You hear the pastor talk about faith and you say oh yes yes I have that. You hear him talk about Christ and you say oh yes I believe that. He tells you about the cross and you say oh yes I know that. And so what happens is that over time you settle into a pattern of assuming that you have everything that is being described and that you have therefore nothing more to receive. Welcome to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick and Colin for a person who says I know all about the gospel I know all about Jesus are you telling me there’s more? Yeah there certainly is. Knowing. Whoever said that being a Christian was simply knowing certain things. Luther said once it put it like this he said it’s like a tree bursting with fruits. So real faith is much more than me saying oh yeah I believe certain things. Real faith actually trusts Christ loves Christ the way that you know that you have faith is that love for Christ and that trust in Christ and that desire to follow Christ is actually in the soul. It’s a living thing its with all of these fruits and so I think it’s really important that we don’t just talk about faith and assume that because we believe certain things we’ve got it but that we actually understand what it is and that we pursue it and cultivate it and ask God that we will grow in it. I like that word cultivate. Let’s see how we can do that join us in Hebrews 11 if you can as we continue the message faith possesses Christ. Here’s Colin. Now the Bible uses two wonderful pictures to help us understand this union with Christ the big thing that we’re trying to get hold of today that faith unites you to Jesus Christ two pictures that helped to explain that the first is in Romans and chapter 11 where Paul uses the picture of a branch being grafted into a tree and what he’s saying there if you check it out in Romans chapter 11 is simply this that in the Old Testament God’s redeeming work flowed through the descendants of Abraham they were like the branches of God’s tree then in Romans 11 and verse 17 here’s what Paul says. Some of the branches have been broken off and you, that he’s speaking to Gentile believers, he says, you, you have been grafted into this tree and now you share in the nourishing sap of the olive root and then he explains Romans 11 and verse 20 how this happened. The branches that were cut off they were cut off because of unbelief and then he says but you stand by faith. So what he’s saying is that the way in which you have come to be and grafted into Christ is by faith. It’s a wonderful picture. Faith is the way in which you’re grafted into God’s tree so that the life of Jesus Christ flows through you. Remember Jesus spoke about this. He said I am the vine and you are the branches. But you become a branch in Christ by this bond of faith. That’s how you’re in Him and that’s how His life is in you. And here’s the wonderful thing. When a branch is grafted onto a tree, the fruit that it bears is not the fruit of its own nature but the fruit of the tree to which it has been grafted. That’s why it’s such a wonderful thing to be grafted into Christ. Because it means that Christ’s life flows in you, which is why faith is so wonderfully fruitful and why it understands and why it offers and why it builds and why it obeys and why it longs and why it blesses and why it worships. See, we’re way beyond already a bare belief. We’re talking about the life of Christ in you and faith being the bond that makes Christ yours and you His. Then there’s a second picture that’s perhaps even closer to home for most of us surely is. And that is of a bride joined in marriage to her bridegroom. Of course, this is a wonderful New Testament picture in Ephesians chapter 5. Paul says that believers are the bride of Jesus Christ and that our relationship with him is not simply that we have a bare belief in him, but that we are made one with him in a way that’s analogous to the way in which a husband and a wife are made one. Martin Luther describes this very beautifully. He says, Faith unites the soul to Christ as a bride is united to her bridegroom. Isn’t that beautiful. By this mystery as the apostle teaches Christ and the soul become one flesh and if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast often glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Now to all you folks who are married. Would you agree with me that marriage changes your life? Okay. Would you agree with me that how marriage changes your life depends on who you’re married to, right? How it changes your life depends on who you marry. So, think about this. Faith joins you in this holy union with Christ, and the way that faith changes your life is shaped by the Christ, faith joins you too. Now, who is this Christ? Well, He’s the prophet, the priest, and the king, isn’t He? He’s our teacher, and He’s our Savior, and He’s our Lord. He’s the one who gives us precious promises. He’s the one who redeems. He’s the one who calls us to follow Him. And what that means is that faith that joins us to Him involves the whole person, the mind, the heart, and the will, because it’s being joined to the Christ who promises, the Christ who redeems, and the Christ who calls. Being joined to Him could never be a bare belief. As we think of the Christ to whom we are joined by faith, let’s remember this. I find it helpful just to think of this. Faith trusts, faith loves, and faith follows. That’s just a simple way of shaping the anatomy of faith that we’re going to try and spell out over these coming weeks. Faith trusts a Christ who promises. And of course, that’s the whole point of Hebrews in Chapter 11. The believers who first read this letter, they trusted Christ. But then, like some of us, they’d run into a whole load of difficulties in their lives. And they’d become discouraged. They said, now, wait a minute. We put our faith in the Son of God, now we’re facing all these difficulties and we have these prayers that have not yet been answered and so forth and so on. And some of them are becoming very discouraged. And some of them are beginning to think about giving up. And so, this writer writes the letter, including the verses that we’ve read, and what he’s saying is this. Now, look at the heroes of the Old Testament. Verse 13, they did not receive the things that were promised, they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And what the writer is saying is, folks, we are in the same position. We live by faith and not by sight. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. So that’s your position. That’s my position. Faith trusts. Faith trusts a Christ who promises. Faith hopes for what we do not yet see. Faith trusts Christ in relation to what we do not yet have. That’s how it always has been, and that is what real faith looks like. So, someone has harmed you. Someone has dragged your reputation down, lied about you, and Christ says your righteousness will shine like the noonday sun. You say that hasn’t happened yet. You trust him. You trust him. You are anxious about the future. You don’t know what’s going to happen next. Christ says the man who fears the Lord will have no fear of bad news because his heart is steadfast. You trust him. Whatever news comes tomorrow, trust him. You trust. We have to pause here for just a moment. You’re listening to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And today’s message is Faith Possesses Christ. It’s part of our series, The Anatomy of faith, which shows us that faith trusts because Christ promises. Through our messages, we’ll learn what faith is, how it can change a person’s life, and how you can grow in your faith. And if you ever miss one of these series, you can always catch up or go back and listen again online. Come to our website openthebible.org.uk. There you can hear any of the previously broadcasted messages. You can also find our messages as a podcast if that’s a better way for you to pick up on Colin’s teaching and that’s available at your regular podcasting site. Or you can find a link on our website. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners, and this month, if you feel able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to say thank you by sending you a copy of Pastor Colin Smith’s new book, Green Pastures, Still Waters. It’s a devotional book based on Psalm 23. Full details on our website. Back to the message now, we’re in Hebrews chapter 11, here’s Colin. Faith loves – trusts because Christ promises, it loves because Christ redeems. The son of God to whom you are joined by faith is the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you. If you’re joined to Him, you – that cannot be a bare belief. To be joined to Him evokes a reflection of His great love for you in your heart. E.W. Pink makes a very insightful observation here, that I’ll read to you in just a moment. He notices that in the New Testament there is a varying of language so that sometimes when you would expect the Holy Spirit to have said faith or belief, what you actually find in the Bible is the word love. And Pink makes the point very effectively that the reason for this is so that we may grasp it’s not that faith is one thing and that love is another thing, but that the faith that unites you to Christ fires love for Christ within your heart. There’s no such thing as being united to Christ and not loving Him. Your love for Christ may go dim at times. It may be tested at times, but if you are united with Christ in the bond of the Holy Spirit, you love Him and you know that you love Him. Let me read to you what Pink says. ”If we are to properly preserve the balance of truth we must note carefully the manner in which the Holy Spirit has wrung the changes on the word believe and the word love in the New Testament.” And then he gives some examples. Here’s one you’ll get his points straightaway. Romans chapter 8 and verse 28, you know this one so well. ”All things work together for good for them that…’ Now, you would expect it to say, for those that trust God, wouldn’t you? We know the verse so well. We’ve never perhaps picked up on the fact that it says for those who love God. You see what Pink’s saying? Watch the way the Holy Spirit wrings the changes so that you don’t get the idea that faith is one thing and that love is another. Second Timothy in chapter 4 and verse 8 speaks about a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me in that day, and not only to me, but to all who not believe in His appearing but those who love His appearing or long for His appearing. James chapter 1 in verse 12, the crown of life which the Lord has promised to them that love Him. And then, of course, John’s famous statement, he that loveth not, knoweth not God for God is love. Quoting all of that, of course, from Pink and from the authorized version. Do you love Christ? Now, this is the question, do you love Christ? The devil believes that Jesus is the son of God, that Jesus died and that Jesus rose, but the devil does not trust Christ and the devil does not love Christ. So, don’t rest on a faith that is like the devil’s. One more thing that the devil doesn’t do and that faith does do, faith follows. Faith follows because Christ calls and if we’re united to the Christ who calls, then faith will follow. Faith embraces the Christ, you see, who is prophet and priest and king and teacher and Savior and Lord, the one who promises and redeems and who calls, and so embracing him involves my mind, it involves my heart, it involves my will, it involves the whole of my person. That’s why we’ll be talking later in the series about the obedience of faith, a phrase that Paul uses in Romans a number of times. Now, in the last few minutes, let me wrap this up by saying just a couple of things. I’ve called the series The Anatomy of Faith because I want us to discover together a faith that possesses Jesus Christ. Not just a belief regarding certain things about Him out there, but a faith that truly grafts you into Christ that is like the bond of marriage making you one with Christ, a faith that lays hold of Christ and receives from Christ all that is ours in Him. We spent the first half of this year talking about Christ’s great promises. This series is about how we receive them. Let me tell you candidly the burden of my heart for this series. It’s on my heart, increasingly, that some of us may have settled for the kind of faith that James says will not save you. One of the great dangers that lurks for us who have been brought up with Christian faith—and it’s a great blessing to be brought up with Christian faith, but there’s a danger in every blessing—and one of the dangers for us, and that’s many of us, is that you get enough Christianity to inoculate you against the real thing. You know how an inoculation works. You get a very, very small amount of the disease, and the virus or whatever, you know the flu virus, or whatever it is, it gets injected into your arm and then it goes into your bloodstream. And because it is there in your bloodstream, it makes you highly resistant to the potency of the real thing. Now that’s marvelous when it comes to an inoculation against the flu or whatever, but I think that inoculation is one of Satan’s most powerful strategies in keeping people who are familiar with church from a living union with Jesus Christ as Savior, Teacher, and Lord. You were baptized as an infant. You have been brought up to believe. You have been around church, perhaps for forty years. You hear the pastor talk about faith, and you say, yes, yes, I have that. You hear him talk about Christ, and you say, oh yes, I believe that. He tells you about the cross, and you say, oh yes, I know that. And so, what happens is that over time you settle into a pattern of assuming that you have everything that is being described, and that you have therefore nothing more to receive. And the power of truth is lost on you by inoculation. By the little bit that you have. Your bare belief. So, here’s my burden. So, I have prayed about this series. It’s been my prayer that God will use these weekends to help you discover what it is to live a life of faith. To feed on Christ. To grow in Christ. To live for Jesus Christ. This series is designed to help you cultivate a faith that trusts Christ, and loves Christ, and follows Christ. The very last thing is this. This series is not only for individuals, but it is for us as a church. This is a moment, at least in my years of ministry, unlike any other moment that I have ever experienced. Being stretched in the calling of God, venturing in new and in different ways. Folks, I want to tell you from the heart, I feel right now my need, with everything that the Lord seems to be opening up for us in these days, and calling us to, and stretching us over, I feel my need to grow in a faith that trusts Christ and loves Christ and follows Christ, I think that is widely felt among our pastoral staff and in our church board. This is a moment where we need to grow in faith. And I hope you feel that. I hope your eyes are open enough and that you yourself are engaged enough with all that the Lord is doing among us, all that is going on in this place, to say this is a place where we need to grow in faith. It’s a moment. And friends, just as it is possible for an individual to go through life with a faith that is nothing more than a bare belief, it is possible for a church to believe the right things but to have very little faith. Friends, the world desperately needs to see demonstrations of what living faith looks like. And the only place that the world is ever going to see a demonstration of what living faith looks like is in the church. Communities of believers in places like Arlington Heights and Burrington and Itasca and Gemini, the Congo, southeast Asia. You add to the list. Communities of people who trust Christ who they cannot see and love Christ even when they are facing great trials, and follow Christ with joy even when it is incredibly costly so that they will say, who is this Christ who inspires such trust and confidence and love and affections and obedience and sacrifice. I want to know him! Well this is Pastor Colin, and this series is taking us to the very core of what it means to be a Christian. I want to encourage you to do two things. One, will you stay with us through this series? I want you to get a full picture of what it means to live a life of faith for you to see what faith is and what faith does. And then I want to invite you to join with me during this series in making this prayer. Lord increase my faith! Will you make that your prayer over these next days? This is a great opportunity as you think about what faith is and what faith does for you to be asking God to increase your faith. Let’s make that our prayer together right now. Lord, as we focus our minds and our hearts on what it means to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, I pray, increase my faith. Make me a person who loves you and who trusts you and who follows you more fully and more deeply. Do this for your glory in these days, for I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. And thank you, Colin, for leading that prayer and for leading us today. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message Faith Possesses Christ. It’s part of our series, The Anatomy of Faith, and I hope you’ll be able to catch the rest of the series as we continue this month. But don’t forget, if you ever miss one of the series, you can always catch up or go back and listen again online, come to our website openthebible.org.uk. You can also find us as a podcast on your favorite podcast site. Just search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to receive regular updates. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again next time on Open the Bible. Did you know that how you listen to a sermon will determine what kind of effect it has on your life? Find out how to listen more effectively next time on Open the Bible.