What is Faith? How would I know if I had it? How do I get it? Can it be grown and developed? How can I grow and develop it? Turn towards God to receive his love, receive identity in Him, receive positioning in Him, so you can bring forth good works, living works.
ReviewWe're going to just open up our Bible at Hebrews 6. We looked at this whole area of the foundational principles, and we saw that for any building, you have to have a foundation. If the foundation is weak, the building will not be strong.
Hebrews 6:1 "Now leaving the discussion of the foundational principles of Christ, let us go onto maturity (or to the fullness of God's plan), not laying again the foundation of: repentance from dead works; faith towards God; the doctrine of baptisms; of laying on of hands; of resurrection of the dead; and of eternal judgement - this we will do if God permits"
So Paul (or the author) is talking about us going on in the purpose of God: "let us go on"; but he also says: it's impossible to do it, if you haven't got a strong foundation built in your life. So he said: the result of not going on is - people remain immature. They remain babies, when God wants us actually to grow. So as we start this, I want to first of all just give the big picture of what this about.
The Bible tells us Jesus came with a particular mission: He came to reveal what God is like; He came to reveal the Father, and the heart of God as a Father. Throughout history, people have never known God as a Father. They had various ideas about God, revelations of God, but this was the first time anyone had brought a message that God is a Father, and we can be born again into His family. We can be joined into Him, and have His life come into us. We can have a relationship with God as a loving Father. So the Bible says: Jesus was the express image of the invisible God.
He said to His disciples: "If you've seen Me, you have seen the Father". So if we want to see what God is like, as a Father, it's all wrapped up in Jesus Christ, and how He connected with people, how He loved people, and in His day He totally upturned the religious works of the day. So Jesus came to invite you and me into a similar relationship.
In one part He said that where I am, the relationship that I have with my Father, I want you to be there also. Now just think about that for a moment. Right through Jesus' ministry He said: I do the things that the Father has shown me to do; I do the things I see the Father doing. He said: the words I speak are what the Father has given me. When everyone was about to leave Him, He said: I'm not alone - the Father is with me.
Jesus lived His life out of an intimate love relationship with God, His Father; and He said in John 14:1 "Now I go to prepare a place for you". So just before Jesus left the earth, He said: I'm going to prepare for you a place of relationship, identical to mine; that where I am, the relationship I have, you can have that also. Now people know the words of that, but seldom experience the reality of what it is to walk day by day feeling, sensing the love of God as your Father, embracing you, encouraging you, valuing you, guiding you, revealing His love to you. It's out of this source that we can have a secure life.
We saw last session that if we don't find our centre in God, we'll find something else as a substitute. We'll find money, but money will never satisfy. We'll look for properties and possessions, but they never satisfy. We look for position and power, but they never satisfy; and people who seek those things are really seeking something that cannot be found there. Sometimes people seek to find fulfilment of these needs in their life through religion. Religion is just trying hard to gain acceptance with God, and acceptance by people. It cannot change a person, in fact it's just a heavy burden.