy of death and that the flesh profits nothing he will allow himself to be made a sign for all generations and he will lay down his life for his friends that is the gift that I will give them that is the token of my love that is the very model of what I want to see in them love motivated by faith and confidence in me and that's the basis for the relationship that I desire to see working in them and this was the grace that we see Peter and Paul and all the apostles in Acts preaching this was the gift that was on offer this was the undercurrent of their mind it's what gave these men hope and what set the world on fire and it changed the course of human history in no way did they set out to prove their love to God by their works they wouldn't have gotten very far if they did these men were energized first by the power of the love of God seen in the face
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proper motivation we deceived ourselves we will get weary in well doing because our willpower is unsustainable the power of God's love is without limit so when we come to remember the Lord Jesus Christ tomorrow morning let us be thankful thankful for him by whom our sins are blotted out thankful for this unspeakable gift that God has given us in Jesus Christ and let us go forth in the motivation of the love of Christ as seen in the breaking of bread the emblems of bread and wine and let us become humble so that God can work in us and do his good pleasure

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Jason Bobis - Class 2: Thorns to Our Faith and How God Grows Our Faith

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