What is Faith and How Does it Work?

Dr. Tony Evans preaches about the concept of faith. By faith Abraham obeyed God. By faith Sarah conceived. By faith Moses led a people across the Red Sea. “By Faith,” – these two words are profound and interwoven throughout the pages of the book of Hebrews and various other places in the Bible. But have you ever wondered how you can personally live and lead by faith? What does the life of a faithful follower of Christ look like today? What is faith? How does it work? Pastor Evans speaks on all this and more today!

The hallmark of a hero, bravery, integrity, selflessness, They saved the day, asked for no reward, and ride off into the sunset.
The Bible also tells the stories of heroes, but they don’t always brave, good, or selfless.
In many ways, they’re people just like you and me. Missing the mark or dropping the ball.
What is it that an Abraham or a Sarah or a Moses have in common that we should be telling their stories even today.
What makes them heroes? Abraham bleeds god and became the father of many nations.
Sarah believed god and became a mother in her old age.
Moses believed god and became the deliverer of a people in bondage.
They’re all connected by virtue of their great faith, the hallmark of a biblical hero.
There are many people today who are living with the sense of hopelessness, the sense that It’s not working.
It’s not worth it. It’s not fair. I quit. I give in. I throw in the towel.
I can’t take it anymore. A sense of profound despair.
That was true of the folks that the author of Hebrews was writing.
They were on the verge of quitting, quitting the faith, going back to the world, they didn’t think this Christian thing was worth it.
This wasn’t working out for.
What leads him to discuss this concept is summarized in chapter 10.
Beginning with verse 35.
In chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse 35, he says, Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
For you have need for endurance so that when you have done the will of god, you may receive what is promised.
For yet, in a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one shall live by faith.
And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
He says, I am writing you so that you don’t throw in the towel for endurance.
Then he throws the Zinger for the righteous shall live by faith. Okay. Watch this.
Whatever faith is, we’re gonna talk about it in a moment, is supposed to be a lifestyle, not an event.
The righteous shall live by faith.
In other words, whatever faith is is how you should roll. It should be how you flow.
It should be your normal modus operandi of life. Faith is not a concept you visit.
It’s a lifestyle you possess because the righteous shall live by faith.
So if you’re not living by faith, it’s because you’re not yet righteous.
Because that’s how the righteous live.
And the righteous who learn to live by whatever faith is Get to experience god in action.
That’s what he says. You get to experience god fulfilling his word.
So you’ve gotta ask the question. Am I living by faith?
Because if I’m not rolling by faith, then I’m not experiencing god in my circumstances.
Because that’s how the righteous roll. They live by faith.
But that rate is a question. What is faith And how does it work?
Verse 1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.
Faith then must have substance.
It must have some stuff that you can rely on.
Now what this means is Faith is only as meaningful as the substance to which it is attached.
If you’ve got faith in bad substance, then your faith will be insufficient no matter how much of it you possess because the substance you’re placing it in in much.
Or maybe not real at all.
Faith has to do with an expectation in a hope that must involve a substance So the amount of your faith is not tied to how much faith you have.
It’s tied to how much substance you possess.
A little faith in significant substance produces great results.
A lot of faith in insufficient substance will produce no results because what makes faith faith is the substance to which it is attached.
So to understand faith, you have to look at the substance of things hoped for that is what the object is and the evidence of things not seen.
So let’s let me clarify something then about what faith is not.
Faith is not how you feel.
Faith is not let me put in a word necessarily how you feel.
You can feel faithless, but be full of faith.
You can feel full of faith and have no faith because faith is not 1st and foremost, and emotion.
Emotions do not have intellect. Emotions don’t think. That’s what emotions are.
It’s how you feel. And feelings shift based on the information received.
Faith is tied to substance that is not yet seen or experienced with the 5 senses but that you are convinced is real based on the integrity of the subject who is calling for the faith?
Who is the subject calling for the faith? It’s god.
He says after you’ve done the will of god, now let me tell you why this sermon and this series for many may be the most important one you’ve ever heard because Hebrews 11 verse 6 says without faith, it is impossible to please god.
Yeah. Don’t miss this one. Faith is not one of the things you need, it is the key thing you need if you wanna experience god.
Because without it, it says you are displeasing the god because when you don’t exercise faith, you are challenging god’s integrity.
Oh, let me put it in everyday language.
To not live by faith is to call god a there.
So let me give you or remind you again of the formal definition of faith balding it all down, faith is simply acting like god is telling the truth.
Faith is acting like god. It’s not feeling that god is telling the truth.
It’s not saying that god is telling the truth. Faith is acting like god is telling the truth.
That’s why the Bible calls it walking by faith and not talking by faith.
Or feeling by faith or even thinking by faith.
Unless it has hit your feet, it’s not faith.
Its intellectual accent to a concept that hasn’t gotten mixed with action.
Therefore, nothing concrete has shown up in the life.
If you want a concrete manifestation of god, then what you believe about god must be married to what you do in light of that belief Now you’re exercising faith so that god can now become concrete in your life and not a theory in your head.
God is real. God has power. God makes promises.
But you won’t see it until he sees motion.
If there is no motion, it lies dormant, although it’s really there.
Faith is acting like it is so.
Even when it’s not so, In order that it might be so simply because god said so.
Acting like it is so, even when it’s not so in order that it might be so merely because god said so.
Verse 2, For by it, by faith, the men of old gained approval.
For by it by this definition of faith, the men of old gained approval.
He says, I’m gonna take you on a tour of the men of old.
Men, and he’s gonna have that means men and women, because he has men and women in chapter 11.
Of old, meaning in the Old Testament.
He makes a statement in verse 1 about what faith is, and then he asks are there any witnesses?
He reaches back into the Old Testament, and he pulls out witnesses from the Old Testament for us new testament Christians to know that what worked for them is what you need to work for you.
He got some witnesses So when we go through this hall of faith, we’re gonna we’re gonna look at some witnesses because Sarah’s gonna come forth and a girlfriend has something she wants to share with you.
David’s gonna give a testimony. Joseph’s gonna give a testimony. The patriarch’s gonna give a testimony.
That’s gonna be testifying to let you know that verse 1 is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god when you understand faith, he says I got some testifying to do.
He said, buy it. The saints of old were approved. That means validated and vindicated.
There’s nothing like when god validates you. Yeah. The end of chapter 10, and he will come.
He’s gonna validate you. That’s why the end of chapter 10 says, and when you have completed the will of god, She could some of us are in college for 20 years because we’ve not completed the course.
We’ve been called on. So we’ve not received the approval of graduation, the validation and vindication of a life of faith.
We pick and choose when we wanna believe god. We believe god on the things we like.
We disregard him on the things we don’t like. And so we’re not living by faith.
We are cherry picking by faith. He says the righteous, this is how they roll.
In other words, non faith is the exception. Faith is the rule in spite of how they feel.
It’s like the 3 Hebrew boys that said, we believe god can deliver But even if he doesn’t, we’re not gonna bow because we trust god.
It’s like Rebecca says in Rebecca chapter 3, in the last few verses, though there’s no fig on the tree, though there is no cattle in the stall, though I can’t see anything god is doing, I’m gonna still rejoice because I still know god even though I can’t see a change in my situation.
Because god has integrity in spite of my circumstances.
That’s some strange people in this list, and he usually left.
There’s some folk in this list that if we were making the list, wouldn’t have made the list.
You gotta prostitute in this list. You gotta liar in this list.
You got some messed up people who made the laugh?
Oh, that ought to be some good news to somebody.
Even though you walk through this door, tow up from the flow up, even though you walk through this door, a spiritual failure, If you right now will begin to live by faith, god still will let you make a list.
Some folks shouldn’t shouldn’t belong here.
That means there’s hope.
There’s hoped if you and I begin to live by faith and stop faking it to make it.
Playing church, playing religion, playing Christianity, and not taking god seriously and stopping our challenge of his integrity because why would you answer the prayer of somebody who calls you a liar every day?
You lie in god, but bless me. You will lie a god, but give me a better job.
You will lie a god, but give me a man. You will lie a god, but change my circumstance.
You would lie a god, but heal me.
When god’s integrity is challenged, His promises lie dormant and unfulfilled.
He comes to his final point. It’s a zinger too. Verse 3.
By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of god so that what is seen was made out of things which are visible.
I need to read that again because this is a zinger.
By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of god so that what is seen, what is visible was not made out of things which are visible.
He said, to make my point about faith, Let me take you all the way back to the beginning.
He says we understand that the worlds that we do see was created by someone using something we don’t see.
Genesis 11 says in the beginning, Emohim created the heaven than the earth.
That’s the Hebrew name for the creator god found in Genesis chapter 1 verse Stay with me here.
It says the world’s and notice the word worlds in verse 3 is plural.
That means the whole universe, not just the earth.
So the whole universe, all the galaxies that exist was created by someone you can’t see using stuff you can’t see To create a universe, you can see that we’re still trying to look at through telescopes, but there are too many galaxies that even our strongest telescopes can’t even locate them.
What is faith? Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen.
So god has operated this way from the beginning of bringing stuff you can see out of stuff you can’t see and he created a whole universe with this strategy.
Now what did you tell me your problem was?
God used this strategy to create the universe.
And how did he do it? First three says, by a rhema word. Yeah.
The word word there is rhema.
A rhema word means they divine utterance, a spoken word. He’s he’s spoken.
Now you you remember Genesis 1 in the beginning god say let there be light and it was light.
God said that the water be separated from the land, and it was so god said he uttered.
He he uttered a word and what wasn’t became because of what was uttered.
Somebody who you don’t see said something.
And to somebody you can’t see because we can’t see god who said something something you can see happens.
That’s why the Centurion told Jesus, all you gotta do is speak the word.
You gotta utter the word, and this thing I’m dealing with will change.
Stay tuned here.
We live in a world where we’ve been duped.
Did you know you have to to believe in evolution, you gotta go to college first, to believe that the world was came from this prime evil slime that grew into an Amiibo that grew into a monkey to develop self consciousness and became a man.
You gotta go to college for that. That’s where you gotta go.
Faith people understand that god spoke the divine fiat, the divine utterance, And these things came into the it just is, but modern man has Duke a whole generation.
And so we have a generation that does not see god move.
Because we’ve been due we’ve been due by education. We’ve educated ourselves into becoming fools.
We’ve been duped by philosophy. All philosophy is, uh, men doodling with ideas.
Since god is the same yesterday today and forever, he still operates on the faith principle.
That what you see comes from what you don’t see.
So if you don’t start with what you don’t see faith in what god says, you can see things you won’t see.
You’ll just discuss it in science class.
Some people read the Bible and say, I don’t understand it. Question is do you trust the author?
Even though I don’t understand it, and even if I can read it, I don’t know what it means.
Some people read the Bible. I don’t understand it.
I don’t know what it means, but I know who wrote it.
And because I believe the one who wrote it has integrity, I’m going to take it to the pharmacy.
I’m gonna get it fulfilled. But faith has not occurred simply by picking up what was written from a person of integrity, getting what he provides.
Faith has not been size until you take the medicine.
Until you act on the prescription, all it is is writing on a piece of paper by a person who has integrity that is of absolutely no benefit to you.
The question you have to ask with faith is, does god have integrity?
And if he does, will I align what he tells me to do in every area of life, not just in church life, not just in, quote, unquote, the religious life, but every aspect of life, my career, my money, my my relationships, my singlehood, my this, my my my and does god have integrity on every subject?
You say, but I don’t see it and you won’t until he sees you moving and think.
Normally sitting right there is my grandson, the littlest grandson, j 2.
Called j tube Jonathan 2nd.
After the second service on most Sundays, Jonathan II runs out at the end of the service, runs up the step comes over to the edge and says Poppy, which is what he calls me, catch me.
And he stands up here, and I hold my hands out, and he jumps.
I did this with the other grandkids too, and they were that small. They come up here and jump.
So he comes up here almost every Sunday. He runs up here. And he says, poppi, catch me.
And so I hold up my hands and it jumps.
But it always wasn’t like that. Let me rewind.
Initially, I picked him up and put him up here.
And I stood down there, and I said, j 2, Joe. He said, no.
No. I’m scared. I said j 2. I got you.
He said, no. No. No. No. I said, j 2, but I’m right here. I got you.
He couldn’t say it like that, but his baby sounds heard. Uh, I no. No. No.
But I kept uttering the word. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Uttering the word.
The problem is he wasn’t believing the word because he was not confident in my integrity.
He was not convinced.
I either had the will or the ability to catch him and that I would let him fall.
But after pounding him with the word over and over, j 2 jump, j 2 jump, j 2 jump, j 2 jump, j 2 jump, j 2 jump, pounding him with the word.
He came over to the edge. I said jump j too.
He said, come closer. You’re too far.
He too far. But when he asked me to draw near, When when he when he called on me to draw near, I I I came a little bit closer, and I drew a little bit nearer.
Because I knew the closer I got, the more confident he would have.
And so, I got I said J Two jump.
He lifted up one leg but kept the other leg down.
He wasn’t he wasn’t fully comfortable. He were and so he didn’t jump.
He just kinda typically typically lean forward so that I can grab you.
I put him back up there. I said, get your job. It’s Tommy.
He went up a little higher. JT jump, he went even higher.
Now at the end of the church, he runs out here and say, catch me.
I’m jumping. Sometime he jumped before I even put out my hand.
Because he’s learned to bleed in my integrity. He believes that Hoppy is not gonna drop him.
It’s not gonna let him down. Is not gonna fall on his face.
And once he becomes convinced that he can trust me, he now invites the opportunity to have faith.
God wants you to trust his integrity so you can say to him, catch me in this situation.
Catch me in this circumstance because I have learned to trust you.
I have learned that my god has integrity.
Praise god that we possess a god who possesses integrity when we act on the Unsea.
Well, faith is measured by your feet, not by your feelings, feelings change based on circumstances, based on how you how things are going on around you, people in your life.
Uh, if times are up, you’re gonna be up. Times are down. You’re gonna be down.
You can’t base your faith on your feelings. You base it on your feet. That means faith is measurable.
It’s not this amorphous concept where you’re not sure you have it or don’t because you can always know which way your feet are moving, which way your decisions are taking you.
When you define faith by the movement of your feet, then faith becomes very real in your life.
In fact, you can be operating by faith even when the feelings are in the opposite direction.
You can feel very full of faith when you’re actually faithless because your feet are not moving at all.
So become a person of great faith because you’re a person of great movement.
And the bigger you may god in your life and your movement consistent with the scope of his size, the greater your faith will be.
When you move in concert with a big god, you really are exercising big faith.
If you keep god small, then you’re gonna have many you won’t be exercising much faith.
So keep moving with your feet in spite of how you feel and the greater the movement the greater the faith.
The Bible tells stories of people that today we call heroes.
They’ve sought to inspire humanity for over 3000 years.
We also have a story and is connected to these heroes by virtue of our failure.
My CD series heroes of the faith, include 12 sermons and 2 wives, which you can have with your gift of any amount to our ministry.
It’s my way of saying thanks for helping us bring god’s words to a world in need.
Visit our website at tonyevans.org and request your copy to help today.