Articles
What Is God's Definition of Faith?--Transcript
Good evening.
Thank you for being out with us tonight.
I appreciate the opportunity that has been granted to me to be able to speak tonight.
I hope that the things that we talk about will be beneficial for you in your walk with God and your faith in the Lord as we've been singing about.
I want to personally thank you as a group for the kindness that you've shown to my family with Lauren's surgery on Thursday.
I won't say much more than that.
Don't want to go sideways in this lesson before I even get started.
I also want to thank those of you who are visiting with us tonight.
I know we have some who are not among our regular number, and I appreciate your presence here this evening.
Thank you to Brother Davis for reading in Hebrews chapter 11 for our scripture reading tonight.
You don't have to turn there again.
You're welcome to if you want to, but the jumping off verse for our lesson tonight is going to be what Davis finished with in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, where the writer there says, without faith, it is impossible to please him, referring to God.
For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
In this single verse, we learn that faith is a necessity to please the Lord.
It's an absolute statement in scripture that if we are to be pleasing to God, we have to have faith.
It's a simple yet very profound statement, but it also places on us as individuals the responsibility to learn and understand how God defines faith.
It's a dangerous presumption that we see around us, people that we share activities with in life, that we come in contact with every day.
It's a dangerous presumption that many in the world make that God's definition of faith is the same as theirs.
And so it's incumbent upon us also to conduct a rigorous self-examination to ensure that the way we are defining faith is consistent with the way that God defines it.
The only way to understand God's definition of faith is to find it in his word, and he's provided us with a great amount of information to be able to clearly understand his definition of faith.
There are many great examples we could continue reading from right there in Hebrews chapter 11.
I certainly could have crafted this lesson to follow right along with the text in that chapter.
In my secular work experience, I often am heavily involved in teaching some of our new staff hires or training new interns that might be working with us at the beginning of a busy season in public accounting, and talking with them and helping them learn and understand how to complete the work that we're going to ask them to complete on a project.
And one of the mottos I like to sort of meditate on as I'm designing any training materials or thinking about how we're going to try to get inexperienced people up to speed with what it is that we're doing, one of the mottos I like to think about is hear it, see it, do it, teach it.
You start by hearing about something, then you see an example of it, then you try to put that into practice in what you're doing, and you build your skills up to a level where you can then teach somebody else how to do it.
For them to gain understanding and how it is that we want to do certain things with our job, to me that's what makes the most sense to be able to help them to be able to do that.
Learning about scripturally defined faith in God and putting that faith into practice in our lives, I think is much the same process.
Romans 10 verse 17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
We have to hear that Word, but within that Word the Lord has also provided us examples to be able to see faith in action.
And one such example that I would like to base study around tonight can be found in Luke chapter 5.
If you would like to turn there, that is where we will be spending the duration of our time together this evening.
Luke chapter 5.
The background context leading up into Luke chapter 5 was somewhat touched upon by Brother Ethan this morning as he helped prepare our minds for the Lord's Supper.
He referenced Jesus' teaching in the synagogue reading from the prophet Isaiah, which is recorded there in Luke chapter 4.
But the latter part of Luke chapter 4 in broad general terms describes the early stage of the Lord's public teaching.
And his teaching evoked a wide range of emotional responses.
There was anger, there was joy, there was astonishment, and everything in between.
He healed many people of illnesses, including Peter's mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law is watching with Lauren on the video stream right now, and I know how special a mother-in-law is.
Peter's mother-in-law was healed by Jesus in Luke chapter 4.
Multitudes of people sought to see him and hear him, and to begin to get an understanding of what it is that his ministry was going to be about.
And that sets the stage for where we are in Luke chapter 5 as a multitude of people has gathered to hear Jesus standing by the Lake of Guinness-O-ret.
Let's read the first 11 verses here, and then let's consider what we can learn about how God defines faith and how it's exemplified for us by Peter.
So it was as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God that he stood by the Lake of Guinness-O-ret and saw two boats standing by the lake.
But the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.
Then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.
When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
But Simon answered and said to him, Master, we've toiled all night and caught nothing.
Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net.
And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking.
So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken.
And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid.
From now on you will catch men.
So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed him.
It's a historical account that many of you know well.
It teaches us about the power of Jesus as he demonstrated his authority over his creation in the sight of all who were there that day.
And yet it also teaches us some foundational truths about how the Lord defines the type of faith that the Hebrew writer is talking about when he says that we have to have it in order to be pleasing to God.
I want to focus on four things that we can learn about that type of faith from this event in the life of Peter, this life-changing event in the life of Simon Peter who would become one of the Lord's Apostles.
There are other individuals involved in this event who also put their faith in Jesus.
We read about them there in verse 10.
But for the sake of our focus, let's narrow it down specifically to Peter and use him to help us self-assess our own faith.
The first trait of God-pleasing faith that we see in this event is that faith that is pleasing to God is a sacrificial faith.
This point is made in bold font, of course, by the famous statement in verse 11.
We're going to get to that here in a few minutes.
But the sacrificial element of Peter's faith is evident at the opening sequence of events in this passage of scripture that we just read.
Jesus commanded Peter to launch out not only after Peter had had a full night of no catch, but also after he had already spent some amount of time washing his nets and completing the duties associated with closing the night.
We see that because of what Luke describes for us there in verse 2, that as Jesus stands by the lake that he saw the two boats standing there, the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.
The night's work was over and they were in the process of wrapping up and doing their routine tasks that were part of that process.
I imagine everyone here is familiar with the physical and mental fatigue that comes with working a long day, or in the case of Peter here, a long night of demanding physical work.
And have all of that done and feel like you accomplish nothing with it.
You come home from a day at the office or a day on the job site and you just feel like it was a wasted day and there's really nothing more that you want to do than to put your head on the pillow and rest up to try again tomorrow with a full tank of fuel.
First century commercial fishing was, it was not for the faint of heart.
Had to do a little bit of reading on some of the processes and procedures and the physical demands that were placed on these men who had this line of work.
There were heavy nets constantly tossed into the sea and pulled back up.
There were hours of rowing to get to desired spots that they thought they had a higher opportunity or a higher probability of catching fish, often against unfavorable weather conditions to get to these spots.
Caring for their equipment was laborious.
The nets had to be dried completely at the end of each night's fishing in order to preserve them to be able to continue to use them.
They had to be thoroughly cleaned and mended.
That's the process we see there described in verse 2 as Jesus found them washing their nets.
On nights where they had a catch, which was not this night, but if that's your line of work you hope that's most nights that you have a catch.
On nights where you have a catch, the fish had to be sorted and cleaned, as described, probably not coincidentally by Jesus in his parable of the dragnet that you can read about elsewhere in the New Testament.
On nights with no catch, like this one, it had to have been exhausting to do these sunrise chores when the night's work had yielded absolutely nothing.
So what would, I'm going to put it in air quotes, what would it have a non-sacrificial faith look like for Peter in this instance? Well, Peter could be excused by anybody with a worldly viewpoint if he had said to Jesus, you know, that's a great idea.
I believe in your power to make something happen if I go back out there and let the net down again, but you know, let's just all come back tomorrow night when I'm going to start the next shift and we will all be glad to see your power on display tomorrow night.
We'll all be well rested, the nets will be in good shape, we'll be ready for another night's work.
I'm sure all these people that were so excited to come here you teach will be happy to come back out here again tomorrow night.
That would have been a non-sacrificial faith on the part of Peter, but that's not what he did.
Obedience was sacrificial by Peter.
It meant, ultimately, after he goes back out to drop the net again, it meant ultimately starting all over again with this wrap-up routine.
Redrying, re-cleaning, remending, putting him behind schedule for the next day, looking ahead to the next night.
Romans 12.1 calls us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.
Paul there calls that our reasonable service.
So in our self-assessment of our faith, we should be able to identify consistent traits of self-sacrifice that are active in our lives.
And if we can't do that, then it's a caution that perhaps the way we are defining faith is not the way God defines it.
God-pleasing faith is a sacrificial faith.
The second thing that I think we can see from the example of Peter here in Luke chapter 5, the second trait of a faith that is pleasing to God is a devoted faith.
Peter, despite probably not fully understanding the purpose of the Lord's command, despite everything that we outlined in the previous point about sacrificial faith, that in his mind there's probably nothing nothing that sounded better to him than to just get home and rest.
Despite every human inclination that would suggest otherwise.
Peter says in verse 5, nevertheless, at your word I will let down the net.
This is what devoted faith looks like.
Devoted faith is animated by the word of the Lord.
Devoted faith looks beyond human wisdom and is true to the word of the Lord.
What would a non-devoted faith have looked like from Peter in this example? He prefaces his statement by saying, Master, you know, we've toiled all night and we've caught nothing.
And then there's a semicolon in my version of, in the New King James version that I'm reading from, so you're not sure what's coming next.
Somebody with a non-devoted faith might have said, Master, we've toiled all night, we've caught nothing.
You know, trust me, I've been out there for hours.
What you're trying to do here is you're pushing the envelope a little too far.
I know what's going to happen if I go out there and drop the net again.
We're going to be back here in an hour starting this whole routine up again, being frustrated at the fact that we didn't catch anything.
Or, Master, I'm the pro fisherman here.
You know, you grew up a carpenter.
I know what I'm doing and there is nothing out there to catch tonight.
That would have been a non-devoted faith.
That's not the type of faith that Peter had.
And it's not the type of faith that we must have in order to be pleasing to God.
What will we do at the word of the Lord? At your word, I will let down the net.
At your word, I will fill in the blank.
Now, will we quibble with it or rationalize it or somehow attempt to redirect it to make it fit more with what we wish that the word of the Lord was? Or will we be actively devoted to it, even if the average person around us isn't? What Peter did was not normal.
I would venture to guess 99 out of 100 commercial fishermen in Galilee in this exact same sequence of events would have passed on what Jesus was asking him to do.
Peter was devoted, however, to this Master.
He had some level of familiarity with him.
We talked about what happened in Luke chapter 4, the healing of his mother-in-law, but it's this event, this night that changes his life permanently from that day forward.
And it's his devoted faith to the Lord that was the tipping point in that happening.
Is the course of our faith directed by the word of the Lord? It's a simple question, but it's one that if we look ourselves in the mirror and ask it, we can get into a pretty deep conversation with ourselves.
Is the course of our faith directed by the word of the Lord? We're blessed to have the word of the Lord easily accessible to us.
We talked about that in the middle school VBS class Friday night about Hilkiah finding the book of the law that had been neglected for many decades.
There were people that grew up in that time that did not have access to the word of the Lord because so many people had neglected it in such terrible fashion.
We have the word of the Lord.
We certainly should not neglect it, but in our self-assessment, can we conclude that our hearts are devoted to that word the way that Peter demonstrated his was? Are our actions and our inactions supported by the word of the Lord? They need to be to have the type of faith that the Hebrew writer described.
That faith that is pleasing to God is a sacrificial and it is a devoted faith.
Thirdly, that faith that is pleasing to God exemplified by Peter for us here in Luke chapter 5 is a humble faith.
Peter seems to be caught off guard to say the least at the display of Christ's power.
It's clear from his discourse with the Lord, it's clear from his actions.
This was not some staged event that he was in on the planning for.
This is not something that he and Jesus got together the night before and said, you know, here's what we're going to do.
You're going to go out there, you're going to pretend to fish all night and catch nothing, and then I'm going to send you back out and there's going to be a big catch.
He was not in on Jesus's plans and it's clear from what we see here.
The catch of fish overwhelmed not only Peter's boat but Peter himself.
He recognized the majesty of God's power.
What he saw was clearly miraculous.
This was not a big catch.
He was not in on Jesus's plans and it's clear from what we see here.
He was.
This wasn't a case of Jesus knowing that there was this prime spot over here where you can catch a lot of fish that Peter hadn't heard about before.
He knew what he had seen was supernatural.
He knew what he had seen could only come from the Lord himself.
In his reaction to this, in verse 8, he fell down at Jesus's knees saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
He knew he was unworthy.
It's not that he truly wanted Jesus to depart from him.
He's about to follow him for the rest of his life.
It's not that he wanted him to depart from him.
He recognized that it was the Lord's grace that permitted him the opportunity to be in the presence of God in the flesh.
That it was the Lord's grace that enabled him to be able to call the Lord his master and to be his follower, to be his disciple, and to learn from him.
He acknowledged Jesus for who he is.
He acknowledged Jesus for who he is.
And it's a profound display of humility.
It reminds me of his interaction with Jesus during the walk on water in Matthew chapter 14 where he begins to doubt and begins to sink and he cries out for the Lord to save him.
He knew in that moment that it was only Jesus that could do it.
Just as he knows in this moment that it was only Jesus who could bring about the things that he had seen with his own eyes.
Also in this moment, we see that even in obedience to the word of the Lord, that a faithful follower of Christ will sometimes be met by overwhelming circumstances.
Peter obeyed the command to launch and let down the net.
But it was that obedience that resulted in him being part of a fierce struggle against the crushing weight of the fish and the potential sinking of his boat.
If he had not launched out and dropped the net, this event would not have happened.
But he was being obedient to the word of the Lord.
And in that obedience, he found himself in this overwhelming situation where he felt, I'm sure, like his own life was being threatened.
Our faith can sometimes lead to much the same sensation.
A faith that is pleasing to God can sometimes lead to much the same sensation.
It may not be scores of fish and boats taking on water that we encounter the way that Peter did on this morning.
But any number of things can feel overwhelming in our spiritual war with the world.
Understanding that and having the same humble realization that Peter example and having the same humble realization that Peter exemplifies is part of a faith that is pleasing to God.
That when we are in those situations where it feels like things are crushing in on us, where it feels like there's a weight we can't lift, where it feels like we're in some sort of peril because of circumstances in our life, even when we are attempting our absolute best to follow the word of the Lord, Peter shows us what a humble faith looks like.
Peter shows us a faith that is pleasing to God.
Faith that is pleasing to God is sacrificial.
It's devoted.
It's humble.
And fourthly, faith that is pleasing to God is a faith of committed action.
Jesus said to Peter in verse 10, Do not be afraid.
From now on you will catch men.
With the force of his power demonstrated, Jesus in a mere 11 words put before Peter a decision that could redirect the entire purpose of the life he had known up to that point.
And Peter's response in verse 11 shows us an example of committed, active faith.
He forsook all and followed him.
No longer would Peter's life be governed only by the daily ups and downs of a commercial fisherman.
I went out this night and had no catch.
Went out the next night, caught a little bit.
Went out the next night, we had a pretty good night.
That fourth night, again, no catch.
No longer was that going to be the priority in Peter's life.
He was going to have a divine purpose that would have eternal impact for him because of this life-changing experience.
A committed faith in Christ requires active change in our lives.
Everything a committed Christian does bears the light of God's power.
And that is in the name of the Lord.
It defines us in how we interact with our brethren and those in the outside world.
It defines us in how we raise our families and invest in our marriages.
It defines us in how we forsake the empty and fleeting callings of the world.
It defines us in how we answer the call of the gospel.
It defines us in how we stay true to our commitment, even if we are bearing weight of what feels like overwhelming circumstances that threaten to take us down.
A faith that is pleasing to God is a faith of committed action.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that people will be known by their fruits.
Brother David Carroza likes to reference that a lot.
And it's a great thing to meditate on.
A committed Christian faith, like the one demonstrated by Peter and Luke 5, will align consistently with good fruit.
If our faith in the Lord is not committed so that he governs all aspects of our lives, then does our faith meet the definition that God uses for that word? I think the answer to that is no.
Faith that is pleasing to God must be a faith of committed action.
To please God, our faith must be consistent with the examples we see in Scriptures.
God has told us about faith.
He has allowed us to see it, manifested perfectly by his Son.
Who learned obedience himself in the flesh to be the sacrifice for us that we had to have to be reconciled to God.
But we also have these great examples of imperfect individuals like Peter, who was living an ordinary life prior to accepting the Lord's call.
And it's now up to us to make the same decision.
Peter was given an invitation by Christ, do not be afraid from now on you will catch men.
He forsook all and followed him.
We are given an invitation by Christ to forsake all and to follow him.
To put that faith into practice in our lives and to grow it to where we can influence others and teach them about God as well.
That's that fourth step in the training process I described at the outset.
We hear about it, we see an example of it, we seek to implement it, we seek to grow in strength so that we can teach others about it as well.
God's purpose for you and for me is so much more than the daily humdrum of earthly things.
That's what we see Peter forsaking to answer the Lord's invitation for a new purpose in his life.
For something that would have eternal consequence for him.
For something that would be of great fulfillment for him as he followed sacrificially, devotedly, as he followed with committed action and with a humble spirit.
So let's take the example of Peter and lead a life of faith that meets the definition that God uses for that word.
And what I have found as I was studying for this lesson, I actually almost did an entire lesson that I was going to call God's dictionary.
And I was going to look at three different words and how God defines them and contrast that with how the world defines those same three words.
But I ended up narrowing my focus to here.
But I'll leave you with this, that I have benefited greatly from that type of perspective when I read in the scriptures examples of people's faith, of their love, of their repentance, and meditating upon how the scriptures tell us God defines those things.
And then meditating upon what I see around in the world around me, definitions that are commonly accepted for those things and recognizing that God is the only one who can do that.
And realizing that that's not in alignment with what the scriptures teach.
Let's lead the life of faith that Peter shows us here in Luke chapter five.
And if you have not yet responded to the Lord's invitation to forsake all that is in the world and to follow him, that opportunity is given to you tonight.
Please come forward and let us know how we can help you spiritually as we stand and sing our invitation song.
