Believing in someone is totally different from believing that someone is or is something. It's believing in the Lord Jesus that is the second part of being born again.
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Our faith is not in feelings, it is not in faith. We don't believe in having faith. We believe in facts. And the three facts that are at the heart of our faith are that Jesus died, that he was buried, and that he was raised.
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If Jesus was not buried, then our faith will suffer. If he was not raised, whatever bishops say, if he was not raised from the dead with a body, then we've wasted our time becoming Christians. These are facts, and the evidence for them is as good as for any other fact in history.
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Christian faith is exclusive. It is pinned to those events. It's not a general belief in God. There are other religions have faith in God. It's a faith in those three events and their significance.
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The essence of Christian faith is that I can trust Jesus personally. Until we get to that personal dimension we haven't touched real faith.
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We must get the historical facts over, but then we say now the person to whom that all happened is a person you can talk to and relate to and know as your own friend.
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If you really believe Jesus is alive, that you can know him and have a personal relationship to him, you can talk to him. Which is why the New Testament emphasizes, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
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If you believe He's alive and that you can know Him and relate to Him, then the first expression of that faith is to call on His name and say, Jesus, Jesus. I'm talking to you. Jesus, if you're there, Jesus, I need help. That's how most people begin to exercise their faith verbally.
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One of the best things a new believer can do is to tell someone else they've believed in Jesus. Somehow that strengthens their faith. They're confessing with their mouth in front of unbelievers. It's amazing what it does for you to go and say to an unbeliever, do you know I believe in Jesus now? I'm a Jesus man, a Jesus woman.
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If you claim to believe in Jesus and you're too embarrassed to say so, there's something weak in your faith. But when you say so, how many of you found out that when you talk about Jesus to others your own faith gets stronger? Is that right? Because it's a verbal dimension of faith coming out.
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Faith is very practical. It is something you do. It's not just what you think or what you say. Just as repentance starts with what you think and moves to what you say, and then moves to your deeds, thought, word, deed. Faith does the same thing.
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If you believe in someone, you show it. You believe in the doctor when you put your life in the hands of a surgeon and sign the paper, as I did a few years ago. And a surgeon I'd never seen before, I was taken ill in the middle of a meeting and was in agony, and a surgeon said, I will operate at midnight. It's needed, but you don't know me. He said, I'll put you in an ambulance and send you back home if you've got a doctor there that you trust, but he said, I'm willing to do it at midnight tonight. And I talked to them and looked at him, and though I'd never met him before, I said, I trust you and I'll sign the paper. And I put my life in his hands, and here I am. So he did a reasonable job. But I believed in him, therefore I signed the paper and put my life in his hands. That's what faith is. It's practical.
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When did you last believe in Jesus? When did you last take a risk in which you'd have fallen flat on your face if Jesus wasn't there to catch you? When did you last act in faith? Because the only faith the New Testament recognises is faith that acts.
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Faith's when you let go. Faith's when you jump. Faith's when you take the risk. Faith is when you act on the Word of God.
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Faith is not saying you agree with the Scripture. Faith is not saying you accept the Scripture. Faith comes when you act on the Scripture.
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It's not those who start in faith who are saved, it's those who finish in faith who are saved. Now there's a thought.
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To have faith is to be faithful. To trust someone is to go on trusting them. In other words, it's keeping faith in someone that is real faith. Going on believing, when everything seems to contradict your faith and you still trust him.
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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever goes on believing in him will never perish but have everlasting life. Has that changed that verse for you all of a sudden? It should have done. Whoever goes on believing. It's not a moment of faith, it's a lifetime of faith that saves.
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Like salvation itself, faith is a continual thing, and it has this element of keeping faith in it, of going on trusting.
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The whole emphasis we need to communicate people to you is this, it's not this step of faith or this decision of faith that saves you. You are now starting a life of faith, and as you go on trusting the Lord, you will go on being saved and you will never perish. That's what my New Testament says. It's a life of faith that saves.
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We need to be able to teach them the truth and answer their questions. To make it personal, we need to be able to let them see the gospel as well as hear it.
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The principle is show them first, then let them hear it. Give it to them in the eye. Give them one in the eye first, and one in the ear second. Demonstrate the kingdom, then declare it.
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We make it personal when we show them, when we let them see what a difference it can make to individuals. We make it, we help them to be verbal by encouraging them to pray to Jesus themselves.
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Finally, we've got to urge them to go on believing, to encourage them to believe every day, to find some way of trusting Jesus, stretching themselves so that they find themselves doing things they could never do.
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