Lesson 15b
Romans 4:21-25 · JD McCulley · Jul 29, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261911181867

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We are on lesson 15. We started, kind of got a running start last week. We've got some stuff up on the board. So we're looking at Romans 4, 21 through 25 is the passage that this lesson covers. And just to kind of review a little bit, we talked about, we're getting into this issue of strong and weak faith.

And we asked the question, Where does Saving Faith fit on a scale of weak to strong? For those of you that were here last week, maybe you won't answer. For those of you that weren't here last week, for your own knowledge, and we're interested to hear, where does Saving Faith fit on a scale of weak to strong? Weak.

Yeah? It was interesting, last week we said, it's kind of on it's own. It doesn't have a quality of strong or weak associated with it. It's simply that hand that's reaching out to grab the hand that is available for salvation. So, I always have that picture of the little boy drowning, and here his father reaches out to save him, and it's his reaching, strong or weak. It's really lighter. It's lighter. It's simply present. Right?

So when we were in a class a year or so ago on faith, we talked about the four aspects of critical faith. Would you say that saving faith is one of those aspects? Personal faith, yeah. Because every man has faith. It all depends on the object of your faith. That's right. That's right.

When the Lord reaches out and saves us from the sinful condition that we find ourselves in, it is neither weak nor strong, but then you begin to walk alongside Him. And that's a sanctificational phase, right? Now we're talking about growing in the knowledge of Him. And so we begin to move down, hopefully, or up, this whole idea of getting stronger in our faith. We see that in the verses that are in chapter 4 verses 21-25. Let's read those and just kind of get a better scriptural context of what we're talking about. So chapter 4, 21-25. Just waiting on my bottle to pop up here. Someone want to read that for us?

"...and being fully assured that what God had promised he was able also to perform. Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness. Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him but for our sake also to whom it will be credited is those who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. So in that verse 20, we're seeing the term that he grew strong in faith, giving glory to God. And that was with respect to what? What was he believing?

A promise. Promises of God. That's right. Do you have promises? True about you today, what the Lord has told you? Yeah, you do. We talk about it regularly, there's so many, we couldn't summarize them, but often times we attempt to summarize the most impactful ones through the Identification Truths, right? death, burial, resurrection, ascension, seeding. What does that mean to you? Where are your blessings? So there are promises that are made to us and we grow stronger in our faith towards those promises and ultimately towards Him.

So when we think about that whole issue of saving faith, we see that faith is literally an act of the soul, right? This is not something that we do. It's not something that we perform. It's an act of the soul, which looks away from self, as regards to both merit and demerit, and honors the Almighty and all-gracious in a way not indeed in the least meritorious. That's the thing about saving faith. There is no merit to it. Even when we're growing stronger in faith, there is no merit that God places on the faith that we have towards Him.

Does that make sense? If faith is meritorious, then you end up in some kind of Benny Hinn camp. I was reading an article, I can't remember his nephew, who he found himself not believing what the rest of his family was believing, in terms of this basically... Prosperity gospel? Yeah, the prosperity gospel, that's it. So, the more faith you have, the more God is going to bless you, right? And that blessing is seen in financial wealth. That's the Benny Hinn movement, right?

That's so far out. I don't know that we still come across that. It's not an issue in our church, obviously. I don't know if we know folks in our lives that have the prayer of Jabez sitting on their desk, and they're still thinking that blessing comes through a greater amount of faith. But faith in and of itself has no merit.

The only faculty by which we can lay hold of God. It's just one of the ways that we could say it. It's the only thing that we have in order to lay hold of the promises of God. Right? So number two. Like Abraham, how does a believer become absolutely assured of God's promises and facts? How does a believer become absolutely assured of God's promises and facts? What does verse 20 say? He grew stronger. Why do you think he grew stronger in his faith? By reading the Word. Did he have the Bible? No, but God spoke to him. That's right. So he had a declaration from God, right? Verbal, in this case. How do we grow stronger in our faith? Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Do you believe it the first time you read it? In Abraham's case, do you think he believed it the first time he heard it?

Not all of it. In fact, in one case he's laughing. Have you ever laughed at something that God said was true of you? Or thought, no, not the case. A lot of times what God tells us is directly against the circumstances that we're facing in life. Does that... What kind of faith does it require if everything you see and experience is directly against what God is telling you is true? It requires a greater amount of faith, doesn't it?

You grow in regards to that. Whatever your situations are right now, you've got them. You've got circumstances, you've got needs, you've got issues. You've got unknowns, you've got challenges at work or with family members or You've got those circumstances, and it's actually, that's God's school of faith. Right? I mean, your circumstances are God's school of faith. He's teaching you. He's teaching you, where do I sin? In regards to the promises that He's made to us. And the things that He's told you that are true of you.

And I think if you're honest with yourself, a lot of times it's, you know, we're in the week to middle category. We know where we are. Right? We know where we are. Are we resting on the character of God like Abraham did? I mean, that's what we see here.

He's resting on the very characteristics of God. He's sovereign. He can do what he says he's going to do. Having committed himself to God's promise, which was wholly beyond human possibility, he went steadily forward. This had the double result of giving glory to the God whom he believed. and making Abraham himself stronger and stronger in faith. I read a Hungry Heart that mentioned trials, or God's school of faith.

I thought that was just very... I'm sure we've heard it and said it a million different ways. You need your needs. We've talked about it like that too. But I just really like that way of thinking about it. The other thing it said in the same hungry heart. It said, it's more important to trust God than to enjoy life. I was like, no. Can't you have both? Can we have both? We're not looking to live life in a slum, bummed out kind of way just so that we can make sure We're trusting God.

I mean, God gives us real joy. And that surpasses all of these other situations in life. It's a joy that's not a happiness, per se. You can be happy, too. But it's a joy that rests itself on the very character of God. It's that faith that we're talking about, right? That personal faith. So I just thought that was an interesting perspective and I've been talking about that with my kids a little bit. It's more important to trust the Lord than it is to be happy with the situation that you're in, right?

I mean, we spend a lot of time talking about enjoying life. And when we think about raising children, we want our kids to be happy. We want them to have the things that will lead to happiness. We don't want them to suffer, and we don't want them to struggle. We don't wish that for ourselves. We're oftentimes trying to guide our children in the best circumstances so that they have the best opportunities they can ever have. We want those things for them.

It's just interesting how God is using those circumstances and those issues, not for them to enjoy life, but to trust Him. And that's really the ultimate goal that He has in each of our lives, is to bring us to a place of greater trust. Right? That make sense? Yeah. And that's where we are. That's where, you know, again, I want my kids to enjoy the things that are before them. But ultimately, trusting the Lord is the most important component of all of that. I have a question. I've been thinking about this. Abraham only had a sin nature, right? I mean, that was his nature. But somehow, apart from that, he was able to trust God, right? Right. How does that work, when you don't have a new nature? Well, it's the Holy Spirit convicts sin, right?

But it wasn't in Goliath for Abraham. But it still acted on on the men of the Old Testament, men and women. I've often thought that Abraham, when he believed God, he didn't get the kind of life we have, but he got life. He got a relationship with God.

And the non-believer, believes out of the old man he could save. He doesn't get saved first and then believe. It doesn't work that way. He believes out of his soul. And so he believes on the life. It isn't the life, like I said, it isn't the life we have. The other point I wanted to make is that the confirmation that Abraham received and that we all received is a result of our belief. He doesn't confirm that our faith is strong, or that what he told us is true and beneficial to us until we believe. Otherwise he would be confirming something we didn't believe, or wavering about it. Yeah, I think, does that help answer your question? Yeah.

I've got a list of contrasts that talk about the qualities of unbelief, and then they oppose them to faith. So I'd just like to read you some of them. I'm not going to read you all of them. This comes from John Bunyan, and there's like 23 of them. But I'm also going to try to translate the believeth and unbelieveth question into terminology as I go. So if I fumble, you'll know why.

So faith believes the word of God, but unbelief questions the certainty of the same. I don't know for sure if that's right. And that's what unbelief does. And one thing I should add to that first quality, is there a gray area of faith? Is there this like, you know, here's the positive, here's the negative, and then there's like some kind of gray area here. Does faith work like that?

No. Huh? No. Oh, no, Addy says. Is there a neutral zone for faith? You can't walk the fence. What if you said, I'm thinking about it. Okay, got it. I'm thinking about it. Just give me some time to think about it. That's not faith. That's a no. That's a no. That's this guy. So you can think about it as long as you want to think about it. But what you're not doing is having faith. That's unbelief. Until it's belief.

We savvy on that? We agree? The world wants there to be a neutral zone in everything, right? That's not the way it works. And that's not the way it works with the gospel. If you share the life-saving message of what God has done on behalf of a of us through Christ, on the cross, burial and resurrection, and somebody says, that's really interesting, I'm going to think about that.

Okay. But you're saying no until you say yes. Okay. And that's the way our faith works too. Hey God, just give me some time to think about it. Okay. Recognize what you're doing is you're having unbelieving attitudes. Yeah, I think there's an aspect of information from the word of God that comes to you and it forces you to make a decision. When you're presented with the gospel you can't be neutral about it. You either accept it or you reject it. By saying I've got to think about it, you really reject it. Right. I think that was kind of the point that I wanted to make. Now let me ask you a question.

Does God work on our hearts to convict us of things? Yes. So recognize that even when you're unbelieving about a promise, God is still at work in you, to convince you, right? And that's what's so gracious, that He is persistent about us. He's tracking us down, even while we're saying, I'm not believing this, Lord. He's saying, I'm going to keep convincing you of my love for you, and how I am who I say I am, in whatever area that you're going through. Does that make sense? I love that he is like that. He is persistent about us. He seeks us. So, a second quality to compare.

Faith believes the word because it is true, but unbelief doubts because it is true. Faith sees more in a promise of God to help than in all other things to hinder. But unbelief, notwithstanding God's promise, says, how can these things be? There's aspects of unbelief that sound like this. It's too good for it to be true about me. Maybe for you. You're a much better person than I am, but it's too good for me. What is that saying? Unravel that a little bit. Have you ever heard somebody say something like that?

God can't save me. Or maybe that's true, you know, that we're seated in the heavenlies, but God would never want... I mean, maybe I believe in Him saved, but certainly I'm not going to believe I'm seated in the heavenlies. I mean, God wouldn't have me there.

I'm just barely, you know, just barely made it in the front door. Much less the throne room. What does that mean? Unbelieve. It limits God, I think. Yeah, why? That's a good point. He can't do it. Right. Where's the object of faith in that situation? Where's the focus on a thought like that? It's like, I mean, God can't do that because of me. Or wouldn't do that because I'm not worthy of those kinds of things. It limits God because of your own limitation. You're focusing on the creature instead of the creator.

And what he said is true, right? It really makes God a liar. It makes God a liar. If you want to be brutally honest. You couldn't do that. And also... In a... kind of a clothing of humility, it actually makes you very arrogant to say, you know, what God can't do. Even though He said it's true. So, yeah, you can oppose faith with this idea of how can these things be? How could this ever be true?

Faith will make, how do I do this one? Faith will make DC love in the heart of Christ when with his mouth he gives reproofs but unbelief will imagine wrath in its heart when his mouth With his mouth and and word he says he loves us. It's hard to translate those sayings We'll skip that one Faith will help the soul to wait, though God defers to give, but unbelief will snuff and throw a ball if God makes any tarrying. Faith will wait, though God defers to give. Have you ever been in a situation where your faith didn't produce results?

Okay guys, we've been working on this a long time. How much longer are we going to wait? Is faith impatient? It can be. What is that? What is impatience a quality of? Unbelief. Right? It's interesting. I don't know that I've That's a newer thought to me, to be honest. But faith is not an impatient... Impatience is not a quality of faith.

I guess kind of going back to number one and what you're talking about now, the kids, I find is kind of a mind whack. Is there ever a time where he's not working in your life? Is there? What are you going to say? Does he take Fridays off? Or maybe you're on the bench for today. Yeah, today. He's a little busy. You're not in the game today. A little busy somewhere else.

It's kind of a mind-blowing thing when you think he's always working. He's always coming at you with his love, with his everything. all the time. And it's our receiving that, and I think that's in our weak to strong faith, which I think the weak to strong is spiritual growth, if you look at it. It's our spiritual growth, the more we grow, the more I think we're strong in our faith and believe in what he says. But it's kind of a thought that he's always working. We may be rejecting it, we may be weak in the faith, we may be working.

And what is he working towards? Bringing us, well ultimately glory to him through our relationship with, through his son. And to bring glory to him. And bring us to a dependency upon him. Bring us, you know, conformity to Christ. All of those things. Transforming? All of those things. But he's working 24-7 on that. So in the trials and the blessings and the day and every, he's not missing. And that's kind of a he's working to conform us to the image of Christ.

Who thinks that's true of them right now? Okay, let's say this is you with faith, okay? You're saved. You're in the door, okay? And this is the image of Christ. Now, if what Courtney says is true, God's doing something in you to conform you to the image of Christ.

Every day, every minute, every hour. Maybe not when you're sleeping. Maybe. So if you all were to fill out this survey, and it was anonymous, where do you put yourself? metrics are not good because you're looking at yourself at this. Okay. And I think it's... Is this a fair assessment at all? No. No, why? Because positionally we're all here. Yes. That's right. So, okay, positionally. What about conditionally? Are we on here somewhere? It fluctuates as the Holy Spirit teaches.

I think what you were right on. And I think you're right too, Mike. The point is, if we're looking at this scale, what are we looking at? Yourself. The condition. Who you are in Christ is already established. This is how He sees you already. Do you believe that? I mean, that's the issue. Do you, right now, believe this to be true? Because that drives the condition, which is not your focus. He does the living through you. It's not your job to figure out where you are on the scale of God conforming you. You could spend a lot of time thinking about it.

Have I gotten better than I was last year? Let's do an annual review. We have those at work, right? Let's talk about your performance And if there's any need to give you a raise, maybe give you a new title change. So we've got that annual review concept. Does God do that with us? No. That's not how He works. Interesting. Interesting thoughts there. Number three.

Do you think Abraham was taking a risk by believing? Explain. So, is faith risky? I guess that's the larger question. What do you think? No. You want to know why? Yeah. Because faith has facts to rest in. What do you guys think about that? It also has to have an object. Okay. So it kind of comes back to a little bit of what we talked about last week. Here's the facts you're talking about, right? We can put that in there too. Where do those facts come from? As a source. That's right.

So, the real question is, is it risky to trust the character of God as to what He said? No. Absolutely not. You're telling me that faith is not like a leap. You ever heard of leap of faith? Do Christians take leaps of faith? I don't know where I'm going to land, Have you ever heard that? Yeah, there have been times where I thought of the Christian life as a leap of faith. I mean, there's a reason that terminology exists. J.D., could you say that if you don't have identification truths down, that you do in fact take leaps of faith?

If you don't understand your position, So, the majority of Christianity lives in this world, right? My condition. Because they don't, even though it's very clear in the word of God, and we don't have to call it condition or position, it can be referred to as different things. But the majority of Christianity does not understand who they are in Christ. They don't understand their position. What's true of them now, because of what Christ did, And they don't understand the concept of when I am trusting in the position that God has placed me in, it is Christ that does the living through me.

It's not me performing in order to please God. So, to kind of unpack what you're saying there, do the folks, and has anybody been in that place before? That's me, for the majority of my Christian life. trying to figure out how to get... how God was going to improve upon me conditionally. Right? I mean, positional truth... I knew it before I got here, of course, but it was later in our Christian lives that we... that the Lord brought these truths to us. And it's still a process of trusting all of those truths, right?

I think we're all in that camp. Positionally, I've been crucified, buried, risen, ascended, and seated. I don't know that stuff. I'm a believer, you know, I'm indoor, but I don't know that other stuff. Am I taking leaps of faith? That was your question. I just made it a lot longer. What do you guys think? What do you mean by leap of faith? Well, blind faith.

It's like, all I know Conditionally, is God blessing me or not? Am I walking with God or not? But I don't necessarily know who I am. My identity is unclear. My identity is largely, okay, I'm saved by faith and now I've got to pull up my bootstraps and get her done. I guess, is it any different than saving faith? Is it the same faith as you believe Him in all of what you now know as you grow up? Is it a different faith? I don't think it is. I don't think so either.

The Bible says it's from faith to faith, right? We walk, and so it's from saying faith to now walking faith. It's the same faith. I think what you're asking is, and what you're highlighting, there's these positional truths that you as a new immature Christian may not fully understand, but you go, I want it. I buy it, I'll grow into it. Perhaps that's a leap of faith, if you will. Perhaps we as Christians can do that.

Not fully understand the truths, but we will grow into those truths. And I think in some respects you don't have those truths. It's been relatively late in my Christian life to understand that those positional truths were mine today, regardless of where I was conditionally. I didn't understand that for a lot of years.

I think it's also interesting that while faith is the only response that God asks for in terms of the Gospel message, His salvation and everything that is true of that salvation is available through faith. We know that the Holy Spirit is working to convince and convict us of those things, or that truth, but it is the only thing that God asks of us.

We grow in our understanding of that faith over time, and that's what we're talking about here, weak versus strong. The faith itself doesn't change, but our understanding of what we are believing and how we are believing, how often we are believing it, does grow. And that's why Abraham grew with respect to his faith in the promises of God. And we do too.

And to your point, Matt, I think that's where I believe God to reveal all the things that are true in the scripture, but I haven't understood all those things yet. And so in some conditions it's a, or in some ways we might say it's a bit of an uninformed kind of faith.

But I'm trusting in the character of God who saved me to reveal those things to me over time. I think the issue here is, it's like does the gospel save you? The gospel doesn't save you, it's the savior who saves you. And so it becomes a personal thing with the person of God.

I trust him because he gave me information. The father talked about believing what the son did to satisfy him on my behalf, and so I believed him. I believe the information, so as I move along this line, more information shows up, and the only reason I buy it is because I believe the one who sent it. And so it becomes a personal, a growing relationship with the God of the universe, and so there comes increasing, increasing trust and reliance that he always is looking out for my benefit, and as he reveals and shows me these things, I believe him because I believe him.

That's it. I think that's the real point, guys, is I believe in the character of God and nothing else, or nothing could be more sure than that. Right? And I think that's what Abraham did. Yep. Absolutely. There's always the train wrecks, though. No, there's not. And I think feelings have a lot to do with that. Do we trust our feelings rather than what God said? Faith in the facts is the train on the tracks. Feelings follow. We're growing, right? In faith.

I think the real risk, I'm talking about is it risky to believe, I think the real risk is not to believe. I was going to ask you, because you couched the question in risk, which is usually a cost benefit, gain loss. So the question is, what does Abraham have to lose in this case? What was Abraham risking? by believing. He had to be gambling something, so that's the question. What was he risking here? Since you used the word risk, I'm curious, what did he have to lose? Right. I don't think there is a risk. That's right. The question is wrong. But it brought up this conversation about which is sometimes we have to ask the wrong questions so that we can get to the right. And that's Mike's doing.

Although I will say he's taught me well. I think Abraham reckoned something here. The impossibility of human flesh to deliver a child. Versus the impossibility of God to break His promise. Right. Anyway, I know which way I'm choosing. Right. Interesting. Yeah. There's always a contrast. There's always belief and unbelief. And there's something associated with both of those, isn't there? I was going to say, you're kind of risking peace if you believe or don't believe. I mean, that's kind of... I guess. I don't know, because the same thing is going to happen either way. You can have peace or not have peace about it. If you choose to not believe, it's not a question of whether or not you will or won't have peace. You won't, right?

Well, yeah, exactly. So, I guess where we were trying to get with this question is that there's a black and a white. And one says, I trust in the character of God. Nothing could be more sure. And there is no risk associated with trusting in the character of God. Right? We can flip that around.

Perhaps from a human perspective, you might say, I am, the risk I am, and this is from the carnal mind, I have to let go and not rely on self. So you reckon that the risk is, I've got to let this go, and this is God's work, not my own. And there's a sense of ceding control, right? Perhaps. I think you're right. I think our human condition puts risk into all of these things.

We try to intellectually process out what am I going to gain, what am I going to lose, if I don't or if I do. But what God is asking for is that simple faith in his character, not for you to assess the situation and determine what is risky or not as risky. It is That's what we do here, right? This is where we're constantly assessing the conditional outcomes.

It's a huge risk to the old man, but not to the new man in Christ. Tell me why that's the case. What do you mean? Well, because the conditional work of the Spirit of God is to get us to stop relying on our old man. and emotions and feelings and environment and everything that goes with that and just to simply trust God and his character. He says it and that's good enough. So let's go to question 7 then since that's what you just started talking about. We'll bounce back to 4 in a minute. Question 7.

Do we have a continual tendency in our wretched hearts, sin nature, to find some cause in ourselves or in our own faithfulness for God's reckoning in us righteous? Let's read that one more time. Do we have a continual tendency in our sin nature to find some cause in ourselves or in our own faithfulness for God's reckoning us righteous?

Yeah. In the sin nature. This is a tendency. It's the core element of the sin nature. To find himself significant in your life. Right? I'll read you something. This comes from Miles Stanford. If it will come up, otherwise you might have to hear me quote it loosely. It will come up for whatever reason.

So there's an allegory of a a ship, and the captain on the ship is replaced by another captain. The old captain is taken to the bottom of the ship, tied and chained down, and it is made known that he is no longer in control of the ship. So, Miles relates this allegory to the way nature works in our life. He's an opposed monarch, is the term that Miles uses. He's no longer in control, he no longer runs the ship, but he's still present and he can still make his wishes known, even though they're from the gallows. And they're muffled, but they're steady and they're constant.

I remember an illustration where you have the same kind of scenario, I think my teacher Charlie Puff used this one. When you're out, when you've retired from the military, you're so constantly used to taking orders, right? I mean, it's the nature of the system. You find yourself several years down the road, You run into someone that you used to serve under. And all of a sudden he starts giving you directives. What you need to do. What you need to buy. How you need to buy them. He even has you down on the floor giving them 10. The issue is that you are no longer serving underneath him.

He can continue to bark at you all day long and that is what the sin nature does. Bark, bark, bark, bark constantly. That old ship captain at the bottom of the boat won't shut up. It won't. It has to make itself significant in your life. That's the nature of the sin nature, is to constantly tell you what to do.

My friend Calvin told me on the phone last week, he said, You walk around all day long with headphones on and you're forced to listen to CNN. As opposed to what? God has abandoned the old man on the cross, but that simple nature still has the desire to be relevant and take some credit. Right?

He wants to get you focused on you. He wants to get you not believing, ultimately. That's his role, but he's not in control any longer. I love the term, he's a deposed monarch. He used to run and reign and rule, and you know how he reigns and he rules. You're very, very familiar with it. He is no longer in control of you. So that's number seven. When he starts barking, what is our attitude? What is our response? Because he's going to bark the moment we walk out this door. You mean he's not barking in here?

No, not in here, because this is the safe zone. It's engineered. It's a sanctified zone. I think it's engineered for you to draw closer to the real captain. I think oftentimes, and we all have our own verbiage that we work through in our brain, you know, our spirit with this, but it's something to the effect of, the sin nature can speak as much as it wants to, but I reckon that nature to be put to death on the cross and has no control, while the presence is real, has no control. over my life. And it is true of me that I am literally being conformed in the image of Christ and positionally I'm already there.

You have no role in my life. You were put to death on the cross, Romans 7, right? I was put to death. I was put to death. So explain death. Separation. Correctly, yeah. Yeah, separation. I'm separated from the control of that sin nature. Right? Yeah, the sin nature don't die. No, I'm separated from it. You die. Yep. To it. Yes. I'm dead to it. I think that's a key point. Yep. You have to work through this death process if you're going to see the Lord's work in your life opposing to sin nature that is still barking at you constantly.

But isn't it so much easier when you believe the positional truths? You're really trying to muster up stronger faith if you don't have the object of God's promises and oppositional truths. If you don't know those things, you're trying to muster up greater faith. And you're trying to get this guy just a little bit closer to where he needs to be. And instead of seeing that it's already done. And there's a place of resting.

Right? We're not battling out the sin nature. We're resting in the fact that we have been separated from it and made alive to Christ. Right? And that's a restful place. And we're also not saying, okay God, just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. He has already made those paths and he will show us the way that we can walk through them. Right? It's not a matter of us figuring out, oh, I've got to get...

I want to get into missions. Where should I go? I want to start flipping through all the available mission opportunities that may be out there. It can be as little as, boy, I better wear a tie today. Yeah. Alright, number four. What do I got? Five minutes? Four. Four? Alright. Number four. Is faith the absence of doubt? Yes. So we have, is doubt the opposite of faith? So we have, yes I believe and no I don't believe, right? So unbelief is the opposite of belief, right? No faith is the opposite of faith. Where does doubt fit in there?

Sounds like a trick question. If I'm doubting in my faith about something that God has said, what am I doing? You're not trusting. You're questioning Him. You're questioning, right? So, I'm not believing. If I'm doubting, I'm unbelieving still. Now, the way that you worded this is faith is not absence of doubt, it's the mastery over doubt. We are all beset with doubts, but we shouldn't feel guilty by the presence of doubt. We are to master doubt. It is not sinful to have doubts, not to master them is. And how is it mastered? How is doubt mastered? By faith. Don't feel guilty about doubting.

It's part of it. Well, the doubt comes from the dethroned old man, you know, asking you the question. Did God really do that? Yeah. Did he really, you know, whatever you're doubting about, did God really take care of that sin or that circumstance? And so the doubt is in your mind, but it's by faith you master it by just saying, wait a minute, I know who I am. I know what's going on here. I trust you.

Yep. Cool. I better not go on to another question. Let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer. Father, we're so thankful that you have reached out to us through Christ and provided a Savior that we might be saved, that we might be placed into Christ, and that we might have this wonderful wonderful truths that we are dead, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated all in you. And it is your responsibility in our life to conform us and transform us as we trust those truths and the promises that you have made to us. And Lord, I just pray that as we take these teachings of Abraham and how he grew in his faith, and how you credited it to him as righteousness, Lord, that we would find ourselves growing stronger in our faith as we continue to behold you through your word and trust you at your word. And so we just ask that you would continue to work in our lives in that way to your glory. And it's in your name that we pray. Amen.