Which Side of the Cross - Lesson 17 week 2

We're in part three, right? Which side of the cross? Oh, this guy always gets stuff erased up here. Last week I was sitting in the back and as a designer I'm looking at Mike's erasing and reworking of the artwork on the board and I'm thinking, half the cross is missing, which is missing? How can we teach this class when things are missing on the board? He doesn't even notice. Maybe you did it. So yeah, we're in part three of which side of the cross am I on.

So the first section went through identification truths, established position, condition, right? And so we looked at those identification truths and remind ourselves of what those are. Then we looked at grace as an environment and how that is truly our operating system that we live within and compared it to law and the differences with God's managing of His church through the environment of grace. And then we kicked off last week this subject of faith.

For those of you that have been sitting in our class for the last several years, you'll notice that we're really going back and touching on a lot of the main points of the last three classes that we've taught. Some of this is a review for you guys, some of you it's new. We leverage Tal Malloy's faith class. or faith study in our faith class, and so we utilize that resource. And a lot of these questions will be reviews from what Hal did years ago, and I think that that study on faith, it's online. All of it can be downloaded, listened to. We've kind of pointed back to it time and time again as being one of the best studies out there, one of the most comprehensive studies on faith that we've ever seen, and I would agree with that.

It's fun to go back and even be reminded of what we taught months ago. Let's move forward with what Mike introduced last week. Mike asked the question, I think, what do you think of when you think of faith? What's the first thing you think of? Personal faith. Personal faith? Do you know anybody named Faith? Personal faith? Okay, let me give you a hint. What do you think of when you think of love? God. Love. Love. What do you think of? What comes to mind? Unconditional. Unconditional. Okay. Marriage. Marriage. Love. Okay. Is love positive in your mind? Is it a good thing? Alright.

Well, look at John 3.19. Just real quick.

Flip over there, it's right close to that favorite verse that you have, John 3.16, so flip it over. Someone read it when they got it. 3.19? Yeah. And this is the judgment, the light has come into the world, and the people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. So it depends on the context, doesn't it? Love can actually have an object that's negative, but when you think of love, you think of it as being positive. But you can have a love for the darkness as well.

I think the point there is just that when we think of the word faith, we gravitate instantly to our personal faith, the faith that we have in the scripture for us. And I think Mike mentioned this, but we want to just be reminded that this concept of faith in the scripture is actually much bigger than just personal faith.

Now personal faith, that is, what would be some synonyms for faith that we might use? Belief? Trust? Yep, I think those are very good ones. And so you have these synonyms that come out of the word faith, but really faith actually has greater synonyms than that, and it really depends on the context.

And so we're going to look at a few of those verses today, Hal goes into a lot more of that and establishes that much further. But faith is not just personal faith, that's one of the aspects of it. But we're going to begin looking at this first major aspect today, and I'll introduce it here in a little bit. Let's go to question one. Is there such a thing as biblical faith and non-biblical faith?

What do you think? Yes. Why? Give me some examples. I have a lot of friends who don't believe in Jesus, and they've got faith in their abilities, The ability to just be strong and take that mountain and let me go. That's right. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we use this term, but not in the sense that others might, but this idea, you got this, you know, you got it, or I got this, I can handle this.

Yeah, I know a lot of people that, honestly, I think that they've tucked away that big That big question of where does my faith ultimately lie? And they're operating on a day-to-day basis on purely faith in themselves to get the job done. You know, to survive. You know, I'm facing a death in the family. I got this. I can handle this. I'll push through it. I'll pull up my bootstraps and get her done.

You know, that's kind of the mentality. And so, you're absolutely right. Faith can be placed in yourself. There is an object to faith, right? And so that's really the question. Something to recognize is that everybody operates by faith. It's not a question of whether or not someone operates by faith. The question is, where is the object of their faith? Or who is the object of their faith? Or what?

I often times will use examples of sharing, communicating with unbelievers and so forth, but the apologetics nature of our walk and how we deal with opposition to the faith, which is another aspect of faith. That's one of the things that I'll often try to get to in a very gentle way with folks is, it's not a matter of whether or not you have faith, it's just a matter of where that faith is ultimately placed.

And oftentimes I'll use the term final authority for that. I'll say, you have a concept, and I mentioned this in class a few weeks ago, you have a concept of right and wrong. you don't like this to happen. And they'll say, no, no, you know, I'm pretty gray. And I'm like, you can actually start to use examples of some of the most horrible things you can imagine. And ultimately, you'll see someone's morality kick in and say, well, I wouldn't go that far. It's okay if you do x, y, and z, but not that.

And once you find that thing that's just horrible in their mind, you've identified a morality. And that morality comes from a faith in a final authority. And what is that final authority for someone? And so when we're talking about non-biblical faith, we're ultimately trying to recognize what are they putting their trust in to define that final authority for their mind, for their thinking, for their life. And what you'll find, and you'll find it in a lot of believers too, is that their faith in that final authority is very inconsistent.

It's a little of me and a little of him, or a little of me and a little of that, right? So even though they might say, yeah, yeah, you know, God, whatever, there's a vast inconsistency with how their faith interacts with that final authority, right? And so for a believer, what is the object of our faith? Christ. Okay, and how do we know Christ? What's that?

The Word. The Word. Exactly. So, Biblical faith focuses on God, the Lord Jesus, and it's through His Word. So our object is very concrete, and it is defined. Our final authority is complete. It's defined, right? And so when we recognize and we think about faith, realize everybody's got it. It's something you just have to absolutely have in order to operate. Besides authority, I think you can demonstrate faith, non-typical faith, in a thousand different things.

I sat down in this chair. I had faith it was going to remain there. I get on a plane. I have faith in the pilot. I have faith in the plane that actually it will get up. When I drive my car in the morning, I have faith that the brakes will work. You can demonstrate faith. We function by faith. on a moment-by-moment basis, biblical and non-biblical. But you can draw somebody to the fact that if they don't believe that they operate by faith, there's a thousand things that you can say, just anything, during the daytime. And then you can start, what is the object of your faith? The brakes, the plane, the chair, anything. So it's the object you have faith in. And is it trustworthy? Yeah. And why do you do that? Because you've known, you've sat in a chair, you know it works. So how do you know? There's a lot of ways to go from the non-biblical faith to the biblical faith. Does anybody have faith the Broncos are going to win today? And not a biblical hope. We're actually going to talk about hope today. That is a biblical perspective.

But yes, you're right. So, question one, is there such a thing as biblical faith and non-biblical faith? Absolutely. And it goes from not only that ultimate final authority where, for us, where did we make the decision to ultimately place our faith in the final authority of what God said concerning us, that He loves us and that He died on the cross for us. It was at salvation. That's where faith kicked off in a biblical sense for us. That was the very first moment for every believer that biblical faith began.

And then it continues in a walk, right? And there's greater knowledge that needs to be understood. And that brings us to question number two. Is there a difference between faith and knowledge? You can know something, but do you have the confidence in it that you should have with your faith? Yep. Faith has to be based on certainty. Biblical faith.

And that's where it would differ just so slightly in that we have faith so far as we know that plane to get us there. We don't know everything about that plane, and we don't know everything about that chair. So we have certainty so far as we know it. But biblical faith actually goes beyond just a working knowledge and I think this will work okay and I'm going to go ahead and do it.

It moves into a certainty. So from a biblical perspective, faith goes much further. It goes that step further into certainty. There's got to be a definite knowledge So you've got to understand, you've got to know what it is that you're placing your faith in. And just like John mentioned, there's this confidence.

And what is the confidence in from a biblical perspective? Our belief in what God has revealed to us. Could you say that? I would say our confidence shouldn't be in our own belief, it should be in who He is, right? It's the certainty of the person of the Lord Jesus, right? It's the certainty of His will and how He functions and how He works, right?

We're going to talk about that when we talk about the things of God in a little bit. But I think faith, it's not a force that we can exercise or are striving to believe something like, I'm going to really try to believe this about God. That's not faith.

That is the process of being convinced and convicted, and the Holy Spirit is obviously working on you. Now, you can't have faith if you don't know. Knowledge precedes faith. But faith is not a, I'm getting there, I'm working it out in my mind. Biblical faith is a complete and total confidence in what is said about a certain subject regarding yourself, regarding Him, or His very essence. There's an essence and there's content there that has to be believed. It's not something that we, if you're growing in faith, That's fine. Growing in faith is a process, but ultimately it lands in a complete and total confidence of what God said.

That's biblical faith. Does that make sense? Yeah? God's Word makes it clear that knowing is to precede reckoning or believing. So the sequence is really important. faith has to have a foundation upon which to rest, right? It's got to rest somewhere.

I think one of the things that's come up recently is we oftentimes talk about ourselves as people of faith. In fact, I use that term a lot more than like Christian because Christian carries a concept with it. It's like Christian can include Catholic and Mormon. For a lot of people, the word Christian is very broad today. It's the Christian world and the voting. Christians voted Donald Trump into election. And it's like, who is that person? Who are those people? They're all over the world. I don't know.

And so, oftentimes I'll talk about having a specific type of faith and that our faith is based on a certainty and a foundation. And that foundation, we've even recently used the working term, true north. We have a true north in the Word of God and that's where we ultimately find ourselves going back to that foundation of our faith. But it's not so much that we spontaneously place our faith in something, that knowledge of what the scriptures say precedes and then we are convicted and convinced through the Holy Spirit and then our faith is executed and it's certain in who He is and what He has done.

You know, this morning, I don't know if you read The Hungry Heart this morning, But it was exactly what we're talking about. If I read just a couple of paragraphs, I think is... That always happens. Like I might as well just read The Hungry Hunt. They have a couple of good things. Exactly what we're talking about.

Faith is not a power that one possesses by which he can move the arm of God and work miracles. Faith accepts quiet guidance. Only unbelief demands a miracle. There is nothing in true faith that the flesh can glory in. The power is God's. It is the Father who works and does it according to His own wisdom and will. Faith is simply absolute confidence in the Father which gives the certainty that He will fulfill His word. Faith must be based on certainty. There must be the definite knowledge of and confidence in the Father's purpose and will. Without that there can be no true faith. For faith is not a force that we can exercise or striving to believe that something shall be, thinking if we believe hard enough, it will come to pass.

Those were two great ones today as far as... That's what I just said. It's funny because that's exactly, that quote is exactly what we just kind of read it, but yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I think one of the things that is really important in that is that faith is not trying to move the arm of God. And that's a lot of what we do.

If I believe it hard enough, God will do it. That's not the way faith is. It's confidence. Instead of faith in the facts, it's faith in my amount of faith. It's faith in my amount of faith. Yeah, it's a negotiating. If I do it hard enough, it might come to pass. I just got to have more faith and it will come. It's a certainty in the fact. Cool. I think it's good. So let's turn to Romans 3, 21. We're going to read Romans 3, 21-27. Question 3 says, in Romans 3, 21-27, it is your faith, is it your faith or Christ's faith that saves us? I'll read this and you guys can follow along.

But now without the law of righteousness of God, He's got it quoted wrong here. But now, without law, righteousness of God is manifested, borne witness to by the law and the prophets. Righteousness of God. Somebody else read. He's got the Darby translation and it's all wonky. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed, for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? it is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

Okay, so verse 22, we see the word faith and then in verse 25 again we see that it uses the word faith. So the question is, is it our faith that saves us or is it Christ's faith? Christ's faith? It's faith in Christ. In 22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Right. The object is Jesus Christ. The object is Jesus Christ, that's right. And then again in 26, just for the one who has faith in Jesus.

It's a bit of a trick question, typical to the way Mike writes things. I know you're listening right now, Mike. It's our faith in Christ, right? So, it's not Christ's faith in himself. Christ is the object of our faith, okay? And so, we see that personal faith is one of those aspects. So I'm going to go ahead and write down personal faith. Because we know this one. This is the one that comes to mind when we said define it. Okay, so we've got personal faith.

And this is one of those verses, just like a John 3.16, where we're talking about faith in light of salvation. Now personal faith can go on. And we can talk about all the other areas of knowledge that need to be acquired to the scripture that we must also place our faith in and have that confidence in. But in this case, it's talking about salvific faith, if you will.

Looking at question number three, it is our faith in Christ that we're looking for in terms of the answer to that. So number four, it says, can you name the four major aspects of faith? I don't think you could name these if you hadn't looked at Hal's class. You might have different names for it, but essentially, while we have a systematic way of talking about these things, if you were to look through the scripture and the uses of the word faith, you would come up with these four different aspects of faith. And you might call them something a little different. But for the most part, I think this is a good way of referring to it. So we've got personal. Do you know any others?

Aidan? Essence. What's that? Essence. Oh, how in the world did you get that? It's written on my sheet. Did he put the answer in yours? You're supposed to guess at it. So we've got the essence, personal, and then we've got, what's the other one? The. And then what's the last one? Principle. Anybody want to give a stab at essence before we look at the verse that defines it? I can tell you what Webster says.

Go for it. The indispensable or intrinsic properties that characterize or identify something. Okay. Intrinsic properties that identify something. Indispensable. Indispensable. Or intrinsic properties. Okay. Or it could be the most important element. The inherent, unchanging nature of a thing or class of things. Okay, unchanging nature of a thing. That's not a bad definition.

Let's look at Hebrews 11.1.

We're going to be stuck in this verse for the rest of the class. Someone read, once you get there, No faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. OK. So this verse is one that will help us really kind of nail down the subject of this class today, and that is this whole essence, the unchanging nature, the intrinsic value of something. Alright, now faith is the assurance of things.

Alright, so let's start to break this down. This is out of my area of expertise when it comes to grammar. Aiden, you might be able to do this diagram of sentence a little better. With the help of what Hal did and a little bit of using the internet to help me remember what things are. have a diagram of sentences. Alright, so the first thing we have is faith. So faith is our subject, right? So I'll put... I'm just going to write these up here. We'll erase these eventually. So you have the subject. We have the word is. Right?

And what is it? All this. What's that? Substance. Okay, the substance. We'll define that word a little bit more in a moment. What else is it? Evidence. Okay, we'll come back to that guy. Faith is also evidence. And then we have these other things down at the bottom that are linking this all together. So we have, of things, it's a substance of what? Being hoped for. And it's the evidence of what? Apparently that's how you're supposed to do it.

This is not being seen. So subject, we have a linking verb, and then we get into... Typically, we have an object. This is a little bit more complex of a sentence than just having a single object. In the Greek, these are called predicate nominatives, but we'll just say, as an example, because we don't really need to know that. I did something wrong. These should be in red. in order to make more sense of this.

So, to really understand Hebrews 11.1, the reason we did this kind of grammar exercise is to get to the understanding of what this verse is saying. Because in this verse, we're seeing faith being communicated in a different way than a personal or having the preceding faith and talking about something specific and it's not being used as a principle, it's being used as an essence. So this is one of those verses that really establishes a definition of the essence of faith.

And we've talked time and time again, or we've mentioned that faith in its essence has nothing to do with you, right? It has absolutely nothing to do with you. And the first time you hear that, it sounds really weird, and it sounds like there's a catch, right? There's actually not.

And this is the verse that helps us understand that. So we're going to break this down a little bit further. But we needed to understand, we're going to call this, even though it's not directly called an object, We're going to kind of... ish. Object-ish. Just because it'll make it a little easier to understand as we go.

So, here we have the word faith is substance. So, let's talk about the word substance. the Greek word, and you can Webster's it, but you're not going to probably get to the same conclusion that you would get if you were to look at the Greek word, hupostasis. And the question is, what does that word really mean?

And as you look at it, it talks about the state in which faith continually exists. It's substance. And this substance is often used as another way of using it throughout the scripture is reality. So it's the state in which faith continually exists is this substance. It is reality. So Hupostasis has this idea of reality. So what would that mean? Faith is reality? Michael says assurance. Assurance? Assurance. Okay. Yep, mine does too. It's the same Greek word, hypostasis.

Why would that word communicate reality? Why would the author of Hebrews use that word? Why would he want us to go all the way to this reality? What is reality? Truth. Truth? A fact. Fact? Truth about what? Facts about what? Whatever the substance is, whatever the object is. Of things. Of things, okay. We're going to get there, that's for sure. We've got several things mentioned. Reality, it's the state in which you exist, correct? Does everybody understand the state in which they exist? Does everyone understand the state in which they exist?

Sometimes. It's interesting because here, as an essence, faith is being communicated as the state in which things exist. It gets pretty big. But we'll keep working through this. So faith is reality of what? Of things being hoped for. So let's break down, in the context, what are these things? What are the things? Could it be the promises of God? Promises? Of God. Yes. Those are things of God. That's what they are. That's what it's referring to, is the things of God. What are the things of God?

Who He is. Okay, and who is He? Creator. Creator, okay. What are the things of God? Keep working, your brain's got to dial in. St. Louis. Okay. We got Sir J. Louie coming out. This is one of those things that Les and I came up with, or someone shared with us a long time ago. I think I've shared it once. S-R-J-L-O-O-O-I-E. Sir J. Louie. That's God. Has anybody ever heard that? No, you've done it. You've done it. It was the best way for us to remember a lot of the attributes of God. So when we think about the things of God, we're talking about who He is. What is intrinsic to His nature, right? Righteousness. So we've got sovereignty. I don't think I spelled that right. Righteousness. I want to spell check. That's why I don't write on the board. I can't spell. This is going to have the little thing underneath it. It's like right click on that guy. There's an H in there.

I don't think there's an H. No? What's that? I'm feeling better and better. What's J? That's just. Oh, okay. Got that one right. What's L? Uh oh, triple O's. Omnipotent. What's the next one? Omnipotent or omnipresence. Got that one. Omnipotent. What's the next one? Omniscient. Omniscient. Omniscient. Ever-present. All-knowing. All-powerful. And what about I? Beautiful. What does that mean? Amazing. What is E? Eternal life.

So now, you just got a lot smarter about the things of God. Grace, mercy, all of these other attributes can be linked to love. Grace and mercy are a component of love. We're talking about God judging. something, to be right or wrong, we're talking about His justice, or the fact that He is just. So, while you might have other words that you could link to, and no doubt there are, in terms of His attributes, this is, Sergei Louis, is just a way for you to remember those attributes in your mind as to who God is. And so, when you're looking at the things of God, it includes all of His characteristics. But it includes His promises as well, it's His words, right?

And so, this is not something I believe that you can box in. You can have some definition to it, and while God has defined Himself in the Scripture in a complete and total way so far as we need to know Him, He is far more than what we could hope to understand simply out of the Scripture itself. He's eternal. And that's why we've got definition, but the box is open. He's far more than that.

But, in the case of Hebrews 11.1, we have to know what those things are, because those are the things that are being hoped for. So they can't just be vague things. We have to be able to define what some of those things are, and we can do that. But in context, these are the things of God. Everything related to God as He exists in a triune nature. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. So it's not just the things of the Father. It's the things of God as He's expressed Himself in three persons in one nature. So those are the things.

Now, what about this word hope? You mentioned hope earlier, Phil. So in Greek here, You're going to get a little bit more of a definition for this, but what's the natural inclination to define hope? It's, man, I sure hope something is true. It's got an if statement in front of it, or in your thinking. You know, I hope, but I don't really know for sure. Not if, but it's a... You don't have complete and total confidence. You're saying, I really would like this to be the case, but I don't know if it will be. It's got a bit of unknown to it. Lack of certainty.

It's interesting, if you look at this word in the Greek, it means confidence, or absolute certainty. kind of draw this down here, and this word hoped actually has the idea of certainty. This hope we have is used by Paul in other locations, and we've looked at the word there, and it's not a really hope, so it is a complete and total certainty. It's a hope that is certain and founded on absolute trust of it being true. So faith, is the substance or the reality of the things of God being certainly hoped for. It's also the evidence. So what are we talking about here with evidence? Proof. That's right.

It's the proof of things not being seen. So, you see this verse, and we just talked about how it moves on to the evidence. It talks about those things not seen. And this happens to be another one of these predicate nominatives along with substance. But we see it pointing back to the subject. We see that evidence or proof relates to the subject. It goes back. So these two, these guys both go back here.

Back to the subject, which is faith. So it's the faith. Faith is proof. Faith is reality. Faith is proof. That's what we're saying. We're talking about essence. We're saying faith is reality. Faith is proof. Proof of what? Proof of what? Of things. It's a confidential we shall have those things, right? Yep. Faith is proof of the things of God and these things are what? Not being seen. Not being seen. What's that mean? spiritual things?

Is it like Romans 1.20? Things that are evident to all men? Okay, and in that context he uses it for things for his eternal nature. His divine attribute.

Let's look at Hebrews 11.7. It's just a couple verses, or five verses down the way, six verses. Someone read that. I think Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to him. Alright. So here we have Noah operating on things not seen. Right? And what were those things? It's going to rain. The truth of things to come, right? The truth of who God is, what God said He was to Noah, and the things that were to come.

Let's look at 2 Corinthians 4.18. Well, we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Does that make sense? There's a spiritual scene, right? And that's what is being communicated here. I think that it's saying that we can't visually see the things of God, but they are absolutely real. They are what? They are reality. So now, being seen, we'll just define this as a It's an eternal seeing. There's an aspect of future things related to it. We talked about spiritual. When we often talk about our position, it's seeing who we are in Christ. In the same way, this is our seeing.

You can't visually see them, but you spiritually can comprehend them. And that's what's being communicated here. These things, sovereignty, righteousness, justice, love, and so forth, these things of God, even the promises, are not seen, but they are reality. And they're proof.

And that's the essence of faith. So anybody want to try to sum it up again for your own learning? Okay, I'll do it. We're close, we're almost done with it. Faith is reality. Faith is proof. Faith is reality of the things of God, and they are being certainly, with absolute certainty, hoped for. Faith is not only the reality of things being hoped for, it is the evidence or the proof the very proof of things not seen by your own eye, but seen and comprehended spiritually. So faith, ultimately, is the reality of which our faith exists in. Our personal faith exists in the essence of faith. This is why it has nothing to do with you, because faith is defining God's reality.

And it's also proving to us the very things of Himself. And that's what He did when He convicted and convinced you of your need for salvation. He was operating in the reality of faith. He was proving the things of Himself to you. And you operated in personal faith to that.

Others don't. But faith, in its essence, is the environment, the reality where our personal faith exists within. If you look at every decision that any biblical character, we have that Hebrews passage with the hall of faith, we call it. Those guys are choosing to personally place their faith in God based on the circumstances that they were given. But those circumstances were existing within the reality of faith, and God was working to provide evidence to them of the things of himself, and they responded in personal faith.

Make sense? So now, I mean, to even think about that, it's not something that we often refer to. I mean, faith is not defined as that. I've never heard this before. breaking this down. I'm really thankful that we have a chance to do it. It's complex, but what you learn from this is that our personal faith operates in the reality of the essence of faith. And it's working to convince us of things that are true of God, and it's proving to us that those things that are not seen are what are real about our reality. I'll stop there. Any questions?

It's funny, you could talk about love in the same way, but for some reason love, if you were to say God is love, that to me is easier to understand. You can have love for something, but when you say God is love, you can define love by God. You really can do the same thing with faith, has a more complex complexity to it.

It doesn't click as well in my mind for some reason, but I think it's the same thing as love. Yeah, I mean, in this verse, when we talk about essence, when we define the essence of love, It gets a little bit more complex than, it gets complex in a similar way. Essence, understanding the essence of words is an intrinsic nature. It's the way things are, and so it doesn't relate to you in the same way.

So God is love, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you until he expresses that love to you, right? Whereas with faith, this is not something that's coming from God. It's an environment that he's providing for you to have faith. So God doesn't have faith in you. Right? Whereas God does love you. Right. So it's different. So it's different. But you could, in the way that you could describe the essence of love... Well, so love is a characteristic, it's one of the things of God. So we can actually really, and I know I'm buzzed out of this, but How is God sovereign to us? How is God righteous to us? How is God just? How is God love? How is He omnipresent? So each of these things are His attributes, whereas faith is not being defined as one of the attributes of God. It's being defined as the reality of which all of these things exist within.

I think it goes back to how we often, before going through the study, have confused the essence and personal faith. if you go down to that number 9 question it might help make it make a little more sense like does faith change? the essence of faith that we just went through that does not change and then the personal side of it is does our faith change? does that make sense? it's kind of like with love there's the essence of love and then there's what we understand as personal love and how that can change but we're learning to differentiate that too and not mix them which it is so different then I mean, you know, I never grew up differentiating between, you know, and it's so important.

It's interesting, it's a different way of looking at it. Cool. Alright, let's pray. Lord, we do thank You for the truth of what we've learned in Your Word. We thank You that while faith in its essence does not have anything to do with us, we are so thankful that we can recognize that it is reality, that it is the very proof of the things of You, and that we can know those things, and that we can exercise our personal faith in that reality and respond to that proof. because you've made it so. And so we just again are so grateful for how you've loved us and provided for us in this way and given us this clarity. I just pray that it would help to sharpen our thinking as we just look to walk by faith in the day and week to come. It's your name we pray. Amen.