The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - How Do Christians Build “In Faith”？

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00:00:15.120 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request. If you've been blessed by

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00:00:29.620 gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks. Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response

00:00:38.160 Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of our show called Questions. Today's

00:00:42.180 question is as follows. How do Christians build in faith? How do Christians build in faith? I've

00:00:50.360 written down a few notes for this one. I'm going to go ahead and read that now, starting with Psalm

00:00:55.220 127 verse one. Psalm 127 verse one says this, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build 0.84

00:01:04.000 it labor in vain. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Fleshing that

00:01:10.220 out a bit more, I've written a little bit of commentary on that text. Here's the following.

00:01:15.120 Just as God works through covenants, so must we. Before beginning a work, we must count the cost

00:01:20.980 and resolve to finish it. The work of sanctifying the self begins with conversion and a covenant to

00:01:27.680 Christ in baptism. The work of building a home begins with marriage and a covenant to our spouse

00:01:33.700 in a wedding ceremony. The work of building the church begins with church membership and a covenant

00:01:39.480 to the other members of the church. And even the work of building in society often begins with a

00:01:45.980 trade and some form of legal contract. All lasting covenants have Christ as their foundation.

00:01:53.380 However, a man cannot select his own preferred Christ or a pseudo Christ. Rather, he must have

00:02:01.820 the Christ of the Bible. In addition to having the right Christ, a man must also have the whole

00:02:09.040 Christ. You cannot choose for yourself certain portions of Christ while discarding others that

00:02:15.500 offend your sensibilities. To avoid building in vain, therefore, we must have the right Christ

00:02:22.940 and the whole Christ as our one and only foundation. And if our building is to last,

00:02:30.360 that is to endure, we must have Christ below, but also Christ above. We must build upon Christ,

00:02:38.660 Christ below with faith in his gospel and obedience to his law. But we must also have

00:02:46.060 Christ above. That is, we must build to Christ with the earnest desire for his glory and his

00:02:53.580 fame. In other words, to have Christ as the foundation of our building is to build in faith

00:03:00.620 And to build in faith is to build with a reliance on Christ's grace and a desire for Christ's glory.

00:03:10.440 Now, I know that's a lot.

00:03:11.440 Let me break it down just a little bit more.

00:03:13.940 Romans 14 says, anything not done in faith is sin.

00:03:18.320 Have you ever stopped and thought about that?

00:03:20.600 Or think of Hebrews that says, without faith, it is impossible to please him.

00:03:26.000 There are multiple portions of scripture that basically argue this basic principle,

00:03:34.300 that even if you are doing something in your outward behaviors and actions that would align

00:03:41.600 with the moral will of God, but it is apart from faith, it is ultimately sin. If we are behaving

00:03:51.960 in such a way, our outward behaviors are aligning with the moral will of God, but it is not done in

00:03:58.440 faith. It is ultimately sin. It is an offense to God. Apart from faith, even our good works are

00:04:08.060 filthy rags. Our righteousness is but filthy rags in the sight of God. So the question is this,

00:04:15.680 what is it to do something in faith? What does it mean to act in faith? What does it mean to,

00:04:23.480 to have my behaviors and my thoughts and my speech, my everything about me, my whole person,

00:04:30.360 what is it to live in faith? And I have defined that as simply as I can to live in faith,

00:04:37.360 to act in faith, think in faith, speak in faith, feel in faith. Everything that we do,

00:04:45.840 our whole person to live in faith is to live with a reliance on God's grace and a desire for God's

00:04:55.060 glory. See, the atheist could cure cancer, doing something that outwardly is good. The atheist

00:05:04.100 could help walk a sweet old lady across the street. The atheist could remain faithful in marriage

00:05:12.000 throughout the course of their entire life. The atheist could not cheat on their taxes. The

00:05:17.020 atheist could be very diligent to never use vulgar speech. The atheist could be a good dad in many

00:05:25.500 regards or a good mom in many regards. But at the end of the day, the life of the atheist, 0.50

00:05:31.960 even their best works and their best deeds and their best thoughts and their best words are an 0.95

00:05:38.200 offense, an affront to the holiness of God. Filthy rags. Why? Because an atheist will never do

00:05:47.900 anything. Even if their behaviors outwardly align with the moral law of God, it will never be done 1.00

00:05:53.240 in faith. That is, the atheist will never live with a reliance on God's grace and a desire for

00:06:00.340 God's glory. At best, we might say that the atheist is relying on the strength, the beauty,

00:06:09.560 the intelligence, and the gifts of humanity. And they're doing all that they do with a desire for

00:06:18.740 the flourishing of humanity, the good of humanity. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

00:06:26.560 but that is still not in faith to do something in faith is relying on God's grace and desiring

00:06:34.960 God's glory the Christian when living by faith when when righteously acting in faith the Christian

00:06:44.260 is saying what I'm about to do I could not do if it were not for the grace of God that strengthens

00:06:51.340 me, that keeps me, that sustains me, that empowers me and enables me to live in accordance with God's

00:06:58.800 will. So what I'm about to do, I'm only doing because of the grace of God. I am completely

00:07:03.520 dependent and reliant upon God's grace. And I'm doing it not just for my good and not just for

00:07:12.940 the good of humanity, the flourishing of mankind. No, I am doing it ultimately that God might

00:07:20.800 receive the glory that he is worthy of, the glory that he is rightly due. That is what it is to

00:07:29.320 build in faith. So back to the original question, how do Christians build in faith? How do they

00:07:34.260 build in such a way that things will last? Well, to build in such a way that our work in this life,

00:07:41.140 our accomplishments in this life, our building endures for generations. How do we do that? We

00:07:48.320 must build in faith. You want to build in a way that lasts, build in faith. What does it mean to

00:07:52.640 build in faith? It means to build upon Christ as the foundation and up to Christ in terms of his

00:08:00.480 pleasure, his glory, his fame. That's how we build. Now, what does it mean to build upon Christ as a

00:08:07.940 foundation? It's a reliance on his grace, but it's also an adherence to his commandments. To build

00:08:15.640 upon Christ is to build in accordance with Christ's blueprint, Christ's commandment of which just to be

00:08:24.240 specific here for a moment, he has two Matthew 22, 37. And he said to him, you shall love the Lord,

00:08:33.120 your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest

00:08:37.940 commandment. And the second is like it Matthew 22, 39. Now that you should love your neighbor

00:08:44.200 as yourself. Christ's two commandments is to love the Lord and to love our neighbor. And these two

00:08:51.100 commandments ultimately serve as two tables of the law of God. That is the moral and eternal law of

00:08:58.400 God, which we find in the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 20. To love the Lord our God,

00:09:04.420 the greatest commandment from Christ, is exposited for us in the first four of the 10 commandments.

00:09:11.420 Do not have any other gods before me.

00:09:13.720 Do not make any graven images.

00:09:15.720 Do not take the name of the Lord in vain and remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

00:09:20.520 How do we love the Lord our God?

00:09:22.660 With all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and elsewhere, Jesus says, and

00:09:27.000 with all our strength, we do this by not having any other gods before him.

00:09:31.260 We do this by not making any graven images.

00:09:34.480 We do this by not taking the name of the Lord in vain.

00:09:37.400 And we do this by remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.

00:09:40.460 How do we love our neighbor?

00:09:41.620 The second greatest commandment.

00:09:42.900 How do we love our neighbor as we love ourself?

00:09:45.620 Well, we don't get to define that.

00:09:47.040 That's not up to our own creative license and freedom.

00:09:49.320 Why I think this is loving to my neighbor.

00:09:50.860 I think that is loving to my neighbor.

00:09:52.700 No.

00:09:53.440 What does Jesus say?

00:09:54.900 What does the Bible say is loving to our neighbor?

00:09:58.080 Well, that's the second table of the 10 commandments.

00:10:00.620 Commandment number five through 10,

00:10:02.320 starting with commandment number five,

00:10:04.160 honor your father and mother.

00:10:05.220 Your father and mother are your neighbors.

00:10:07.420 Honor them.

00:10:08.280 Commandment number six,

00:10:09.240 do not murder your neighbor. Thou shall not commit murder. Commandment number seven,

00:10:14.720 thou shall not commit adultery. Your spouse is your neighbor. You must be faithful in marriage

00:10:20.620 to your spouse. Commandment number eight, thou shall not steal. And that doesn't just mean you

00:10:25.320 personally sneaking into the window of your neighbor while he's sleeping at night and taking

00:10:29.920 some jewelry, but that also means you cannot vote for civil theft. You cannot vote for certain

00:10:36.740 political parties that want to legalize national theft, where certain individuals are all of a

00:10:43.420 sudden entitled to something that someone else has earned. So that's commandment number eight,

00:10:49.540 thou shall not steal. Commandment number nine, thou shall not bear false witness. I'm not loving

00:10:54.520 my neighbor when I lie to my neighbor or when I perpetuate by my compliance and complacency

00:11:01.500 lies that my neighbor has already been fed, aka wearing three masks when there's no reason to do

00:11:09.660 so. When the CDC has actually come out and officially said that if you're wearing a cloth

00:11:14.760 mask, it's fashion. Even the CDC has said that at this point. So if I'm wearing a cloth mask,

00:11:21.800 even according to the lying CDC, I'm bearing false witness. I'm virtue signaling. I'm not

00:11:29.520 protecting my neighbor and his physical health. I'm perpetuating a mode of nationwide panic and

00:11:38.780 fear that is deceptive and harms my neighbor. Lastly, commandment number 10, thou shall not

00:11:45.360 covet. I shall not envy what God has sovereignly chosen to assign to my neighbor. And I cannot

00:11:54.580 seek to make that mine through any kind of neo-Marxist ideology. That is not loving my

00:12:01.680 neighbor. So how do we build in a way that will last? We need to build in faith. How do we build

00:12:08.060 in faith? Well, to do anything in faith is a reliance on God's grace, a desire for God's

00:12:13.960 glory. It is to have Christ as the foundation of our building. Psalm 127 verse 1, unless the Lord

00:12:20.280 builds the house. Those who build it labor in vain. How do I ensure that the Lord is building

00:12:25.700 the house? Well, I need to have the Lord as the foundation of the house, building the house on

00:12:29.780 the rock and not on the sand. For Christ to be my foundation, that is to rely on his gospel,

00:12:36.060 believing his gospel, faith in his gospel, and obedience to his commandments. He has two

00:12:42.340 commandments, love the Lord our God, love our neighbor as ourself. Where do we go to find out

00:12:47.440 what it looks like to obey those two commandments, the 10 commandments. So I am obeying his commandments

00:12:53.300 and trusting in his gospel. That is what it is to have Christ as the chief stone, to have Christ

00:12:58.900 as a foundation of our life, the foundation of our building. So we want to build upon Christ,

00:13:05.240 building in faith, but also we want to build to Christ, relying on his gospel, obedience to his

00:13:10.820 commands, but also with a desire for his glory and his fame. That Christ is not only our foundation,

00:13:18.180 but he is our aspiration. He is our heart's desire. Whom have I in heaven, but you and who

00:13:25.120 is there on earth beside you. He is the portion of my heart forever. That more than anything else,

00:13:32.880 I don't want to just make a name for myself and I don't even want to just better humanity.

00:13:37.320 I want all that I do to ultimately, first and foremost, to bring glory to Christ.

00:13:44.680 When we build in this way, faith in the gospel, obedience to God's commandments, and a desire

00:13:52.080 for Christ's glory, we can be sure that we are not building alone, but that the Lord

00:13:56.560 himself is building the house and he is building it upon himself as its very foundation.

00:14:03.260 and he's building this house through us to himself

00:14:07.000 for his eternal and lasting glory.

00:14:09.600 Because all of this by the grace of God

00:14:11.840 is being done in faith.

00:14:13.920 And that is how we live a life in our speech,

00:14:17.200 in our thoughts, in our actions and behaviors

00:14:20.120 that we create, we produce, we build

00:14:23.520 in such a way that it lasts and endures for generations.

00:14:29.460 That's our episode for today.

00:14:31.080 I hope it was helpful.

00:14:32.320 Thanks for tuning in.

00:14:33.260 Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment,

00:14:38.520 and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way that

00:14:44.460 you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - March 04, 2022

QUESTIONS - How Do Christians Build “In Faith”？

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