Just Shall Live by Faith 1983

Wednesday evening at the Bible study, as long as we talked about God pouring out gifts of the Holy Spirit upon us, everybody was calm because we all agreed that we need these gifts and we need much more of the freedom of these gifts moving among us here. But when we began to talk about the Spirit of God also wanting to work a work inside us so that he can make us men and women who are themselves gifts to the church so that it's not only that he wants to give us the gift of prophecy, he wants to make us prophets. He not only wants to give us the gift of faith, he wants to make us into men and women of faith.

When we began to talk about God taking us on a journey by which he develops some strength in us so that our talk about patience is developed into a life of patience and our talk about forgiveness is developed into a life of forgiveness and our talk about faith is developed into a life of faith. When we started talking about these things, everybody got nervous. We all got nervous.

Hands started flying up. Everybody had something to say. What about this? How about that? It was great.

And just about all the things that were shared, and there were many, boiled down to this. If I open the door of my inmost life to God, if I remove the barrier and really let him in, how do I know that he won't pull the rug right out from under me? How can I be sure he won't come in and kick out the props? There was this fear of really yielding our inmost life to God, which is the same as to say we don't really want to trust him. This is precisely why when Jesus comes and knocks on the door, we sit there and pretend we haven't heard anything.

He knocks and knocks and knocks, and all he wants to do is come in with light, fill us with his peace, enable us to walk in righteousness. But we sit there, frozen, afraid to open the door because we're not sure that we can trust him. Now, we think of ourselves, mainly here, I think most of us here, think of ourselves as people of faith, followers of Jesus.

Many of us have committed ourselves seriously to the kingdom of God. We've made some real changes in our lives, real changes in our attitudes. We've committed time and money to the kingdom.

But there is this inner door that we're afraid to open. There is this final surrender that we're scared to make because we're not sure that we can trust him. Now, Habakkuk, the prophet, was having the same problem.

Habakkuk was a prophet, a man of God, had spent his life trying to serve God, but some weird things were going on in Israel. God had allowed the Chaldeans to invade their land. These Chaldeans came in galloping on their horses, plundering and raping and murdering.

These Chaldeans are evil. I mean, us Jews, we have our sin, but these Babylonians are evil. Why does God let this injustice go on? How can he sit there in silence when the wicked swallows up a man more righteous than he? If God allows things like this to go on, who can trust him? So Habakkuk decides to go up on his tower, his watchtower, and put that question to God and wait until he gets an answer.

I ain't coming down until I hear something. Reading from Habakkuk 2, verse 1. I will take my stand to watch and station myself on the tower and look forth to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning this complaint. This complaint that God allows injustice to go on and on and on and on.

And the Lord answered me, write the vision, make it plain upon tablets so that he may run who reads it. For still the vision of a time of justice waits its time. It hastens to the end.

It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come.

It will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith. In other words, trust me, Habakkuk, trust me.

The vision waits its time. At the appointed time, there will be justice. Every wrong will be righted, and every injustice will be dealt with.

At the appointed time, my glory, says the Lord, will come down and absolutely flood over, sweep out over this mess and swallow it up. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Meanwhile, the righteous, the just, shall live by faith.

Now that's the message not only of Habakkuk, but of the entire gospel of the kingdom. The righteous, the just, shall live by trusting God, by faith. At the root of every sin is mistrust of God, and at the root of every act of mercy and of every act of righteousness is trust.

Adam and Eve send their way out of the garden by mistrust. Mistrust in God. Uh-huh.

He won't let us eat from that tree because he's afraid it will become as smart as he is. Cain flew into a murderous rage and killed his brother after he had offered to God a faithless sacrifice, a half-baked sacrifice. King Saul failed again and again because as soon as the pressure would come on, Saul would let his faith go out the window and he'd take things into his own hands.

And who of us doesn't know what that's like? The sin of Israel was the sin of mistrust, and the sin of the church is the sin of mistrust. We're going to engineer our own success. We're going to make sure things happen right.

We're going to take things into our own hands and then put a little icing of spirituality over it and call it faith. So now, by the death and resurrection of the land, God has opened the way back into paradise. Anybody can walk that road.

Anybody. But the only way we can walk that way, that road, is by faith. The just shall live by faith.

We can only find our way to Jesus, who is the way, and we can only walk with him by faith. And so we read, Revelation chapter 3, verse 20, Jesus is speaking, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me.

Now what does it mean to open the door but to believe? Open the door of my heart, trust him. And so we see this all through scripture, particularly if you take the Gospel of John and read the Gospel of John and underline with your pencil or pen, every time you see the word believe, be amazed at how often it comes up. Chapter after chapter, as many as received him as believed on his name, to then he gave power to become sons of God.

This first of his miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed in him. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish. Unless you see signs and wonders, Jesus says to this man, you won't believe, sir, come down before my child dies.

Go your way, your son will live. And the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him. And it came to pass.

What must we do to be doing the works of God? This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has said. How can you believe who receive honor one of another and seek not the honor which comes from God only? Believe, believe, believe. Adam lost the right to the tree of life by mistrust.

But now in an awesome mystery, the tree of life comes out of paradise right down into this wilderness where we are. And anyone who looks to this tree of life opens his or her heart to it, submits to it, trusts it, finds himself back in paradise again. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, her, and he or she with me. So today, at this moment, in this place, the Lord knocks on that door, calls us to open that inmost door in an absolute, a radical, a final act of faith. And what is it that keeps us from opening the door? Basically, there are two things that hinder us from opening the inmost door of our hearts to him.

First, we're afraid to open that door, that inmost door, to Jesus. Because we think that if we let him in, he's going to make us feel guilty. Every time I mess around with religion, I get all messed up with guilt.

Depart from me, I'm a sinful man, O Lord, says Peter when he sees that net come up loaded with fish. And that's exactly how we respond. Don't come too close, Lord.

I mean, I would like you to do things for my life, but stay back at least 20 feet. See, but that fear is based on a lie. And he isn't going to come in there to condemn us.

God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Why is he hanging on that cross? To make us feel guilty, but to drain away the guilt. Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, isn't here to lay it on us, to take it from us.

Now, the second reason we're afraid to really open up, and this is probably hitting more of us still, consciously at least, is that we think that if we really let Jesus come into that inner sanctum, all the way in, the final door, he might take us on a path that could involve the loss of everything we have. And we're already scared skinny that we're going to lose everything or something. This anxiety which seems to rule our lives, the fear of loss, and this too is a lie.

But it's a little different lie. The lie, put it this way, the truth is, that whatever you have right now, if you have five million in the bank, thirteen children, forty-five grandchildren, and, you know, stocks and bonds galore, what you have is nothing, nothing compared with what he gives you. In exchange for what he offers, if you lose everything else you've got, you're still far ahead.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone open the door, hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. And so to open the door means believing in two specific ways.

It means, first, I believe. That Jesus will heal my troubled conscience with his forgiveness as I open my troubled conscience to him. He's going to heal it.

He's going to make it wounded more. He's going to heal it. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness by sending his son in there to clean up the mess, straighten it out, and fill it with peace. Secondly, to open that door is to believe that Jesus is also going to heal my anxious heart, my heart that's always afraid tomorrow isn't going to be saved, by filling me with his peace as I walk with him. And if, as I walk with him, I lose everything I've got, I still have more than I ever had before.

And so the thing which hinders us from opening the door, from truly opening and exposing our inmost hearts to the spirit of the living God, is the fear that we can't trust him, that he's going to pull the rug out from us, he's going to kick down all those props. I will take my stand to watch and station myself on the tower and look forth to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning this complaint. And the Lord answered me, Write the vision, make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it, for still the vision awaits its time, it hastens to the end, it will not lie, if it seems slow, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not delay.

Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Like Habakkuk, we've been afraid to trust God. And so the answer comes back to us as it came to him, trust me, trust me.

We can only receive God into our lives and be ruled by him as we trust him. We can only begin to experience the reality of Jesus. We can only hear him speak to us and experience his revelation of himself and receive his light and be guided by his hand as we trust.

So, today, he calls us to open the door of our troubled conscience to him. All the way, believing that he will bring us forgiveness as we eat his flesh and drink his blood. And he calls us to open the door of our anxious, anxious, troubled heart afraid that tomorrow won't be safe to him, believing that he will lead us into a life of righteousness and power and holy love.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.