Believing and Doing 1980

When we finally realized that you come into the kingdom of God, not by doing something to make yourself worthy, but simply by believing in Jesus. What a relief it was. You don't have to do anything.

Just believe as many as received him. I believe on his name. So then he gave power to become sons of God.

This inner thirst for God was frustrated for years in many of our lives. And we kept trying to do something that would ring the bell in heaven and bring God down to us. And then when it seemed that we had finally reached the end of our road, we were at the end of it all.

Jesus, who is actually with us all the time, broke through our pride and asked one thing. Trust me, just believe in me. The door to the kingdom of God is the door of faith.

And the road that we travel after we enter the kingdom of God is the road of faith. But faith in Jesus Christ, if it is real. Certainly has to produce something more than a warm feeling inside the soul.

Faith in Jesus, if it is real, will have to show itself. Indeed, by this we know love, this is from 1st John, chapter 3, 1st John, 3, 16, by this we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren is laying down his life for us with a deed or laying down our lives for the brethren also as a deed. But if anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and in truth.

Now, if our faith in Jesus is strengthened by these weekly assemblies that we come to, and if it isn't, what's the use of coming together at all? If our faith in Jesus is strengthened by these weekly assemblies, the result ought to be that we go out there and do God's mercy. That we, in fact, manifest the goodness of God in our relationships with the people we live with and work with. You know, something real ought to be flowing out of healing should be flowing from our bodily life to the things we're doing.

And if our faith in Jesus is quickened by our daily coming to him in prayer, and surely it ought to be, then this, too, should produce something more than a smoother, happier day for us. I like to say my prayers every day because when I say my prayers every day, things go so much better for me. You know, in a sense, that's OK, but if that's all there is, it's sick.

Now, if it's really the faith in Jesus Christ that's produced and strengthened and quickened in our daily prayers, the result should be life flowing out of us and touching the people we deal with all the time, even if our own day isn't going so smoothly or so happily. Our faith in Jesus, you know, if it's real through our daily prayers, ought to come up with the courage to make the hard decisions. And the costly choices in favor of God's will, even if nobody around sees how much it costs us, but the Lord himself.

There is a disease afflicting the body of Christ on earth these days, which could be called the bodyless faith disease. Faith that seems to lift the mind and spirit, but exercises no significant influence over our bodily life. The way we treat people, the way we handle our money, the way we do our work, but Scripture is frighteningly clear that we're going to be judged by the lives we live in these bodies of flesh and blood and what we do with and in our body is very important to the Lord.

Well, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive good or evil according to what he has done in the body. And they're not talking about the body of Christ. Paul's talking about this flesh and blood body, which each of us has and is.

The problem with this bodyless faith disease is that it splits our lives into two compartments. There's the faith part, which goes on in the top two inches of our head and concerns itself with God, and then there's the down to business part, which occupies the lower part of our head and our body and seems to have no connection at all with the faith part is a down to business part. We're going out there, getting what we have to get, shutting our eyes to the things which are unpleasant, the needs around us that are crying for attention.

Often exploiting our own husbands and wives and children, why we've even been known to connive and cheat in those situations where we really had no choice, as we say. So with the faith part, we love God and praise Jesus and have fellowship with brothers and sisters. And at the same time, in the down to business part, we survive in this world and push our way through obstacles and problems in whatever way we think we have to.

And all the while, it's so obvious to people who are not in this little head fake trip that there is a discrepancy between what we say we believe and what we, in fact, do what we do, not the dramatic things we do from time to time to impress people with our piety or whatever, but the things we do in this down to business part of us. Day in and day out. Observing what we do, these people just don't seem to be very impressed by what we say.

Ah, but the faith to which Jesus calls us. Always has a body. It acts, it does things.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does that will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the wind blew, and they always do. And beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

Faith in Jesus begins by believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth, but it always goes on to doing with the body. The faith in which Jesus calls us is not divided into compartments. The faith part and the down-to-business part are all one.

So we believe in Jesus with our heart, we confess Jesus with our mouth, and we obey Jesus in our bodily life. We do the things he commands us to do. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

But if anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or in speech, but in deed and in truth. When we first came to Jesus, first got to know him, his word to us was, believe. Only believe.

All things are possible, just believe. But now, Jesus' word to us, most of us, if not all of us, is, do. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things that I command you? Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

The Lord is dealing with us in such a way that our faith in him will not be confined to the top two inches of our head or to our mouth, but that it will express itself continuously, consistently in our bodily life. Example, the Sermon on the Mount contained in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is a precise description of what Jesus means when he calls us to live by faith. In these chapters, Jesus calls us to a life of radical forgiveness, radical purity, love for our enemies, freedom from the love of mammon, an aggressive pursuit of God's kingdom, a life of mercy lived out there in the world.

And Jesus winds up this sermon with the passage I just read by calling for action. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them shall be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them shall be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.

So what happens is that it's so easy for us to listen to that sermon on the mountain. Many of us know it almost by heart. We could hear it every day of our lives and still miss the truth of it by falling into one of two popular Christian delusions.

Delusion number one is to say to ourselves, if I think about the word that Jesus speaks to me, this is faith. Well, surely it's the equivalent of faith. I mean, I'm reading the scriptures.

I'm pondering what Jesus says. So this must be faith. But I can be thinking about getting right with my brother, and that's very lovely, but it isn't faith until I do it.

I can think about pulling out the eye of lust, but it is not faith until I do it. I can think about praying for those who persecute me, but it only becomes faith when I begin to pray for them. Delusion number two, to tell ourselves, if I talk about the words that Jesus speaks to me, this is faith.

Now, we may not say that to ourselves in so many words, but that's what it amounts to. Who of us who talks about the things of God at all doesn't talk far beyond where we in fact live by faith, the kind of faith we're living? You can teach faith. You can exhort for faith.

You can write books about faith, but that's not faith. The word that Jesus speaks to me enters me through the ear in the head. Now, if the word that Jesus has now spoken to me and has got into my head falls out of my mouth before it gets to my heart, I've lost it.

It has not become part of me. I have to get it down into my heart. Then if it comes from my heart out of my mouth, it becomes a confession of truth that will bring life to other people.

But our problem is that all too often it gets from the head, falls out the mouth, never reaches the heart. The only way to get it from the head, his word, from the head down into the heart, is to do it. Faith is not thinking about the word.

Faith is not talking about the word. Faith is doing the word. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.

And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and thinks about them and talks about them, but does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.

And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell. And great was the fall of it.

As we today receive our Lord's body and drink his blood, may he heal us wherever we may be afflicted by this bottomless faith disease. His love for us was not just expressed in words, but always with his body. And it culminated in an act in which he offered up his body to death for us after having spent his bodily strength for us all his days.

And now he joins his body to our bodies and his blood to our blood and sends us out into that world to live by faith in deed and in truth. May the Spirit of God, as we come to the altar today, break down that wall between the faith part and the down-to-business part, that they may be one. That we may serve Jesus, love Jesus, have faith in him in everything we do.

Let's just wait upon him in silence. Let's hold it in silence for a while. I'll break the silence then, okay? We just ask, Heavenly Father, that today in this place, by the moving of your Spirit, you would help those of us who profess faith in Jesus to become true.

And wherever we're really out of line, that you bring us into truth and line us up. That we may be and do and live what we say. And Lord, we also ask that should there be any among us who stand outside the kingdom and are pondering whether they should enter it, that you give them all the encouragement in the world today to just believe and enter it by faith today.

And we ask, Lord God, that in the days that follow, starting from the moment we leave this assembly today, that you'd cause us to be people who are an embodiment, an incarnation, day in and day out, 24 hours a day, in every situation of your mercy. We ask it in Jesus' name.