Faith - Lesson 10

Alright, good morning. Let's get started here on Lesson 10. So this is the four major aspects of what kind of faith? Biblical. B? I said the. The biblical faith. Yes, that's right. So, we just keep mentioning that in the sense that we're looking at faith from a biblical perspective.

And there's four major pillars, if you will, that we've been kind of circling around and trying to establish in our understanding. And as we get started on Lesson 10, we looked at that first question. If you remember, we started that last week, but the question number one there is, what are the four major aspects of biblical faith? So, if you're kind of reviewing or getting back into the swing of things with this class, or maybe just visiting, this is a good question to help establish where we've been over the last several months in terms of biblical faith. I started looking into the first aspect last week and I went ahead and erased it and said we're going to do it again.

Remember that? Monique? Yeah. I don't pick on anybody. So what is the first biblical aspect of faith? Essence. The essence of faith. What's the verse that we use to establish our understanding of this? Anybody remember? Hebrews 1. Can you look that up for me? Or someone look it up for me here real quick? Let's read it again.

And now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So we looked at the word substance. Do you remember when we studied that word, substance? Without going into the depth of it all, what was an equal term that we said could be used interchangeably for that word substance? Do you remember?

Reality or assurance. Reality. Now, if we're talking about the essence of faith, and we're talking about the very first aspect of biblical faith, whose perspective is this from? God's. God's perspective, isn't it? What does this have to do with you, at least initially?

Nothing. Nothing. And that was something big, wasn't it? That was kind of a tough thing to swallow for us. I remember our first several weeks, we were like, Telling Mike, he'd just fallen off his rocker. We tell him that every week. I was going to say, we still do that. So we said this was from God's perspective. Say that again, I was getting a page here, so I didn't listen.

We said that Hebrews 11.1 establishes the fact that faith is the substance of things not seen, and that word substance means reality, or assurance of. We established the word reality there. So we said faith is reality. What do you think of when you hear that? Try explaining that to an unbeliever. Faith is reality? You've got an unbeliever in your mind. Try explaining that to someone that does not understand the scripture or has rejected it.

That it's real? Your entire reality. The essence of your entire reality is what? It's faith. That is a tough thing to explain to an unbeliever. That's a tough thing to explain to a Christian, isn't it? Is your reality established by God? It is. And how is it understood? Through the Holy Spirit. Okay, the Holy Spirit definitely clarifies, makes that understandable, but how is it true? It's true regardless of whether or not you believe in it, right? And I just gave you a hint. But the Holy Spirit convicts you and teaches you, but is it, do you understand the reality that you are present in without faith?

We have to hear the word, believe the word, and it has to be revealed to you by the Holy Spirit. What are synonyms for faith? I don't know that we ever covered this. We could say this is a class on four major aspects of biblical trust. What's another one? Belief. Faith. So when you do a faith study, you're studying biblical trust, biblical belief, biblical faith.

And so, you don't get to understand the reality that God has put in place in this world. He's the creator. You don't get to understand it without God's mechanism for understanding. And what is that mechanism? It is faith. But, is it real outside of your own personal faith? Yes. That was the big thing, right? That's what we all kind of struggled with initially. Again, I go back to the question, imagine explaining everything that you see, there is a deeper reality to that. And someone saying, nope, you know, I'm an evolutionist and it's only based on what I see.

Well, Hebrews 11.1 flies in the face of that proposed worldview, doesn't it?

And a lot of Christians have adopted that same sense of the world. It's like, well, if I don't see God working in something, if I don't see Him right here, right now, doing something in my life, then I struggle with the reality of God. And even believers do that. Anytime that we choose not to walk by faith, are we struggling with God's reality in our life? We are. Well, is it because it's in God's timing and not in our timing? Maybe. Yes, always. True. Mike? That sounds like a cop-out to me. Which part?

Well, it's in God's timing so I can not live by faith because he hasn't come and done some sort of special work with me when in fact the reality is he's constantly, aggressively revealing who he is to us as believers in his words. Okay, so this is a good question. What does reality have to do with God's timing? Okay, wait a minute. Because you, Mike, said that If you pray for something, it's not necessarily when you want it, it's in God's timing.

Is that a wrong word? It's not so much that I'm praying for something, it's a matter of am I believing what is already true about God, about his essence, who he is, and what he's revealed to me. And so it isn't a matter of him being slow to reveal. It's a matter of my being slow to believe.

I think in the essence of faith, you can say, you know, like what you're saying, do you trust that God will provide if you're praying for a way out of a certain situation? Do you trust enough, do you have faith that God will keep his promises? And what are his promises?

You know, that this earth, like this life that we live are, you know, conditional, we're attached to this flesh, we're going to have problems and issues and things like that. But he's still true, we remain faithful, all that, you know. So I mean, does he ever change based on our understanding of reality?

No. We oftentimes think about God intervening in reality, don't we? It's like, hey, God, could you step out of heaven, come down to earth where we are, and help with this situation? That's kind of the miracle-mindedness of Christians. It's like, hey, this is reality. If you could step in for a little bit and do your little magic thing and then head on back up to heaven, I'd really appreciate your attendance to this matter for today. Haven't you ever felt like that? Yeah! I feel like that sometimes, and you know what that problem in my mind is? It's that I have a misunderstanding of the reality that I'm living in.

And so many people are there. And so many people are there, including believers. We are there regularly, and that's something to realize as a believer, and this will affect your walk. This will affect how you walk the Christian walk, is that God does not intervene in reality. There's not two separate realities. There is the reality, the true nature of how God created this world, and then there is a worldly lie of reality that you buy into, and you convince yourself of. So God's the author, not the interventionist. That's right.

If you think of God as someone who is having to intervene, did he really create and own? Or is he just like a God who made it, stepped back and said, I don't know what's going on, maybe I can come and tweak the dials a little bit every now and again. There's a system of belief that follows that, this idea of open theism, where God created and stepped back and reality is no longer in his control. He separated himself from the reality that we live in. But when you look at things from a biblical perspective, you realize that All reality is based on how God designed it, and He is at the center of it.

He doesn't intervene in your life. That's not what God does. He is your life. Does that make sense? God doesn't intervene in your life. Right, because we have choices. He gives us choices. From a biblical perspective, your reality is the things of God. That's reality. So, he doesn't intervene in his own things. Those are the things of God. He is the author and creator, sustainer, manager, all of those attributes of the Creator Himself are part of how He manages His reality. And for the believer, that reality is personal and knowable and intimate because you get to peek into certain revealed things of God, right?

That's reality. That's not something that you step into and then you step out of and it's all back to, you know, whatever's happening in the news. Do you say that walking in the Spirit could be reworded to be walking in reality, this reality? I would say it that way. Because the Holy Spirit, and we're moving on to some of these other aspects, and we'll go ahead and write them down because we're starting to dovetail into them, but walking by the Holy Spirit is walking according to reality. And that's the whole not I but Christ, right? This is something that's different.

I wouldn't say that I had a clarity and still may not have an ultimate clarity on how deep and impactful this is. But I wake up in the morning and I oftentimes will think about my reality and all the things that I've got to get done. And maybe God's going to come and be a part of it for a little bit here and a little bit there, and then I'll check back in. But what I'm failing to recognize is that From the moment that I wake up to the moment that I go back to sleep, there is nothing outside of my true biblical understanding of reality.

God's designed experience for me that day. And it is known through the scripture. It has nothing to do with what I see happening in Russia or what I see happening across the world. It has to do with what is the Lord doing based on His character through the Word of God to explain Himself to me. That comes through these other aspects of faith.

So let's just write these other ones down. It's very easy to tongue twist yourself with this stuff, okay? And my point here is going to be, as we start to define these things, we're going to see that there's so much overlap that these pillars almost stand together. They're not like four corners. They're almost standing like back to back to back. There's so much overlap here, and that's one of the things that's hard. So the second one, what is it? And what is that? What's the Stefan article do to the word faith?

Makes it impersonal. Impersonal? Is that a word? Impersonal? Not personal. Makes it outside of us. Makes it God. Could the faith be referring to the essence of faith? Sure. Well, if they're all together. Could it be referring to a component of the reality? Sure. Like what? What's a subset of things that you might believe within the entire reality of God's world? Love. Truth. Truth. All of that. Salvation. Salvation. So what do we call it? The gospel? So the gospel is a subset of God's entire revealed truth. It's a subset of the things of God, isn't it? And so, in context, the faith could be referring to the essence of faith, it could be referring to a subset of that reality, like the gospel message. Can it refer to personal faith? Sure. What is personal faith? Faith in the faith. I like that. So the third one is personal, isn't it? So what's personal faith? It's resting in what?

That word is probably one of the most important words in this class, when it gets to this situation of personal faith. You think about this being active. And again, using the analogy or the idea of activating faith throughout the entire day. It's not something that you're actively going out and like, God intervened in this, and finally I get it all back under control, and I'm walking by faith, and all of a sudden I'm not, and now I've got to go actively be a part of trying to figure out, open my Bible to some page in the scripture, and hopefully get that message I needed for today.

This idea of personal faith as resting in the essence of God is something that is rarely explained. So how do you rest? What's required for resting in something? To believe it. You feel at peace. Okay, so believing it is how you rest. A feeling of peace is definitely one of the things that God promises to give us when we rest in Him. But what's required for rest? Not doing work. Not doing work, okay. Well, how about not struggling? Okay, not struggling. Yeah, that would be the opposite of rest, wouldn't it? If you're safe and secure, you're at rest.

And if you believe in that reality through your personal faith, the outcome, It turns out to be rest, because it's a finished fact as you start to understand what he's... who he is, what he's done. Remember this, things of God? We talked about it for like five or six weeks, I think. What did you write there? I can't see. Things of God. The things of God. Okay.

Okay, that comes out of Hebrews 11.1 as well. Resting requires an object, doesn't it? What are you resting in? The things of God. It's like we're resting in what Christ did, right? Absolutely.

The things of God is a progressive revelation, aren't they? When you read Genesis 1, you don't know all the things of God. that have been revealed. You know what God is revealing in Genesis 1. So, you need to read Genesis 2. And you need to keep reading, because as you read, you will progressively be revealed more about the things of God. And as you get into the New Testament, and you start to see the things of God being made even more clear through the person of Christ, the things of God begin to become even more personal to you.

And that's a progressive revelation. So we get to enjoy that, being those that look back. And so that's just a study in how God reveals himself, but it doesn't apply to us in the sense that we aren't like the Jews that were stuck in the middle of a certain amount of revelation with hope for a coming Messiah. We look back and see a Messiah who has come, and we see a Messiah who will come again that provides another type of hope. The things of God become much more clear as time moves forward and how God reveals himself. But we have the full revelation until he returns, don't we? Are there going to be more things of God? Is our understanding of God's reality going to expand? Yes. Yeah. We've got a snapshot. Right?

You're going to spend the rest of eternity resting in the things of God. I think of growing in the knowledge and grace of our Lord. Resting in that, knowing that I don't know it now, but I will. These things that I don't understand now. Things I struggle with. When I struggle with something, it's like, what gets rid of the struggle is to believe and to realize that God's doing the work, and the work is finished.

No, that's right. I mean, there's nothing that God has not revealed, or I should say, God has completely revealed everything needed in order to be a trustworthy character, hasn't he? If you can trust him to do these things, and there's the unknowns of the future, can you trust him to manage and take care of those things as well? Yeah.

Well, I don't know where I heard this this past week, This person said that, you know, I always thought, well, God's in control and I'm not. But they said, God gave us control over the earth. He gave that to us and we are supposed to take care of the earth. What? I agree with that. There's nothing wrong with that.

The difference is, remember we talked about creator? So we had creator. Versus, what was it? Do you remember? Created. Creature. Which one are you? Creature. Will you ever be the creator? No. Will you ever transcend and all of a sudden be in this reality?

No. Well. No. And if you think that you will, then Buddhism's right for you. Or Hinduism. Yeah. Mike? I think one of the problems with that viewpoint is that it doesn't take into account that we're heavenly people and not earthly people anymore. Well, let's establish that, just real quick. So, when the Creator created the human race, Adam and Eve, Genesis chapter 2. What's that? Early on. Early on. On day 6.

Did the Creator give the creature responsibilities? And did they include managing the Earth, as it were? And that particular point in time was the Garden of Eden. Did He give the creature, Adam and Eve, the responsibility of gathering and organizing and naming the animals? We sometimes call it Lord over the Earth, with a little L. It's not the same thing. God gave mankind responsibility over his creation.

Certain parts of it. Does that mean we have global warming and we should include that? Do we have global warming? No, I don't believe so. Well, I think we do. I actually... This is not going... We're not going to use this particular issue to get into environmentalism and so forth.

But should believers be concerned about the world that we live in? Yes, it's part of our responsibility as creatures. But, is that responsibility, does it negate the further revelation that we have about ourselves as being heavenly people? So, what is going to happen to this earth?

You are the first... Christ was the first of a new kind, wasn't he? So there was a re-creation, right? And are you part of that re-creation? The only thing that's lacking for you is that you have your body still. This thing is the only part that is not new. and there's a whole new created realm for the new creation to dwell.

So, does that give us perspective on how we view this earth? It does. It's groaning for what? The feeling of the sons of God. Where do you fit into that? On the sun. Alright. So, is it more important to get locked into a tree or concern for a fellow human being to know the truth of God's salvation plan for them. Yeah, the latter. Okay. So that puts things in responsibilities and perspective, doesn't it? But it doesn't mean that we destroy the world that God created for us. I think we can be biblical environmentalists. Okay? Good. Yay.

Because, you know, sometimes it seems like Some of this is pretty obvious with like icebergs melting and stuff like that. And I have a tough time when I hear like, oh, you know, this isn't really happening. It's like, it's happening. And I don't see how it's a conflict for us to ruin the planet, you know, and it to be part of God's plan. It's like, we're going to be destroyed. Maybe we're going to do it ourselves. So we have to be careful. And I'm going to leave this at this, just so that we can be on task.

There is an agenda with everything you hear. And there is an agenda of an alternate reality. There is a desire of the world to communicate on its own systems of belief. Whether or not you acknowledge it or see it, it is real. There's no one that's neutral out there just saying, hey, I don't know what's back here or over there, but this is an issue. There's an agenda, and that agenda is based on a worldview. You need to understand where that worldview takes you. And environmentalism has a worldview that puts the creature in the Creator's place. Wouldn't it be correct to say it's part of God's plan that this earth is going to be destroyed? Yes. Yeah. So it's kind of like maybe it's going to be destroyed by our own sin. Absolutely right. Yeah.

I don't see how it's a But that's a worldview. You have a biblical worldview about this and I'm just saying that any other alternate option given to you through the media or through a friend or whatever has an agenda and it has its own worldview or reality tied to it. You need to understand what that is. So I can keep my biblical view that this stuff's happening because it's God's plan versus this stuff is happening because man is has such a big influence on what is happening. Man, just man, not God.

I think so. And again, our concerns with these issues really should drive us to a deeper desire to communicate the person of Christ. That's our focus. That's our world. That's our reality. That's where our rest is. In the midst of all this bad news, we have rest in the things of God. We have rest in the creator of those things, the revealer of those things. And we need to keep our minds set on those things.

And that's where personal faith comes in, isn't it? Another thought? God has revealed to us in Colossians, actually, that he sustains and controls everything so it's the height of arrogance to think that mankind can destroy what God in his sovereignty has put together so it doesn't mean that you throw trash out your window but the basic premise is that I have a sovereign God and the environment that he has me living in is part of his sovereignty and I am responsible to Him. The corollary to that is, where is our citizenship? Our citizenship is in Heaven.

We're ambassadors here. Our job is to reflect and talk about Him and focus people on Him. The tendency is for us to become focused on the earth and all that. We're ambassadors. Our job is to reflect Christ, to point people to Christ. And yeah, we're not supposed to trash everything. We're responsible citizens under subjection to the authorities of governments and things like that. But our focus is to be ambassadors for Christ, not ambassadors for the world. And our focus has to be back on Him. That's the key. Our citizenship is not here. Are you an American? Yeah. I'm a heavenly person.

When we went to Canada, we were in Canada for five years, and we've all had situations where we're not liked because of where we came from. I got the double dose. I came from Texas. to Colorado and I got that dose. I went from Texas to Canada and I got the Americans are the problem and then I came here and I'm like, you Texans are the problem. So I had to get caught up to this pretty quick. It's like, I'm not really concerned about that.

What I'm concerned about is my citizenship and where I truly belong and who I truly am has nothing to do with where I was born or where I live today or tomorrow, etc. I was just looking in Romans 1.25 and for that, that verse kind of always gets me back to thinking of the difference between, well I just talked about worshipping the creation rather than the creator. Yes. And I think people that don't believe in the creator, this earth is all that they have and this is their God, what they see with their eyes and this is, you know, if I Well, I better be careful.

This is all that they have and so that's everything to them is taking care of this earth. And that verse contextually talks about that big transition from worshipping the Creator to worshipping creation is trading truth for a lie, right? That's the big trade. What was that verse?

Romans 1.25, right? Yeah.

So Mother Earth is not something we need to be concerned with. I don't recognize that term, but no. Well, I'm sorry, I'm concerned. You're concerned for the Earth? Yeah. I'm concerned for my grandchildren, for all children, the way that things are going. Well, there's reason for concern. If our reality is only focused on the things of this Earth, you better darn well be concerned. But it's like the hope is, is that even with this deterioration, it's God's plan. Right? Was there a time in biblical history when things got worse than they are today? Yes. When? Roman days. Roman days? The flood? The flood.

That's what I had in mind. Do you think there was a woman sitting there listening, thinking, I'm concerned for all of my people? It's Noah's wife. I mean, did anyone listen? I think they were concerned. Yeah, I think they were. But where was their faith? In God. They just didn't stop them from... But did they watch everything go down around them? Look at Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah. Is it going to happen even at a greater degree than it's ever happened before in this earth? The tribulation period has to come, right?

So, I appreciate you bringing that verse up. It is the great trade that man has made. worshiping the creation rather than the creator. So, it's not just stopping at his nature as creator, though. It goes on to be understood about all the things of God. He's sovereign. He's loving. He's just. He's omnipotent. He's omnipresent. It goes on. All those things of God, we rest in.

And that's where personal faith comes in. So number four, to move us into that. That's where this lesson has taken us. Faith as a principal. And that's not your school principal. Although there might be a principal named Faith. And that would be funny. Especially if you guys had a principal named Faith that picked a paddle to you at some point. I was thinking about that recently. My principal and junior high had a paddle with holes in it. He could get that thing going. Like, well, anyway. I'll take my principal to your night any day. I'm just kidding. Okay, so faith is a principle.

Look at Romans 3.27. Question number two.

Let's read Romans 3.27. I'll read it. I want you to find it. It says, Where then is boasting?

Is it excluded? By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. So what are the concepts here? Just the big picture. Let's not go into faith as a principle yet, but what's being talked about here? And you might have to read a little bit above and a little bit below, but that's contextual reading and that's what we should be doing. But what's going on here? being justified by faith and not by works. So was Paul dealing with the issue of certain people believing that they could be justified by works, and his teaching was that not at all. What are you justified by?

Faith. So that's the big picture of what's going on in these verses. Now, do you see the word faith in this verse? It's the very last word. So, what comes before the word faith? Law. Uh oh. Law. Has anybody in a Christian context been slapped with this verse about the law in relationship to Christians? In other words, has it been a proof text? Meaning, has somebody used this to prove something to you about how law works in a Christian age? Anybody? Law of Christ? Does this verse come up as well? Why do you think Paul said, Not by works, but by a law of faith.

Why would he say that? This kind of confused me from time to time. Good, I'm glad. Because to me it's like, well, wait a minute. We're free from the law, but then we have this law of faith. We're free from the law. Why is Paul saying that we're justified by a law of faith?

That's confused me. That's confused you. Has it confused anybody else? What is it in Greek or Hebrew? It's nomos. Doesn't law mean principle there? I don't know. Prove it. A couple years ago from the class that you taught downstairs. I did? I'm responsible for this?

Four uses of the word law. And that really helped me because I think maybe this is the case where law would mean principle. Oh, great. Can't you say that through the law we become conscious of faith? What law? Of sin, we can become conscious of sin. But what law are you talking about? Okay, it's not the Mosaic Law Bruce is saying to me. Do you think it's the Mosaic Law? I thought so.

So through the 613 commandments of do's and don'ts that Moses received and gave to the Jews, we become conscious of sin and choose faith in God's revealed facts, and those revealed facts are contained in the 613 laws. That was the case, but not for you.

That was the case for the Jew, the Israelite, in the time of Moses. I mean, that is what they had by way of revelation. They also knew other things beyond the 613 commandments about the one who would come, who would rescue. I mean, the entire Passover was a picture of that sacrifice that they were trusting in, in order to be made right before God.

Right? So the Passover is a beautiful picture of what was to come, but beyond the 613 commandments, we have additional law. The word law being used throughout the scripture. What law is this talking about? I have, like, a little interlinear thing talking about, well, it has the mosaic. law as well that says that a law demanding faith and moral instruction given by Christ, especially the precepts concerning faith.

Hmm, that's interesting. So now we have a law given by Christ. Right? According to that. Does anybody have a different translation of the word law in their Bible? Unchangeable principle? That's what it says? No, that's a note I have from a class I taught two years ago. The New English Translation actually uses the translation principle, so I'll read it for you. It says, Where then is boasting?

Is it excluded by what principle of works? No, but by the principle of faith. Now, my question is, if this word nomos is used for the Mosaic Law, It's used for law in general. It's used for principle, etc. How do we know which usage the word nomos is referring to in the scripture? How do we know?

Well, does this have something to do with grace? I mean, I was listening to some of those CDs that Bruce gave me of Macaulay. And he was saying, just because there's grace, you still have, is it principle? That you have to go by. What is a principle? That's another question that we're going to have here. That's number three. What is a principle? Oh, I was just thinking of something, sorry.

You know, if there's a law, you can break it. You can't break a principle. Why? Because it's nothing that you can do to break it. Like the principle of gravity, I can't break it. This is interesting. I can't be punished for breaking it. This brings up that question, how do you define principle then? Can it be broken? No. At all? How can the principle of faith be broken? I mean, it would be like the faith being broken. Can gravity be broken? Yes. No. Well, what about this set breaking? Oh, I like how you say no. Can gravity be broken? Not permanently. Did this guy break gravity?

Yes. So let's think about it. A principle is the way something functions within a system. If you have a system that was designed by someone, and he owns, manages, and sustains that system, and creates certain principles to be the case for that system, then you have a principle being defined by its creator. So, we're using gravity as an example.

Is gravity a principle of a system that was designed by God? Yes. Does it always have to exist in the same way? In other words, is God defined by His system? Oh, no. That's a biblical view of a system in relationship to a principle. Let's go beyond the idea of gravity, and if we're going to use this working definition of the principle means the way something functions or the way it operates.

So let's go back to this, we've got a few minutes here, let's go back to this verse, Romans 3.27, and what does that word principle allow us to understand if it's translated that way as opposed to the law? What does that all of a sudden bring insight into? How do we understand better? The whole context here has to do with the method by which God offers justification.

How do you get it? That's the system. That's the system. Right. And one of the principles is, how do you get it? Yeah. And there was a system in place with the Jews. And he's also gone through, in 1, 2, and 3, the three groups of human beings who have, one has their own law, the third group are religious people, Jews, and the first one is just the natural man.

And the principles that they put in play, will any of those principles save a man? And the conclusion is no, it won't. And so you have to go to a well, who's going to put the principles in play in order for a man to be justified. Who's going to be the one who determines what they are?

And it's God who does that. And so the point he's making is if you want salvation, you've got to do it God's way. You can't do it your way. You can't do it any other way. You can't even do it by the Mosaic way, because that isn't what he brought the law in to do. is the correct interpretation of this verse, how do you know that what Mike's saying is true?

Because a lot of other very smart guys, the theologians, will interpret this verse differently. So I'm going to take just a few minutes here to give you some stuff to think about for next week. I want you to write down these verses and I want you to look them up. I'm going to help you do a little bit of Bible observation and interpretation.

So write down Romans 7.21, 7.23, and 7.25.

So 7.21, 7.23, and 7.25.

And then Romans 8.2. And I want you to figure out why those verses matter to this verse. Okay? You're going to need a couple things.

You're going to need to look for keywords that are based on Romans 3.27, because that's the verse the question is about.

There's the word law, and I want you to see how that same word is used in those other verses. Now, maybe you don't have the Greek, but what I'll tell you is that that same nomos word is used in the exact same way in these other verses. And so what you're going to find is that there's a usage of this term elsewhere in Romans that is done in a certain way, and it helps us see how this is also being used in this verse. Once you've looked at those verses, you can understand that what Mike just said is true. It is the actual correct interpretation. But I want you to think about it in terms of how that works. There's a reason those verses are there, so go be a little bit Bible student-esque for the rest of the week and figure out where that word is used and how it's used.

Is that fair? It's a little mini task. So we've started this idea of principle. We're going to keep building on it. It can get you in a bind pretty quick because it's using conjunction with that word law. So we've got to make sure we interpret it correctly.

Alright, let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that it can be understood and that just using sound study and relying on your Holy Spirit, we can come to a clear understanding, and that brings rest. And so Lord, I pray that we would find rest in the subject of faith as a principle, and that it would encourage us each to trust you, the creator of the system of justification, and knowing that it is by faith that you've established as a means to becoming saved. And we just enjoy that. as believers. We thank you for it. It's your name we pray. Amen.