The Basics of Faith - Learning to Walk by Faith, Pt. 1

In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on In Touch, The Basics of Faith. There are two things that are absolutely essential to a right relationship with God. They are, first of all, belief that God is. Secondly, belief that God will always do what God says He will do. Apart from these two basic convictions, there is no salvation and there is no blessing. In fact, the writer of Hebrews said it this way, if we're to please God, we must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him or that He will do exactly what He promised. The basic foundation truth of the whole Christian life is faith. That's how we relate to God. That's how we relate to His Son, Jesus Christ. And yet, that is the one area of our life that probably most people either misunderstand or have the most difficulty with. Can I trust God? Why don't I trust God? Oftentimes, life feels full of doubt. Well, this is the beginning of a series entitled, Learning to Walk by Faith. And I want you to turn, if you will, to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And the title of this message is, Learning to Walk by Faith, the Basics. Now, what do I mean by the basics? I mean the starting point. This is where we begin in learning to walk by faith. And what I want you to note in this passage is this, that the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, is talking to them about life and death and the condition of our body and what is going to happen to us after we die.

And the process of discussing that, he makes one statement here that I want us to note. But I want us to look at this whole passage for a moment. He says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 1, For we know that if the earthly tent, speaking of our physical body, which is our house, is torn down, we have a building from God, that is another body, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house, that is in this body, we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. Inasmuch as we, having put it on, shall not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now he who prepared us for this purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge, therefore being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. We're of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. The apostle Paul is saying, you know, there will come a time we lay these bodies down. We'll have a new body, a resurrected body, which our Lord promised and which He certainly demonstrated in His own resurrection. Paul says, we have the privilege of living by faith. We walk by faith. Therefore, we're not worried about death.

We're not afraid of death. We're not concerned about what's going to happen to these bodies. We have the awesome promise of a resurrected body and a heavenly home. And he says, therefore, we're not walking by sight. We're not walking by feeling. We're not walking by the people's opinions. We're not walking according to reason. We are walking simply by faith. It is the will and purpose and plan of God that all of us learn to walk by faith. I don't know of anything much more that pleases God more than the fact that we trust Him. Trust Him for the things that we need. Trust Him in difficult times. Trust Him when things seem to be impossible. Trust Him when things seem to be so futile and so hopeless. We place our trust in Him. It's amazing. If you read the book of Psalms how many times the psalmist says or makes the statement that God blesses those who trust Him, that God is honored by those who trust Him. Now, if I should ask you, is your life a picture of? Could it be described as a life of one who is walking by faith? Well, probably you may think in terms of the way you think of faith, and you may say, well, yes, I do. But I want you to listen carefully, and I hope you'll jot down a few things. I want to give you a couple of definitions or so here.

I want to make it as simple and plain as possible, but it's very important that we understand what the Bible says about faith, not what the world says about it. So I want to begin by talking about this whole idea of the meaning of the word. In the Greek New Testament, for example, there are two words for faith. One is a noun. The other is a verb, pistis and pistio. And those two words, which are probably probably meaningless to you in that language, of course. But here's what they mean. It means, first of all, to believe what someone says. That is, if someone makes a statement and you believe that, you put your trust in that it's true. The second, though, implies something more than that. Not simply the fact that you believe what someone says, but that you trust that thing or that person and you make a commitment to it. Now, there's a difference. For example, when Jesus was talking to the centurion who had said to him, my servant is paralyzed and he can't move, I need some help. And Jesus said, I'll come home with you. He said, no, all I want you to do, the Bible says Jesus said, as he said that, the centurion said, all I want you to do is just speak the word because your word is sufficient. You say it and I believe it.

Then, of course, for example, Jesus, when he began his ministry, he was preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he said that they were to believe the gospel. That is, not just believe there is a gospel, but put your trust in it and commit yourself to it. When the apostle Paul was talking to the Philippian jailer and the Philippian jailer having put them in stocks and put them in jail, now the earthquake has opened the gates and he's saying to the apostle Paul, what must I do to be saved? The apostle Paul said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He wasn't just saying just believe there is one, but that is put your trust in him and commit yourself to him. And the truth that he did was the fact that Paul baptized the Philippian jailer. So when we think in terms of what it means to believe, it isn't just believing about something. New Testament belief, when we put our faith in the word of God, we are placing our trust in the truthfulness of it and we are committing ourselves to it. Therefore, when the apostle Paul said in this passage here, he says, we are of good courage. Why is he of good courage? Why did he say always be of good courage? He says, for we are walking by faith. That is, we placed our trust in,

we placed our commitment in a truth and in a person. Therefore, we are able to walk by faith, looking at the circumstances of life, no matter what, and being of good courage and being confident that no matter what happens, our God is going to see us through it. Now, when you think in terms of the word faith and the word believe, probably in our culture today, because people say, I believe this and I'm a believer and yes, I believe and all the things they say, probably the better word is the word trust. That is, I'm placing my trust in, I am committing myself to. The word believe or trust is an action word. And if you took these three words in the Greek language, love and serve, and if you put the word believe, all three of these have the same ending on the word. And a Greek ending on a word is very significant. They're all words of action. I love, if I love someone, I'm going to respond. If I serve someone, I'm going to act. If I believe, I'm going to act. For example, you can read the 40 verses of the 11th chapter of Hebrews and 19 times, the Bible speaks of someone believing, whether it's Abraham or Jacob or Moses or Noah, they all believed. And when they believe, the Bible says they did something. So in the New Testament, you can go all the way through the New Testament.

And every time someone is believing or placing their trust in, there is an action. It is an inner action that moves the will. And so when we think in terms of believing, it isn't some stagnant kind of belief that says, yes, I believe, never moves, never budges, no action. The very word is a word of action. Something is going to happen in your life and my life when we place our trust in, when we commit ourselves to Almighty God. Now you hear people say, well, I believe. And of course they're thinking in terms of, yes, I believe that I'll get up tomorrow morning. I believe that the church doors will be open when I get there. It's all kinds of that kind. We're talking about biblical faith. We're talking about faith. We're talking about a commitment. We're talking about a trust level that has to do with eternal things. And so when we come to define, well, what is faith? Well, you could just say something like this, that faith is a confident conviction that our God is who He says He is and that our God will do exactly what He says He will do. Now, we said that the title of this theme or the theme of this series is learning to walk by faith. learning to walk by faith. And so, now we have to talk about how do we walk and what is, how do we exercise this faith that we have?

Now, it is the will and purpose and plan of God that we live by faith. Well, the Apostle Paul said we walk by faith. What did he mean by that? When the Apostle Paul used the term walk, he usually referred to their conduct, lifestyle, manner of life. This is how we live our lives. And so, you recall that on other occasions he said, for example, we're to walk not in the flesh but in the spirit. We're to walk in love or walk by love. And we are to walk in the spirit. Many things he said, and what he was saying is this should be our lifestyle. If somebody were to say to you or ask you the question, do you live by faith? I wonder how many of you would say yes. Probably most of us would say, well, yes, I do. And what you mean is, well, I do most of the time. Or I do sometime. Or there are things that I have a difficult time trusting God for. You know what? That doesn't mean that you don't live by faith because I'm going to come to that in a few moments. What I want us to notice here is what the Apostle Paul is saying when he says, we're walking by faith. Not by sight, not by feeling. Now, most people walk not by faith but by sight and by feeling and by reasoning. I reason this thing out and this is what I'm going to do.

Oftentimes, God gets left out. Even sometimes when he is included, he is included in this manner. Here's what I think I ought to do and God, I'm trusting you to help me. Instead of saying, Lord, what would you have me to do? What is your will? What is your purpose? What is your plan? It is the will and purpose and plan of God that you and I walk by faith. Now, what do we mean by that? Simply this. When you and I wake up in the morning, what is the first thing we should say? Now, I would not, I can't dictate to somebody else what they think, but I can tell you what I feel and I think. That is, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I want to think about is Father because you know what? All day long, I'm going to live making decisions, meeting people, doing the work that the Lord has called me to do. And so, I know when I open my eyes or I become conscious even sometime before I open my eyes, I know that today I need my Father to walk with me. I know that today I will have to depend upon Him and trust Him for every single thing. And so, therefore, I want to begin the day where it should begin in my relationship with Him, affirming my relationship, affirming my unity, my oneness, and my love and devotion to Him. We should, listen, because we're going to walk by faith.

Now, what does that involve? Well, here's what it involves. It means, for example, that I'm going to be asking for His guidance today. Here's what He said. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. I want to thank you that I have that wonderful privilege and the wonderful promise that you've given me, Lord. It means if I'm going to walk by faith today that I am going to be seeking His mind and His heart, seeking direction for every single facet of my life. Not some things, but everything. You see, to walk by faith isn't something we do sometime and not sometime. Walk to walk by faith means I am going to rely upon. I'm going to trust in. I'm going to depend upon my Heavenly Father to give me direction for the day. I'm going to depend upon Him to meet every single need that I have. Now, all of us would come up with needs that we have. We think, well, now, there's some needs we need to meet ourselves. Who says so? My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And so, therefore, I'm going to trust Him to meet every single need today because, you see, if I'm going to walk by faith, I'm

going to depend upon Him for everything. I'm looking to Him. He's my Father. So, I'm expecting Him to meet my need. I'm going to thank Him, and I'm going to trust Him to forgive me of my sin. When I falter and fall and stumble today, I'm going to trust Him. I'm going to believe that He'll pick me up, having forgiven me of my sin and move me on in life. I'm going to trust Him for every relationship that I have. I'm going to trust Him for the things that I need to say and need to remember. I'm going to trust Him for those difficult things that I, when I face, I won't know what to do immediately. I'm going to trust Him for the, how to respond to criticism and how to respond to praise. I'm going to trust Him for the needs of others that I suddenly feel that I'm to be a part of. I'm going to trust Him that if I need to share testimony of what Christ has done for me, I will do it in the Spirit in the way that He will guide me and show me that it'll make an impact. I'm going to trust Him, not to try to impress anybody, but to make an impact in someone's life today, no matter who it is, so that they too will want to know the same Christ that I know. I'm going to trust Him today in such a fashion that I won't even have to worry about the future and my eternal security. I just trust Him when I wake up in the morning. I wake up in the arms of the loving Father. Wake up absolutely.

Secured in the person of Jesus Christ wake up every morning knowing that at the cross my eternal salvation was settled once and for all So you see to walk by faith means that Jesus Christ is going to dominate my thinking Jesus Christ is going to dominate and control the decisions Jesus Christ going to be the center of everything you see for most people They think their life is the center of the world and all of life revolves around them But here's the way it is. Let's say for example, this represents Jesus. Here's the way we live our life No matter what's going on during the day All of life revolves around the Son of God Because he's at the core of our life when you trust that Jesus Christ is your personal Savior The Bible says that Jesus came to live in your life and in the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit and therefore he's There now, why did God send the Holy Spirit into our life to do what to enable you and me? Listen to enable you and me to walk by faith every single day. Listen, he wants to be in on every decision he wants to be in on every relationship and when the troubles and the trials and the Persecutions and the difficulties and the hardships and the heartaches come you know what he is there. Listen a cut and listen a confident conviction That our father that our God is listen involving himself in every circumstance and in every single need of our life you see to walk by faith is to walk in Submission to and to what listen to walk in a way that he is in absolute control Now we talk about being submissive or yielding ourselves to him. I Think most people the way they think is I'm gonna give this to him and this to him and this to him I'll take care of this and this and this over here No, if I'm really committed to him if I'm really surrendered to him, he has access to everything in my life He has access to every single thing. Therefore not holding anything back. Let me ask you a question When you face some situation circumstance in life, what is your first response if it's a difficult is it father? I need you I'm trusting you. Here's what happens He wants us to so live that nobody has to remind us to pray No one has to remind us to seek him. No one has to tell us what have you per ask us? Have you prayed it is listen the natural normal response? Listen is that quick the natural normal response when we face anything is to say father. What would you have me to do? Thank you. God. You're sovereign and you're in control. Let me ask you a question Is there anything too big for my God to handle?

Is there any need too big that he is so big that he can't provide? Does he not say my God shall supply all your needs according his riches and glory and Christ's use is there any no not a single? one So now how is it? We're going to learn to do it How we gonna learn to walk this life this life that's liberating freeing Contenting joyful a life what difficulty hardship pain suffering criticism persecution you name it All those things go on how do we walk through all these clouds in this fog and how do we face the daily affairs of paying for our mortgage and Paying for our automobile and sending our kids to college and facing situations on the job where people don't like in Promotions and losing a job. How do we face all this? You mean to tell me that I'm to face all this that I can walk through all this joyful and confident. Yes Happily about it. No, not you're not gonna be happy about losing a job But you know what you can be confident of this that your God Who is in sovereign control of your life who allowed you to lose that job or removed you for some good purpose has Something better. He knows for you at this moment in your life our God never comes that listen He doesn't have plan B. He doesn't have plan a B or C only has one plan. That's plan G That's God's plan, which is always the best and it's always working and he is always he always has it working no matter what So, how am I gonna learn to walk by faith? Here's how I'm gonna learn I'm going to Make a request. I'm gonna put God to the test not trying to tempt him But I make a make a request and you know what God answers my prayer or sees me through this You know what happens when that happens? One layer comes down on my foundation of faith. My foundation is built on Christ. That's a solid foundation But now I've got to build on that. I've got to build on the foundation of the eternal Son of God How am I gonna build on it? I'm gonna trust him and watch how he works and see him come through and thank him for it But I'm gonna observe what happened Second thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get in his word and I'm gonna find out what the Bible says about him now Listen carefully if you don't know who the God is that you trust how you gonna trust him? But when you and I get in the Word of God and here's what it says

The Bible says that God loves me And the Bible says he will meet my needs The Bible says that God is holy and He'll forgive me of my, in other words, when I began to look at the Scriptures, here's what happens. My understanding of the nature of God, you know what that's doing? That's like pouring into my whole foundation, pouring into my whole foundation, the oil that makes everything work. Here's who God is, here's what He's like. And if this is who God is and this is what He's like, then I can trust Him. You see, if you come to church, bring your Bible, read it with us, take it home, lay it down, you may learn some things, but God, listen, God wants you in His Word. He, listen, He wants you to absorb the truth. He wants you looking at the words, remembering what He says, looking at His promises. You see, the more I understand the promises of God and the nature of God and how He works, the stronger my faith is going to be. So therefore, if I'm going to learn to walk by faith, I make those requests, I see what happens. For example, if He doesn't answer my prayer and the Lord shows me, that wasn't my will, thank you, Father, you had something better in mind. You know what? Even when He doesn't answer it,

and I understand that God had something better in mind, you know what that does? Strengthens my faith. What does it say to me? That God loves me so much that He won't, listen, He won't even give me what He knows isn't good for me. Thank God, I may not like it at the moment and I may chafe over it and I may fret and I may even get angry and say, God, what's the deal? And God says, the deal is, this is the best deal. This is the best thing that can happen to you. And this is the way it is. Even when I don't get what I want and God shows me why, what does it do? It strengthened my faith. Loves me too much to give me something I shouldn't have. Well, how do we learn to do it? We falter, we fall, we make mistakes, but here's what we do. You see, if you're going to learn to walk by faith, some things you have to remember. First of all, when you falter and you think, God, I blew it bad, what you do is you don't have yourself a pity party and just wallow in and think, well, God, I've blown it bad. How could you ever trust me? Didn't trust you to begin with. How could you ever trust me anymore? And so, what happens, remember this, discouragement will destroy your faith if you're not careful.

Just because we all falter and fail and we became frightened at this point we said, oh God, what's going to happen here? You know what? That doesn't upset God. Remember that he, listen, he says that he sees us like a bunch of dust put together. He says he sees us as frail, we're but dust. But you know what? We've become godly dust. We've become dust so valuable to God, he sent his only begotten son, transformed our life. Listen, we're such valuable hunks of dust that he's going to spend eternity with us. And you know what? He's going to be pointing to the angels for all eternity saying, look at that trophy. Look at that trophy of grace. Look at that trophy of grace. All of these are my trophies of grace. All of these expressions of my awesome love for mankind. Listen, you can't disappoint someone if they don't have any expectations of you. And he doesn't have any expectations of you. He's a dust, frail. He understands us. And so therefore, I don't have to give up. And you see, one of the keys is not how many times do I falter and fall in the process of learning to walk by faith.

The key is, listen, not how often I fall, but what do I do when I fall? I get up. I thank God for His forgiveness and His cleansing. Thank God for showing me my doubts and my fears and my anxieties and fretting. Thank God that He loves me enough to keep on. So what do we do? We get up and we keep moving. You don't give up. You may say, well, I just have such little faith. I don't have the gift of faith. Listen, everybody has a gift of faith. Listen, humanity, every single person in the world that God brings in this world has faith. That's not the gift of faith that the Bible talks about in Corinthians where we're talking about spiritual gifts. Every person lives every day by faith or they will never get out of the bed or they will never get an automobile. I mean, it takes faith to live. We're talking about the kind of faith that you and I can live by and die by. It is faith in the living God, the living God, the life-giving God who raised Jesus from the dead. And so what happens? We begin to realize that He's not disappointed. He's not upset. We're forgiven. We're His children.

And what happens? Little by little, day after day as we trust Him, week after week as we trust Him, month after month as we trust Him, year after year as we trust Him, what's happening? We are building strength into our faith. Our faith is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. Listen, if the things, listen, if the things that bothered you when you were first saved still bothers you and you're fretting and fuming over them, you need to ask yourself the question, God, am I still, listen, am I still in the playpen when it comes to faith? Where am I, God, in my faith? Now, the way God builds faith As we said before, and I'll repeat this, trouble, trial, difficult, and hardship. Think, listen, if I really want to understand what God is like, and I wanted to strengthen my faith, I've got to be willing to get thrown in the fire. I've got to be willing to face difficulty and hardship. Listen, you don't build God, you don't build faith that sustains you in life by simply reading it in a book. Listen, what makes it work is experience. It is experience that makes it work. But what, listen, what gives impact to your testimony? Experience. It is the fact that you've been there, you've walked through deep waters, you've walked through fire, you've walked

through trials, you've walked through hardship, you've been in, you've walked through those times of great need when there seemingly was no way in the world for those needs to be met and God met them. How do we learn? We learn by living, trusting, failing, keeping out, getting our focus back on Him and moving on in life. So let me ask you this, are you willing to say to Him today, Lord, not for my sake, but for your sake, Lord, there are things in my life I can't handle, needs I have I don't think I can meet. Lord, I don't know how to handle these things, I've struggled. And I'll give you a little word that the Lord laid on my heart because I was doing the same thing and He just laid this word on my heart, A-S-H, ash. Don't be anxious, don't strive over it, and don't hurry. I keep that in mind. Don't be anxious, don't strive about it, working at it, don't hurry. And for me personally, it's been a tremendous help to me. If I find myself getting anxious, just say, don't be anxious, don't strive, and don't hurry because those three things unity and go together. You have to decide, Lord, I'm going to turn it over to you. Now here's the whole issue. You listen, say amen, last thing I'm going to say. Are you willing? Let's put it this way, do you believe that your God, who is the life-giving God who raised Jesus from the dead? Do you believe that He's who He says He is?

Say, amen. Do you believe that He'll keep His every promise? Say, amen. Now, are you willing to tell Him today, Father, I believe you're who you say you are, I believe you'll keep every single promise, I believe you're a trustworthy God, that I can put my life and everything I am and everything I have in your hands and you will take care of me. Now, I wouldn't dare ask you to raise your hand or do anything. I don't even want you to come forward and say that. I just want you to think about it, because I can tell you before this day is over, you're going to get tested. You're going to find out before the day is over whether you trust Him or not. Now watch this, Satan will slip in something real small just to get the door open before he shoves in something large enough to get you to really doubt him. Now, we agreed a few moments ago that the God who raised Jesus Christ, Christ in the dead, is trustworthy, amen? That every single promise He's given us in the Bible, He'll keep, amen? All right. Are you willing to surrender your life to that God? Body, soul, spirit, finances, relationships, marriage, family, children, everything. Can He handle it? Will you let Him handle it? You say, well, I'm not even a Christian. What about me? Well, simply this.

Here's where you have to start. You have to ask yourself the question, do you believe the testimony of God's Word? That except you're born again, except you trust Jesus as your Savior, you'll be lost eternally. Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ went to the cross and died on the cross and paid your sin, debt, and fool? Do you believe that? You have to begin right there. If you're willing to accept that truth and willing to say to Him, Lord Jesus, I confess my sins to You. I do believe what You say in the Scripture. I do believe that Your death at Calvary atoned for my sins. I'm trusting You as my Savior. I'm trusting You that what You did will atone for my sin. I'm trusting You to forgive me of my sins. I'm trusting You to be my Savior and my Lord. The moment you do that, that moment you become a living child of God, then you begin the journey with us. We're all learning how to walk by faith.