Hello friends! We know it has been some time since we’ve posted a message. Our trip to the Philippines kept us busy (which you can read about here), but we’re back, with a new message entitled, Faith . We hope it ministers to you. Remember, feel free to share this message with others! Print it, email it, share it! God bless you all.
Faith
What is faith? Turn to 2nd Peter 1:1. “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith…” What faith is he talking about? “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” Where does our faith come from? It’s not our faith it’s His faith which comes through the righteousness of God. So this faith is the righteousness of God; it is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Turn to the 11th chapter of Hebrews? He is telling what happened to each of these people through faith; because here is this evidence of things not seen. He was talking about every one of these people. Why was He talking about them? He was again coming back to His faith and our faith.
I hear people talking all of the time about their lack of faith, “My faith is so small.” It isn’t our faith anyway it’s faith through the righteousness of God and our savior Jesus Christ.
I am going to the first chapter of 2nd Peter and show you what He is doing so that we can have this faith that comes from God’s righteousness. Let’s see what Peter has to say. “Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle…” He is telling us that he is a servant because He’s not the one speaking; Jesus is speaking through him by the knowledge and righteousness of God.
What is going to happen here with this little word called faith? And “…have obtained like precious faith with us…” He was talking about someone that knew God like he did. He was talking about God’s people, about someone that had faith like he had through the righteousness of God. He didn’t say add, He said multiply grace and peace. It is going to take a drastic change in us human beings; because He is removing from us the things of the natural man and putting in this precious faith to transform our lives through His righteousness.
“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you.” This is not man’s righteousness spoken of but it is the knowledge of God and Jesus. We get the knowledge of God through the Spirit because Jesus walked the earth and gave us His kingdom. We learned it because we are going to need it and have to have it. It comes by His faith and not man’s.
He is going to multiply His grace and peace to us; because we are coming into a new knowledge of the kingdom that is not of this world. We will gain this faith by reading the Word of God, for it is faith that He is imparting. There is a whole processing here that I want you to see that is very important for our lives day by day.
2. “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
3. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”
Where did we get it? Does anybody know the prayer that Jesus gave us? “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We are talking about the righteousness of God and Jesus Christ that, through the knowledge of God, He is bringing us into His kingdom. How is He going to bring us into it if we are full of ‘the fallen man’? He is processing us by giving us His faith and grace which He is multiplying to us with His peace.
There is some stuff inside of us that He has to remove so He is processing it out. Again, He is saying that according to His divine power He has given us all things; He has laid before us all that pertains to life and godliness. Without God there is no life and without Him there is no godliness. He is giving all this to us to bring us into where He can multiply to us His grace and peace. Why? He is changing our lives and bringing us out of the kingdoms of this world into His kingdom of righteousness unto life and godliness. This knowledge of Him calls us to glory and power. Jesus walked the earth and ascended on high where He received all things; all power, all dominion and all glory. He is sharing this kingdom with us.
Does anyone remember the Beatitudes? They are supposed to bring us into glory and power through faith; for “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things that are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Heb.11:1, 3)
What is He saying? Here is this mighty power of God taking us into His glory and power and changing our lives so that we can walk in His kingdom, in this life, set free from the powers of the world around us. He has called us to glory and power “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.” (II Peter 1:4)
That divine nature is going to be a part of you; it will make the difference. We have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. We escape that corruption by His divine nature; because He took out the corruption and replaced it with Himself.
Remember He is taking everything out of us that is of the fallen nature and in its place He puts His faith, His grace and His peace. He is giving us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.
We just read about His faith didn’t we? That whole chapter of Hebrews 11 tells the story of what He is doing in the 1st chapter of 2nd Peter. These are precious promises by which we might be partakers of the divine nature. When we are born again what happens to us? We become a new creature in a new creation and He has given us these new things that we might be a part of Him. He is using His divine nature for it is Jesus, in us, by which we escape the corruption of the world. Because the Word will not live in us until we have allowed him to bring in His own faith; everything that comes from Him to us is perfect. He removes all of the fallen man out of us and replaces it with himself and here He is stating that He has given to us faith, grace, peace and everything that pertains to life and godliness. Then He says that He will bring us into His glory. He gave us all these promises that His nature in us would prevent us from being destroyed by corruption through lust.
I looked in a little dictionary and found diligence meant eager anticipation. I liked that very much. Verse 5 says, “Now beside this, giving all diligence…” I liked that it is saying here to give all diligence (with eager anticipation), add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge. Shouldn’t we be eager about it? What is inside of us is not our own but it comes from the Holy Spirit and all power is given to us.
2nd Peter: 1:5. “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6. And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;”
Where do we get our patience from? Through tribulation!
Turn to Psalm 66:10. “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
11. Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins.
12. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy [place].”
Here is a description of going through temperance: I lived near the steel mills and fire would go high into the heavens when they were melting that ore. When they would fire it up, you could see the fire way into the heavens and it would shine so brightly. They were taking the ore out of the ground and running it through a heat process, and then through a water process; then for tolerance and endurance they put the pressure on until it is strong enough to hold the big bridges that have been built around our nation.
God is processing us so that as He takes all these things out and then puts Himself in with His faith, grace, and peace. He is doing something very mighty; He gave us His power and knowledge. He’s not just giving us knowledge, He’s giving us His knowledge and He is going to do the processing. This processing is very important to get all of the garbage out of us. He says, to knowledge; temperance and to temperance patience.
Why does it have to have the fire? It builds tolerance and endurance which brings patience. Then what happens is that we are ready to love our brothers as our selves; He has taken everything else out and put Himself in. There is one little word here it’s ‘love’. It gives us the faith to be filled, because God is love.
1st John 4:11. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
14. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son [to be] the Saviour of the world.
15. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
16. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
17. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.”
Oh, I’m not perfect! How many times do we hear people say that? All the day long! They need to read these scriptures and realize Jesus died that we might be in His kingdom and He in us that as He is, so are we in this world. He says in 2nd Peter 1:8 “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make [you that ye shall] neither [be] barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” When He finishes with us in bringing us in, we will know Him. 9. “But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”
Here we are talking about this and that and have forgotten that we were purged from our old sin and then we go back into our old selves. 10. “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.” If we permit God to put His faith into us with His grace and His peace and He continues to impart unto us all these things which pertain unto life and godliness He will bring us into His glory and tell us about the great promises that He has given to us. We take into us the Lord Jesus Christ and He brings us into His kingdom. Do you understand we can be as He is in this world? As He is in this world so are we in this world. Jesus said, “I am the true vine and you are the branches. If you abide in me and I abide in you ask what you will and it shall be done. He is coming into His glory. Christ died to bring us back to the Father without sin. If He didn’t do that, then He didn’t accomplish what He came to earth to do, which was to bring us back to Eden.
I believe that in the days ahead God is going to transform our lives so that His power and glory, through Jesus in us, can show the glory of who the Father is. When He said to me, “I have this love to give and I have no one to give it to. We know all things; we know that creation is going to fall.” The Son said, Father, “I will be that lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.” Then they decided they would create the world and Jesus would be the one that would bring us back to Eden, pure without sin. He would present us back to the Father, man made perfect, bringing us back to the Garden of Eden. “Here is man that you created and now they are perfect.”
So what is He going to do? There is going to be the day when He says, “I’m ready to take you to the nations.” He will be ready to take us to the nations when He has completed this process in us to where we are going to say, “Jesus, you are the one that is going to do the talking.”
I take this from Malachi 4:2. “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
3. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do [this], saith the Lord of hosts.”
Jesus is saying. “Come on, I want you filled with my glory so you are ready to go to the nations. Where are the wicked? They are ashes under the souls of our feet! What’s going to happen? It’s going to be Jesus, in us, speaking and acting. Do you get the picture?
All this processing in 2nd Peter is simply to bring us into His love and glory so that He can show the nations who the Father is. He is going to do it with His glory, love and provision. He will show the world the love of God.
In Genesis God gave man the authority to change the world; but when he left God out of it what happened? Man began ruling it by the hand of Satan; but Jesus came and He took back away from Satan what had been given to him. He didn’t leave man out of it, He is letting us finish the job through Him. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son. God so loved the world and Jesus so loved the Father that He is bringing us back to Him. The wicked are gone when He presents all this creation back to the Father filled with His love and glory. This is all to break the bands of wickedness and undue the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free and break every yoke. It is His love in us for He is the true vine and we are the branches.
What is going to happen to the earth? It will be excellent and comely and the branches will be beautiful and glorious, filled with His glory. Is it clear? It is the pure word of God. We need to praise Him. We are not in the kingdom of this world; we are in the kingdom that has no end. Let’s be bold and declare it! He will guide us into all truth and fill us with love for our brothers and sisters and bring His glory to this world. If this is in us and abounds we will never fall because of His kingdom there will be no end.
It is Christ in us the hope of glory. Jesus gave us a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.
Father, we thank you, we exalt your name. Lord, put that love in us that we will be willing to know who you. We thank you, that you gave us your kingdom and your glory. I thank you for everyone here tonight. Make us aware that you have chosen us to know who the Father is.
We pray for this world tonight and for each of us that You have chosen to be revealed through. We ask you, Lord, to give us ears to hear and a heart to obey. In your wonderful name we ask it. Amen.
May 9, 2003
