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We discussed at length last week how that in our text in Hebrews 6 that the writer stated how that he wished to "get beyond the basics" in writing his book and how that in stating that, he did us the favor of listing what the early apostolic church considered "the basics of Christianity" in one place. We decided to use these verses as a guide to "get back to the basics" and make sure that our foundation as a church is solid and secure and can hold the great things that God has in store for us this year.

The first basic principle of the kingdom of God according to the writer of Hebrews is "repentance from dead works" and we discussed this at length last lesson and covered how that -- although we will never on this side of eternity conquer accidental sin -- we must repent and turn away from willful sin in our life if we are to see the will of God in our lives. And that if we don't embrace that principle and follow it, then everything else that we do for Christ will be unbalanced.

Tonight, we move on to the next "basic of Christianity" according to our text, and the next foundational principle is "faith toward God." Admittedly, most of us consider "faith" as so basic that we have conquered it and grasped it and perhaps you have, but I want to talk to us about some principles of faith outlined in scripture to ensure -- remember, we are getting back to the basics here -- that you are really solid in this area. The next foundational truth in our walk with God must be true "faith towards God."

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There are several misconceptions of what faith is among Christians today, so let's set the record straight lest we fall in the same traps. One such myth is that:

Take the scriptures telling us to "believe" and our society has grabbed a hold of that and secularized it. Some people think that as long as they believe in something that they are okay. Today you hear people use such phrases as "I'm a woman of faith" but then it turns out that what they believe in is an ideal or philosophy of man. Or they believe in a cause such as saving the whales. Or they believe in a god that is far removed from the God of the Bible. In the sports world you hear the phrase "you've got to believe" and some preachers have come to the mistaken conclusion that believing in anything will save you and make you okay with God. They have turned faith into positive thinking and there is quite a difference between the two. Just the other day, I heard a commercial on the radio for a dating service and some sappy sounding dude said "if you want to find, then you must seek, if you want love then you must believe." He's talking about a "dating service!" Why didn't he just say "if you can't get a date yourself, then come pay us money and we'll find someone else who can't get a date and set you up?"

And so let's set one thing clear from our text: the basics of Christianity is not just "faith." The act of believing in itself is not enough if you are not believing in the right thing. You can believe all day long that the earth is a god and the trees are the priests, but your belief has done nothing for you and will not save you because belief in itself is empty without believing in the right cause. The basic of Christianity is not just "Faith" but "faith towards God." And he is not referring to just any "god" but the one, true God of the Holy Bible. The only faith that will save you is if you believe the Words and actions of the one, true God of Israel. Allah can't save you because Allah is the moon god and does not really exist. Neither can all of these other gods that people claim exist. There is only one Lord, and it is the God of the scriptures and only faith towards Him will do you any good!

A few years back the Catholic church issued a decree that since the Muslims believe in "a God" that they were saved and that Allah was just another name for the God that they worshipped. That might be true in the Catholic church, but Allah is not another name for the God that we worship from the Bible! Allah didn't die for you. Allah has no mercy or forgiveness. Allah is a figment of men's imaginations. Allah contradicts himself in the Koran so much that the Muslims had to write in there that "Allah can change his mind at any time." That's not the same God that I serve, because the God that I serve cannot lie, does not make mistakes, and never contradicts Himself! Allah is definitely a different God than the God of scriptures. So understand that if I am to be saved, then I must have faith, but not just any old faith, but faith towards the God of glory that the scriptures say created the universe! And His name, by the way, is Jesus!

Faith towards God; I must have faith towards the God of the Bible in order to reap the benefits and blessings of the God of the Bible. And let me say this: what if it was true that it didn't matter what God you believed in as long as you believed in something -- it is NOT true, by the way, but let's pretend for a moment that it was. If you could pick any religious belief and by believing in that belief reap whatever eternal rewards that they taught, why would you not pick the God of the Bible?

Why would you want to serve Allah with his total lack of mercy and caring and his "wishy-washy contradict himself all of the time and change what he believes" attitude? Even if he said that doing something would save you, how do you know that he's not going to change his mind as he's done in the past a hundred times?

Why would you want to serve the thousands of Hindu gods that promise no eternal life but rather reincarnation as an animal and force you to live in the lowest level of degradation in society? Why would you want to serve Buddha, who makes you try to achieve "God-like" status through a series of physical and mental exercises and makes you deny your flesh without giving you anything of joy in return? Why would you want to have faith in the damnable doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses who only say that 144,000 go to heaven? For that matter why would you want to live your life serving yourself, when you can't even keep your life straightened out week to week?

Even if it were just pick a religion -- and it's not -- but if it were, serving the God of the Bible just makes sense, because there is no other God like Him! He is the only God that was willing to shape time and history to set up coming and dying for you and me because of His great love for us! He is the only God that has promised to heal us when we are sick, save us from our sins, and give us a resurrection when He comes back for us. When He asks you to deny your flesh, He puts the joy of the Holy Ghost into your life to compensate! When you obey His Word, things just go better and things work out and even in the darkest valleys, you eventually come out with things having been for your betterment and good! Furthermore, He is a personal God that you can experience and feel and know, and He cannot lie and has never changed His Word, and so from past experience you can know that when you stand before Him one day, everything that He said is true and that if you followed His commandments, you will be saved for eternity! Why would you not want to have faith towards our God!? It just makes good common sense to serve Jesus Christ, because there never has been anybody like Him!

So we must not just have faith, but faith towards God. Faith in Jesus Christ. If that sounds exclusive to you and "non politically correct" then know that Jesus was not politically correct and was exclusive. He said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He said "I am the door, and if any man try to enter in another way, he is a thief and a robber!" Since He got up on the third day like He said that He would, you might ought to listen to Him because everything else that He has said would take place has taken place! The temple was destroyed just as He said it would happen. The nations have risen up just as His Word said that they would. The world's wars have followed the path of prophecy in scripture. He's batting a thousand on His Word being true, so you just might ought to believe Him when He says "I am the only way to eternal life!" If you want to be saved, we must start with faith towards the God of the Bible.

I've known people to have a sick loved one in the hospital and they greet me at the door with "I'm believing that everything is going to be alright." And yet they haven't prayed to God. They haven't asked God to move or intervene. They are believing in the doctors and modern medicine to help their loved one. Such is not true faith, because it is not faith towards God. Before you take somebody to the doctor, you should pray to God for everything to be alright. There is nothing wrong with modern medicine and thank God for it, but true Christianity is always based upon "faith towards God."

Back to the basics. Now let's move on to another popular myth about faith and believing:

Faith is defined in Hebrews 11 for us when the writer wrote:

In other words, faith is when you are so convinced of something that cannot be tangibly seen, that you go ahead an act now on what you believe to be true. The "hall of fame of faith" lists many people who were full of faith, and all of them had one thing in common: when they believed they acted. Noah believed but did not just sit around twiddling his thumbs but got up and built an ark. Abraham believed and left Ur. Moses believed and left Egypt. Rahab believed and then helped the spies escape and placed a red ribbon out her window as they had said to do. True faith leads to action. It is not just mental belief.

I've heard people say that "I believe in Jesus" but they've never bothered to obey anything that He has said. Jesus said this:

The message is clear: if you believe that He is Lord, then you will obey Him as Lord. We can never separate true faith from action. Because if you truly believe something, then you will act upon it.

But there has been a false doctrine that has crept into modern churches that faith is just mental believing something. That we are saved by just saying "I believe." And that is a very old misconception. So old that James had to confront it in the very first book of the New Testament written. We read his words in our text, but let's go back to it now and examine it carefully:

There is a practical side of faith and that if you truly believe something then you will act upon it. Furthermore if faith is not accompanied by action, then it is not true faith at all!

True faith is seen by the action that people undertake for that belief!

My all-time favorite scripture in James. Just saying that you believe in God, even if you get that God right, is not enough because the devils believe in God and their faith in His power is so strong that it produces action: they shudder in fear! If you say you believe God and yet do not move with action on His commandments, then your level of Christianity is not even at the level of the demons!

When Abraham believed God, then he did what God said to do. He didn't just sit in Ur, or sit around and say "I believe therefore I don't have to obey."

Faith without action is dead. So let's apply that to our lives today. Some people read Ephesians 2:8-10 which says that we are saved by grace through faith and not of works and teach that a person is not saved by any action on their part, but simply by mental or verbal belief. What Ephesians is really saying is that we are not saved by actions or deed alone. And what James is saying is that we are not saved by faith and believing alone. But rather to be saved, you must have both. You must truly believe, but if you truly believe, then you will obey what God has said He will do! There is no contradiction when you allow scripture to interpret scripture!

So to those who say "you are saved by just believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and you don't have to be baptized," you'd better rethink that. Because water baptism is a commandment from God. If you truly believe Jesus, then you will do what He has said and be baptized! If you have no action following your faith, then you didn't really have faith at all! For someone to say that they believe in Christ and then refuse to do what He has commanded proves that they really do not believe! Saving faith always results in actions.

Actions alone cannot save you. Faith alone cannot save you. Just believing anything will not save you. Just doing something in the hopes that it makes you good enough for heaven will not save you. Man is not saved by works alone and not by faith alone. But true faith will result in action and obedience to the commandments of God and such actions are not works but are a sign of true faith. As James said, "I'll show you my faith by my deeds."

This goes beyond just salvation and water baptism issues. It affects us at every level of life. If a person truly believes in God then that faith will lead them to obey what God has said.

If you truly believe that God will take care of you, then you will pay your tithes and offerings.

If you truly believe that God will give us a great harvest of souls, then you will go out and invite people to service.

If you truly believe that God's Word is inspired and truth and a light to our feet, then you will read it and teach somebody else about it.

If you truly believe that praise and worship ushers us into His presence, then you will have no problem clapping your hands, etc....

If you truly believe that prayer changes things, then it won't take the preacher goading you or twisting your arm to make you pray.

If you truly believe that coming to church and hearing the Word of God is commanded and essential to being victorious, then you are going to be here regardless of the circumstances in your life.

If you truly have faith toward God, then it will show in your actions. If you are not acting upon it, then do you really believe it? Back to the basics! We are talking about faith towards God!

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This leads us to our final myth and that is many new Christians believe that:

In other words, they think that they will eventually "grow out" of having to trust God for things that they cannot see. The reason people tend to think this is that they look around and see more mature Christians that are further along in God than they are and those Christians are not struggling with the same issues that the new Christian is. And that's true, but just because you cannot see obvious areas where the more advanced Christian is having to trust God in, doesn't mean that they are not there. Paul wrote this to the church in Corinth:

Not "we used to walk by faith" but we daily walk by faith, still. When Paul first got into church, the issues of faith were such as "what will people think?; who is Jesus Christ?; what is the direction that God wants my life to go?; What should I do for God, first?; Can God use me to do great things for His kingdom?" and so on. but after several missionary journeys and establishing churches all over the world and writing two-thirds of the New Testament, Paul was still having to write "we walk by faith." The issues were different but Paul was still in a place where he didn't have everything figured out. Paul still had some unanswered questions and that's why he wrote:

I have this mirror that I use to shave with in the shower and no matter what I do, it always has steam or "stuff" on it. When I clean it, it steams up. If I don't clean it, the water dries on it and leaves a dim view. I can never see my face clearly to shave and perhaps that's why I always come to church looking as if I fell into a briar patch!

Paul said that it was the same way in the Spirit. There will be some things that you will never have answers for on this side of glory. Because we are not God. We don't understand all things. We cannot see things as He sees them. At best, we can only vaguely figure some things out. We can be sure on doctrinal issues, but when it comes to living life, we will never have everything figured out ahead of time! Because we must walk by faith and not by sight! And so understand something: you will never reach a place in God where you do not have to totally depend upon Him. In fact, the more you grow in God, the more you will have to depend upon Him!

I think back to my life. It took faith to go to Bible College and choose that direction in my life. It took even more faith to come to San Antonio, a city where I had absolutely no ties or connections to except I felt like God was telling me to come. But now that I am pastoring, I have to trust in God on a daily basis more than I ever did back then. I've got a hundred situations on my head in people's lives that if God doesn't give me wisdom or work them out, I'm sunk! I've got to trust God to give me a Word for His people three and four times a week, and I cannot come up with that stuff on my own. I have to trust God not to just meet my bills and my needs, but the financial needs of the entire church complex. Just because I'm not struggling with who Jesus is, don't think that I've reached a place in my walk with God where I've got everything figured out and I do not need to trust in Him anymore! On the contrary, every morning, I begin the day by saying, "now God, you see this and that!" I have to trust God more now that I have had the Holy Ghost for almost two decades than I did when I first received it!

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Now let me finish with a principle that is not a myth but is very, very true:

Fear and faith do not go together. Let me throw a story in for free to help somebody because it is a scripture that I have enacted many times in my own life. The good king Hezekiah received a very ominous and threatening letter from foreign kings that detailed all the horrible things that they were coming to do to Israel. It was not just an empty threat because Israel's army was depleted and things looked bleak and so the letter was designed to scare Hezekiah into submitting without a fight to the enemies of God.

Fear is the opposite of faith. And so the devil tries to get you to fear the unknown rather than approach it with faith, because if you are fearful, then you will be too timid to act upon the promises of God. If you will not act upon the promises of God, then you have no hope and you are lost to the enemy and so knowing this, the devil tries to bring fear into your life. Fear is the greatest tool of the enemy of your soul.

But I like what Hezekiah did. Things don't look so great. In fact by all appearances that all of the vile things that the enemy has said would come to pass, is a very likely scenario. But the scriptures say:

He took the letter and spread it out before God in the temple and said, "God they are talking about you again!" Hezekiah never forgot that it was in God that he trusted. Hezekiah did not forget that he was not in this alone because he was trusting in God. As long as you are having faith towards God, you are not in your situation alone, but God is with you. Only when you act in fear do you act alone!

Hezekiah took the letter and said "this is too big a problem for me alone, let's let God read their little letter." And the scriptures say that with the letter folded out before God, Hezekiah prayed and said, "God you see what they have written against your people and against your city. Don't let this come to pass." And the scriptures say that God responded, "because you have prayed to me about this, it will not happen and I will put a hook in the nose of the king of Assyria and he will go back the way that he came and will not even have time to come to this city."

What I like about the story is how that God took care of Hezekiah's enemy. The scriptures say that God said:

God caused the Assyrian king to hear a rumor of someone else attacking him and so in FEAR of being caught off guard and having his throne taken away by force, he turned aside. And then the scriptures say this:

Understand the principle that God was trying to teach here: Because Hezekiah refused to allow fear to overtake him and rather trusted in the Lord, God turned the fear back on his enemies and then let their worst fears come true!

When the devil tries to bring fear into your life, you need to take that situation and lay it before the Lord and say, "Lord, this is what the enemy is saying. This is the negative report that I, your child, have received!" Instead of be consumed with fear to the point that we just freak out and forget that God wants to fight for us, we need to refuse the fear and take our situation to Him. When we do, not only will God stand with us, but He will turn the fear back to our enemies and what was intended for us, will happen to them! They will fall in their own snare! They will be consumed by their own den of lions! That's what happens when the child of God refuses to give in to fear and stands with faith towards God!

The next time the enemy tries to scare you into fearing him, stand with faith in God knowing that the threatening of the enemy will be his fate if you refuse to give into the fear! No matter how "advanced" and "mature" we get as Christians, we must never forget the basics of Christianity and they are in order: repentance from dead works, and faith toward God! We will never outgrow the need for such faith! Therefore let us trust Him with everything in us!