Unbelieving Believers

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   believers lord we thank you that you sent your spirit to live and indwell in us that we can be filled to overflowing that we can be full of your presence of your power god is just a wonderful thing lord there's nothing better than your presence there's nothing better than your glory there's nothing better than being with you lord in worship being with you and the fellowship with other people lord you said where two or three are gathered together in your name there you are in the midst lord but it's great when you manifest your presence when you speak to us god when you lead us by your spirit and by your word we thank you for that this morning jesus name we pray amen you may be seated it's good to worship the lord i sense his presence here this morning got a lot to cover uh going to be talking a little bit about faith this morning faith's an important thing amen i want everybody to turn with me to hebrews chapter 11. we're going to start there but we're going to go to quite a few places this morning i'm calling this message unbelieving believers unbelieving believers there's a lot going on in christendom or the christian world the church world that blows my mind but we need to define faith what faith is you know people have a lot of different ideas about what faith is a lot of people think faith is uh having some religious code or religious belief system some people think faith is just believing that there is a god that there's an afterlife a lot of people think faith is their own moral code that they've come up with and then we've got to even have people out there that think they're spiritual and have faith but they deny jesus and they deny the word of god but we need to look at the term this is a term that god came up with this is a term that's in the bible amen and we need to know what bible faith is not oprah faith not deepak chopra faith not hindu faith not buddhist faith but true faith the true faith of god the creator amen we need to define that now we're going to look at a bunch of scriptures but let's just look at this

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   this morning first hebrews chapter 11 verse 1. i'm going to read down through verse 6 right now but he says this now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen for by it or by faith the elders of god almighty the elders obtained a good report through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of god so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear by faith abel offered unto god a more excellent sacrifice than cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous god testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh and by faith enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because god had translated him before his translation for he had the testimony that he pleased god now verse 6 but without faith it is impossible to please him or god for he that cometh to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him so without faith it is absolutely impossible to believe god now or to please god and if we're going to please god then we're going to have to believe that he is and everything that he is and that he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him now i'm not going to read all of chapter 11 here in hebrews but i want to skip down and read some in verse go down to verse 32. now he gives this long list of different people who operated in faith and there's so many aspects to what it means to live by faith and to walk in faith in the faith of god and to have faith in god and i i could spend all morning just on hebrews 11. but i want to show you something here he gives this long list going through all these different individuals and then he said in verse 32 and what shall i more say for time would fail me to tell of gideon and barack and samson and jephthah and of david and of samuel and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms wrought righteousness obtained promises stop the mouths of lions quench the violence of fire escape the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in fight turned to flight the armies of aliens women received their dead raised to life again and others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a

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   better resurrection and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourging j mover of bonds and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword they wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins being destitute and afflicted and tormented of whom the world was not worthy they wandered in deserts and in mountains in the dens and caves of the earth all these or these all rather having obtained a good report through faith receive not the promise and the promise he's talking of here is the final resurrection of the body because he said god having provided some better thing for us that that with they without us should not be made perfect but he's talking about true bible faith can i just say something to you this morning true bible faith is more than just believing god exists true bible faith is more than just believing that jesus is the messiah god in the flesh and that he died on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead now that's a good place to start but faith is far more than just believing something in your mind or just in your heart just saying i believe that you know a few weeks ago i talked about it from james chapter 2. you can turn there if you want to but i'm not turning there at this moment but james chapter 2 he said thou believeth there is one god thou do as well but the devils also believe and tremble and then he talked about faith without works is dead being alone so true bible faith he's trying to tell us something there true bible faith is not just believing something about god it's not just believing in god it's not just believing in jesus or in the cross or in the resurrection true bible faith will result in actions in your life they will result in faith will result in change in the way you think in the way you live and the way you act true faith will change you amen true faith will change others around you because they will see your faith amen that's what james was talking about he said you know what show me show me your faith without your works he said i'll show you my faith by my works see right now we've got a lot of people that claim to have faith in god faith in the lord jesus christ they claim to be christians but their actions do not agree with that nor do their words even their belief system is flawed so we have a lot of unbelieving believers and what's sad about that

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   is that they think they're gonna be okay when it's all said and done i'm going to read some scriptures first of all let's look at the definition of faith from the greek dictionary this is from the strong's greek dictionary here is the definition of faith it says persuasion that is credence moral conviction of religious truth or the truthfulness of god can i say that again it is moral conviction of religious truth or the truthfulness of god or religious teacher now when we say god and of course the god we're talking about yahweh jehovah elohim adonai the lord jesus christ of nazareth who died and rose from the dead the everlasting father the prince of peace the mighty god so faith is moral conviction of the religious truth or the truthfulness of god especially reliance upon christ jesus for salvation and the constancy in such profession and life notice what it says here it says it is the ex and it's also a definition the system of religious gospel truth itself with the assurance that you believe it that you believe that you have faith and that you are fidelity meaning you are loyal to that truth that you believe right now i've given you this many times oh boy it's gonna jump it boy it really jumped now here's some scriptures we're gonna look at this morning because this is important now we've quoted i'm just going to quote this verse but it's up here on the screen for those watching first timothy 4 1-2 the holy spirit gave paul this morning says now the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith okay some shall depart from the faith giving he deducing spirits and doctrines of devils speaking lies in hypocrisy and having their conscience seared with a hot iron now that's first timothy 4 1. so we we we have a warning that many people are going to depart from the faith not a faith the faith today i was looking up uh when i woke up this morning we got the uh the huffington post had an article let me turn let me let me just show it to you real quick here but the huffington post had this article i found interesting

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