Genuine Faith

Paul's letters to Timothy are different than his other letters, obviously, because they're not sent to a congregation. They are letters sent to a younger man who is a minister, who was trained by Paul. And in 1 and 2 Timothy, there's a great deal of information about what it is to be a pastor, how to pastor, the qualifications of a pastor. But in 1 and 2 Timothy, there's also a lot of personal comments made by Paul. He was Timothy's mentor, and there was a great deal of personal affection between Paul and Timothy. Paul looked at him, you could tell when you read through the letter, almost like a son, as a man that he was training, he was teaching. And let's go to 2 Timothy 1 and look at a comment he makes, because this is going to be the foundation of my sermon here today. 2 Timothy 1. Starting in verse 3, he says, I thank God whom I serve for the pure conscience, as my forefathers did, is without ceasing. I remember you. Now, think how personal this is. He's writing to this younger man. He says, I try to serve God with all my heart, and I remember you without ceasing. All the time I pray for you every day. I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears that I may be filled with joy. He says, I know you're going through a hard time. He says, and I think about the struggles you've had. And he says, I pray for you all the time, and I wish I could be there to help you through it. So he's giving you this personal encouragement. Then verse 5, when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Now, that's a personal little statement we could just read by and say, oh wow, okay, let's get down to the meat of what he's writing about. But think about what he just told this man. He said, I saw a faith in your grandmother. It was genuine. I saw it in her. I saw it in your mother. I see it in you. What does it mean to have genuine faith? Genuine means something is authentic. It's real. There's no pretense to it. It's not hypocritical. It's just real. It's authentic. You know the difference between an authentic piece of gold and just something that's made to look like gold. He said, your faith is real.

If someone looks at you and me, could they say that person has genuine faith? What would that even look like? Oh, I guess genuine faith, you would walk around and every prayer would be immediately answered. Miracles would happen. Every place you went, every time you prayed, you would be healed. But you know when you look at the Bible, that's not what genuine faith always produces. I mean, every person in the Bible had troubles, right? You read about all the people that had troubles. Troubles in their families, outside troubles, health problems. Every one of them. So genuine faith doesn't mean you just live a life without troubles. It doesn't mean that you're healed every time. It doesn't mean you just, miracles are done in your life constantly by God. What does it look like then? How could a person look at you and say, there is a person that has faith? Is it because we talk about faith all the time? This is real important when we think about not trying to impress each other with our faith. But the people we come in contact with every day, our neighbors, the people in the apartment complex, where you work, where you go to school, somehow when they see you, do they say, there's a person of faith? Is it because we preach at them? What is it? Well, then what most people, what we think at this point is, I don't have genuine faith. How do I exhibit genuine faith? I'm going to go through four simple principles about how you and I, when interacting with somebody else, could show our faith. Now what I'm going to talk about is what you think it's going to be about. If I asked you to write down four points, you probably wouldn't write down what we're going to go through. We're going to look at, what is it that someone else says, that's authentic, that's real?

That person has genuine faith. And it's not because there's constant miracles in your life or everything's perfect or you have no trials or you have no health problems. First thing, we are being genuine when we acknowledge to others who are facing difficulties with our own struggles. Someone comes up and says they have a problem, they have trouble with their life, and you just say, maybe you've had someone do this to you. You just need to have more faith. Well, what in the world does that mean? Well, you just need to have more faith, which is sort of the pat answer. Then you walk away feeling like, well, I guess that person has never struggled with faith, so that person can't help me. What is it that person can't help me? What does it mean to be real? To be real isn't to pretend that you've never struggled with faith. If any of you here has never had a struggle with your faith, just wait, because you will. You just haven't lived long enough yet. So when we're real about our faith and someone comes and they're sharing with us a problem they have, their doubts about God, the first thing we need to say is, I understand, because I've struggled with my faith, too. You say, well, then I'm telling them I'm not a great person of faith. What you're telling them is, I'm real. You're telling them, I'm not a great person of faith. What you're telling them is, I'm real. The world has enough fake Christians, and we need to stop being fake Christians. We need to be real. So just telling somebody to have more faith isn't what it's all about. It is saying, I understand, I've been there. I've struggled, too, at times. I've wondered what God is doing. Why does He do this? I don't understand. I've gone to God and said, I don't understand. I've been up in the middle of the night saying, I don't understand. I've said, God must not exist. I've been like Jeremiah that said, I'm never even going to mention your name again. Right? Because, see, we've all been there. We say, well, I'm ashamed to tell somebody that. You know, sometimes that's the only way you help somebody else. That's what you say. I understand because I've been there. It's now real. We're real with each other. You know, it's so easy at church to come and only be here one day a week, half hour before services, half hour after services, and we can put on a giant pretense, right? Nothing's wrong with my life. And so we all go home thinking, well, there's nothing wrong in anybody's life but mine. And of course, it's not true. But think about being a pastor. You usually find out after you're in an area about two or three years, you find out the problems in everybody's lives. We're all in the same boat. And so a genuine faith starts with, I understand. I have struggled with my faith also. You realize at that point you're now qualified to tell somebody, to help somebody through their faith problem.

You need to understand that. One of my favorite examples of faith is in Mark 9. In fact, I did an entire television program on Mark 9. Because this whole story is just filled with so much information here, what God's trying to teach us. Let's start on verse 14.

And when He came, just to talk about Jesus Christ, to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them. So He looks, and there's these disciples. There's this huge crowd around them, and they're having a big argument with religious leaders, scribes, people who know the Bible. And immediately when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed. And running to Him, greeted Him, and He asked the scribes, What are you discussing here with my disciples? And one of the crowd answered and said, Teacher, I brought you my son, who has a mute spirit. And whenever it seizes Him, it throws Him down.

He foams at the mouth and gnashes His teeth and becomes rigid. So I spoke to your disciples, but they could not cast it out, but they couldn't do it. He said, I brought this, my son, who is a demonic spirit, and they could not cast him out. Verse 19, He answered and said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?

Bring Him to me. He looked at them, He looked at the disciples, He looked at the scribes, He looked at everybody, He said, where's the faith here? They brought Him to Him. When He saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed Him, and He fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. So Jesus asked the Father, verse 21, how long has this been happening to Him? And He said, from childhood.

And often He has been thrown at Him both into the fire and into the water to destroy Him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help Him. He says, if this is something you can do, please help us. And Jesus then says this to Him, if you can believe, all things are possible to Him who believes. You think, oh, that means if Jesus would have said that to me, I would have said, that's it?

I believe, let's do it. What's so amazing about this man is his absolute, authentic faith. It's not that he doesn't have faith. Verse 24, immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. He begins to weep. And then He says, help my unbelief. You see, all of us of ourselves, our own faith, can only go so far. There's a point where even God has to help our faith, and there's a point we have to understand that. There's a point we have to say, I believe. Help my unbelief. When we think we have such great faith, the test is coming.

Because there will come a time in all of our lives we're stripped down to basically nothing. And we will say, I believe, but I can't go any farther. I can't do any more. And God says, now I can help you. Now I can take you where you have to go. I will give you what you do not have.

I believe. Help my unbelief. He had faith. He didn't say, oh, I believe. I just believe. He'll walk away. But He acknowledged the authenticity of, God, I'm pretty small here, and I can only go so far. You and I have to admit to God, I believe. But I can only go so far. You have to take me the rest of the way. Now we start to get into genuine faith, real faith. You know what's amazing in the Bible?

Story after story after story of someone who's having struggle with their faith. Abraham, father of the faithful. How many of the stories in his life are about his struggles with faith? Where he failed sometimes. He lied because he didn't have enough faith for God to protect him. Peter denied Jesus three times because he didn't have enough faith. Yet I don't think any of us would say Peter wasn't a great man of faith. All of them struggled. Look at how many women in the Bible you go through.

The study of the women of the Bible and how many of them have a crisis of faith. Hannah, Mary, the mother of Jesus. All the great people. John the Baptist. Go ask my cousin if he really is the Messiah. This isn't turning out the way I thought. I'm sitting in prison. My cousin, Jesus, was the Messiah. He was to come, to overthrow the Romans, set up the kingdom of God on earth, and here I am in prison.

So go ask him, are you really the Messiah? Have I misplaced something here? Misunderstood something? Crisis of faith. All Bibles about people having crisis of faith. So we have to be able to be honest enough to say, I believe, help my unbelief.

And that is real. And that's when you say to someone, I know, been there. I've had that same struggle. I've asked God that same thing. God's answered me. God helped me. And then sometimes you say, I'm still waiting for an answer. It's an honest faith. Look at Luke 7. Luke 7. So I thought genuine faith would be, every time I get anointed I get healed. Genuine faith would be that bad things wouldn't happen to me. Genuine faith is facing a life, trusting a God. And sometimes you just think, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next.

And you're able to say that. Honest enough to say it. I'm sorry, I said Luke 7, didn't I? Luke 17. Luke 17. I find this whole passage is very fascinating because it doesn't seem to connect, unless you really think about it. Verse 5 says, And the apostle said to the Lord, Increase our faith. So they're being very honest here. They're going to Him and saying, Help us have more faith.

Help us to believe more, to have more trust, to be able to step out in faith more, to do what faith is supposed to produce. So, like us, we go to God and we should say, Help me to have more faith. I believe, help my unbelief, guide me, direct me, give me encouragement, give me courage. So they ask something very good. So the Lord said, If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to the smallberry tree, Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.

Now you think, well, increase our faith. Oh, if you had just a dot of faith that you could hardly see, just like a little mustard seed, you could be throwing bushes out, picking up trees, flying through the air. You could be doing all kinds of stuff. You just didn't have much. Now they got to be very discouraged at this point. Well, we had some faith. We're asking you to help increase it. We didn't come and say we have no faith. I have faith, but I know it has to be increased. And you say, well, oh, you need that much.

And then He gives them a parable that at first must have been very discouraging. He says, Which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him, when he has come in from the field, come at once and sit down to eat? But will he not rather say to him, prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I've eaten a drug, and afterwards you will eat a drink? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him?

I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which are commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. What in the world does that have to do with faith?

Faith, what He's telling them here is, it must be something that was directly issued that they had. And that is, look, you want your faith to be increased, but realize something. When you obey God completely, it's interesting in the Jewish world because faith and obedience are almost, the terms mean almost exactly the same. And in some ways they do. Faith without obedience is meaningless. But you know you can have obedience without faith. You can actually have obedience without faith. You can obey God out of fear or out of duty. And He tells them, look, you want your faith increased, and you keep trying to serve and obey, and you should be doing that. But remember this, when you have done everything you should do, when you've kept every commandment correctly, when you serve God, everything is exactly right. Remember, you're still not worthy of God.

So you're going to have to trust Him. I wouldn't think that has anything to do with faith, does it? But it does. Because it's His answer to increase our faith. Okay. Obey, serve. And when you're done obeying and serving, we just did our duty. In other words, faith in God requires a relationship with God beyond just the duty. He didn't tell them not to do the duty, by the way. He didn't tell them not to obey. But He said, when you've done that, you should do that. When you've done that, it's still not where God wants you to go. Faith is a relationship, because at its core it's a trust. That's why we can't... Faith isn't a badge of superiority. Like, I have faith and you don't. Because real faith points God, or points people to God. What we think sometimes is faith points people to us, our church, or us, or our pastor. No, it doesn't. Faith points people to God. Your faith is only as real as the object you have faith in. Your faith is only as real and powerful as the object or the person that you have faith in.

So our genuine faith is in God. And we point people to God and to Jesus Christ. Second point.

We are being genuine, because this is all about just being genuine, not having pretense. We are being genuine when we don't pretend to be perfect.

Some of you remember when you first came into the church? First Sabbath you showed up, and you thought, all these people are perfect. I don't belong here. I think I've told you before, when I invite new people I tell them, if you want to come to a church where everybody's perfect, you'll be very disappointed with us. And usually the answer is, oh, good.

So we're just a bunch of people trying to go in the right direction. At any given moment, half of us are stumbling around. That's what we are. A bunch of people are going in the right direction, and half of us are stumbling, and the other half is trying to pick them up. This is what it is. But what happens is, we try to be something we're not. We try to pretend we're perfect. Now, having said that, let me say something to young people, because I have seen young people become discouraged in the church, or even leave the church, over those people who are just a bunch of hypocrites. Well, you will find a few hypocrites in the church. You'll find a few hypocrites every place. But just because someone makes a mistake or has a sin or isn't perfect doesn't mean they're a hypocrite. A hypocrite is a person who tries to pretend they're not that, or hide it, or say, no, I don't have that problem. That's hypocrisy.

Well, we have a genuine faith. We know we're not perfect, and we don't try to hide the fact that we're not. That doesn't mean we go expose all of our sins to people. We're not supposed to do that. But we acknowledge, I'm not perfect. So let me tell you something, young people. To say, I'm not going to obey God because everybody else is a bunch of hypocrites is an act of hypocrisy.

Because you're pretending to be something. You're pretending. If you obey God, you obey God because He's God. Not because of other people. So we have to be willing to show, if we're going to have genuine faith, I'm not perfect. You know, if you've ever had someone come to you and say, and probably many of you have had over the years, I have a problem, I haven't talked to anybody about it, I'm so embarrassed, I don't know what to do, I don't know who to talk, and I know everybody will hate me if they find out that I have an addiction problem, I have an alcohol problem, I stole from my employer, I committed adultery.

And if everybody finds out, they will despise me.

No, when everybody finds out, they'll be disappointed. When they come to you and say that, and you can say, Wow, I've never had that problem. Okay, well maybe you've never committed adultery, or you've never had a problem with alcohol, but let's just substitute something else. You know, a temper, self-righteousness, addiction to video games, which some people have, ruins relationships, ruins a person's relationship with God. So you can replace that with your problem. But see what our thing is, we always think our problem, our problem is less than somebody else's. At least I didn't do that.

Well, if someone ever comes to you and confesses a sin, then what we have to say is, you need to go to God. Let's go to God, because I'm a sinner too.

Let's go to God, because I'm a sinner too. This is genuine faith. Now the person says they don't want to go to God, you can't do anything about it.

Look at Luke 13. This is interesting because Jesus becomes angry here.

Verse 10, Jesus is bent over, can only look at the ground, all gnarled up. Probably some kind of arthritis or something. 18 years! Jesus looks at her and says, you're healed. He has His compassion on her. Verse 14, But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation. He becomes angry because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And He said to the crowd, There are six days in which men ought to work, therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. I find this interesting. It's like Jesus is doing the work.

The healing came from God. But He blames Jesus for working on the Sabbath. Like Jesus, it's a bizarre concept. Like Jesus had the power, which we know He did, but why? Because He came from God.

He was the Word, as we heard in the Sermonet. He just sort of blamed Him for working on the Sabbath.

Verse 15, The Lord then answered Him and said, Hypocrite! Why does He call Him a hypocrite? He can say, you just don't understand who I am, but He's angry with Him. He says, you're a hypocrite. You're not making a mistake here. You're pretending to be something you're not. Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? That's interesting because that was a common teaching in Judaism. I mean, there are certain laws about taking care of animals in the Old Testament. And feeding an animal on the Sabbath is considered a command. Giving an animal water on the Sabbath is a command.

Because they have life on the Sabbath. Now, you don't do work with them, but you're supposed to feed them. They're supposed to give them water. He says, now wait a minute. Are you a hypocrite? You give a stupid cow water on the Sabbath so that it does not suffer. And that's correct. So what? Not this woman. Being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has bound. Think of it. That's an amazing little thing that Luke puts in here. Jesus, look, He's just thinking this, man. Come on, think of this. Eighteen years He suffered.

Can you grasp this? What's happened here? Think of it. For eighteen years, be loosed from this maw to the Sabbath. And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame.

Why does He call Him a hypocrite? Because He was judging by His own standard.

He Himself didn't even live by that standard. He was pretending to be something He was not.

We can't pretend to be something we're not. So that way we're available with two people who have a crisis of faith because we're not pretending.

So to exhibit genuine faith to others is to admit that we're not perfect. Once again, that doesn't mean confess all our sins. But it is to admit, yeah, I haven't had that problem, but I've had other problems. I've had other sins. God has helped me. God has helped me. God can help you. That's the greatest helping of faith you can do. God has helped me. He can help you. God has given me mercy. He can give you mercy. God has given me power. He can give you power. I've seen it in my life. I can witness that. That's faith.

The third point. See how being genuine is a little different than maybe you thought? Because it's being authentic. And we're taught not to be authentic. We're taught to sort of be something else, to appear perfect, to appear like we all have all faith. We all understand all things. You've already figured after a little over a year here, you've figured out how many times I said, I don't know what this means. I don't know all things. God does. I have faith in that. I have faith in that. I don't know all things. Number three. This is a difficult one. We are being genuine when we face the severity of how God deals with evil in human history. Now, that, you think, what's that mean? We are being genuine when we face the severity of how God deals with evil in human history. I have talked to many people throughout the years who have said, I just could not trust or believe in a God who kills people, who punishes people. I could not trust or believe in a God who would punish homosexuals or transvestites or whatever. You know, you fill in the blank. Whatever that person feels comfortable with, I could never trust in a God or believe in a God that does this, that, or the other. Wrestling with this concept is something we all have to do. If you're the type of person that always says, yeah, that person is getting what they deserve, you need to step back a little bit. We all like it when somebody else gets what they deserve, but do we want to get what we deserve? Think about that. Of course, I want everybody else to get what they deserve. But what do we deserve? Well, no, I want God's mercy. I want God's mercy. I will tell the story now, but I can tell you lots of stories about being in prison, not wanting to tell a person because of the severity of their crimes, not wanting to tell them that God would forgive them, and finding myself telling them, yes, God will forgive you. This came out because, well, that's what I'm supposed to do. Yes, God will forgive you. But I've committed murder. But I've committed molested children. I committed all these things, and part of me didn't want to tell them that. And I'm ashamed to say that. I'm ashamed to say that. But in every case, I've always found myself saying, yes, God will forgive you. He forgave me. He'll forgive you. I've never murdered anybody, but I've hated somebody. So, well, that's a sin.

So we have to look at this and understand and wrestle with God will punish evil. And people who do not repent will be punished. Yes, there is a lake of fire, and Jesus Christ is the one who puts them in it. All judgment is given to Jesus Christ. The one who died for us determines, you go to the lake of fire or you don't. Of course, it says He does the will of the Father, but you understand. Who looks at somebody and says, you're going to the lake of fire is Jesus Christ. The one who died for Him. So we cannot escape. We cannot step back from the severity of God's judgment on evil. We can't hide from that. We can't pretend it's not there. We can't tell people, no, oh, God's not that way. Because yes, He is. He will not exist with evil. It's that simple. But His mercy, the other side of Him, is I will forgive you when you turn to Me. And I will forgive you and I will work you through it and you will overcome. Think about Abraham.

I'm going to go to Sodom and destroy those people. And what did he say? Oh, goody! Because I know they're bad. He knew they were bad people.

And He knew God, some of them deserved God's punishment. But what did He argue? What if there's 50 good people? Now, you notice in that exchange when you go back and read it in Genesis, God didn't say to Him, how dare you talk to me that way? It's as though the boy's starting to get it. He's actually interacting with Abraham because he's leading Abraham someplace. He said, oh, no, I wouldn't do that. And Abraham's thinking, yeah, okay, that's a high number.

God, what if there's, was it 35? Well, He went down, 45, 35. At one point He said, I'm a little afraid to even ask this, but what if there's only this many?

I said, I won't kill Him for that. I'll save everybody if there's that many. Now, what did God actually do? There was one man. Did God kill him? God got him out. God wasn't going to kill any of the righteous that were there.

But Abraham had to reason that out. He had to struggle with that, just like you and I have to struggle with God's punishment. And sometimes we feel an anger at the world because God does. We feel an anger at certain sins. I feel an anger at abortion. It is the murder of a child that can't defend itself. If that doesn't make us angry, we've become calloused.

If we can't even get angry over the murder of a child that cannot defend itself, we're calloused. But when I sit down with Wabanoush, I have committed abortion. What do I say?

You will be forgiven when you repent.

Will the penalty be taken off of me? Yes. But I suffer so much. Yeah. That will get better over time.

As God works with you and you accept His forgiveness, but it is part of the penalty. God sometimes doesn't take away all the temporary penalties, but God's going to take away the eternal penalty. And you can have a relationship with God, and yes, you can be healed.

If you don't repent, then you have to stand before God someday and explain, and you don't want to be there doing that. So we have to admit, we have to be willing to say, yes, God does throw into a lake of fire all unrepentant people. And what we have in Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of how God balances His love and His justice.

He would not change His law, and His law requires our death. Understand that. The law of God is the expression of His righteousness. And I'll talk about every single law in the Old Covenant because those were given to a specific group of people. But you know what I mean? The overall concept of law, the Ten Commandments, and many of the laws, even in the Old Testament, and all the laws of the New Testament. When we look at these, we see the expression of God's righteousness. He wasn't going to change that. That's justice. And we all deserve death. So we sent Jesus Christ to die for us and be resurrected. Why? Because of the expression of love. We have both expressions in the exact same act. That's what I find amazing. I will not give up on right and wrong. I will not give up on what is evil, God says. Evil is evil and I will not live with it. But I'll save you from it because I love you. And we're the evil ones. We're the ones He's saving. So we have to be willing to face people and say, yes, there is a judgment from God on evil and not back down from that. Well, I could never worship a God who would do that. Well, God wants you to understand that you're messed up and He wants to save you. But He will not allow evil forever. But the other side of that is He'll take you out of it. The fourth and last point is we are being genuine when we acknowledge we always don't understand God's ways. Have you had those conversations with God? This makes no sense to me. God doesn't punish us. You know, we get rebellious against God and we get punished. We don't get punished for saying, I don't understand. We don't get punished for saying, God, this is bigger than me. You never get punished for saying, I believe, help my unbelief. We never get punished for that one.

Genuine faith admits God is bigger than me. I've done my duty and it's still not enough. He has to do something in my life. Excuse me, I don't have a little bit of cold or something, but I've got some where my nose is running. I don't feel too bad. My nose is running. So that's why I'm wiping my nose up here. We have to trust in God's goodness sometimes when we don't understand. That's when faith gets real. Faith gets real is when you don't understand, but I'll trust you anyways. But I don't understand. Now that's real faith. If you always knew the outcome, it wouldn't be faith. You know, if every time you prayed God did exactly what you wanted, it wouldn't be faith after a while. It'd be like, here's my list today. God, if you get those things done, we'll move on. Thanks.

But when it's, I don't understand, it makes no sense to me. Would you help me understand? Would you give me understanding? That's when it becomes real. Psalm 139.

Psalm 139.

Let's start in verse 1.

David writes, Oh, Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know, am I sitting down? Am I rising up? You understand my thought? Far off. You know, when I get off, you know, when I lay down, you even know what I think.

You comprehend my path, am I lying down? You are acquainted with all my ways. There's not a word on my tongue, but behold, oh Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Verse 6. Here's David, a man of great faith. And what does he say? Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I can't attain it.

In other words, he says, God's so great, I'll never in this life understand God.

How does he know my thoughts? How does he answer everybody's prayers? How is he everywhere?

How does he connect with us? How did he create this world out of nothing?

How did he do this? And David's answer is, this is just too big for me. I don't always understand God. That's a genuine faith. That's real. That's what makes David so amazing. It's real. It's right out there.

I've talked to people, so I can't really worship a God I don't understand. I said, then you can't understand that you can't worship the God of the Bible.

Because explain creation to me. Explain a hummingbird.

I don't understand that.

I don't understand.

Explain why penguins do the exact opposite in order to survive that evolution would say they have to do. You know how they all go to the coldest place to take care of the males, take care of the eggs in the coldest place on earth? Why would you do that? Any make sense? Especially as a male.

Verse 7. Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence? We heard it in the sermon, Ant. You know, the Spirit of God is His presence. It emanates from Him, and He's there with us. He's in us through His Spirit.

If I ascended to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell or in the grave, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall fall on me, even the night shall be light above me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day, the darkness, and the light are both alike to you. He goes on to the song, and He says, You created my body parts while I was in my mother.

This is all too big for Him to grasp and understand. Oh, we think we have a scientific understanding of all this.

This is incredibly complex. This is incredibly complex. Our little attempts at science don't explain what God is doing or how amazing this life is, just to have life and to have the capability of having a relationship with Him.

Your ways are just too big for me. That is an element of real faith because we're understanding who we have faith in. See, it comes back to, faith is only as real as who you have faith in.

How many times do you see movies where they don't want to talk about God and everybody says, well, you just have to have more faith. Believe in yourself. What does that mean? My faith is in me. Well, I can do a few things.

There's a lot of physical things I can't do that I used to do. I can't have faith in myself to run around the bases anymore. After second base, I start to limp really bad.

Our faith is in God, and we do not always understand. That's the humility of genuine faith.

So we look at what we saw here today. By the way, there's a great comfort that comes when you stop trying to pretend you know everything God's doing. You stop trying to pretend you understand everything, and you're able to go before God and say, this is bigger than me, and you're greater than me, and I'm trying to trust you here, and I can't even figure it out. There's a great comfort in it. You just step away from all this pretense, and we deal with what is real.

What Paul saw in Timothy and his mother and his grandmother was this kind of faith. Just real! It was the kind of faith that God worked in their lives because of it.

So what do we see here? From the four points we've looked at, people who exhibit genuine faith, they exhibit it. Everybody else can see it. They don't even know they're doing this. It's just exhibited. They share with others their own trials and struggles. They don't judge other people all the time when they're having lack of faith. They tell, I know, been there, done that, God worked in my life. So they share with others their own trials and struggles, too. They don't pretend to be perfect. They admit their own weaknesses. But in that is something positive. God is working in my life. I'm not done. I'm not perfect. But God's not done with me yet.

And so there's this, yes, I understand, but God can change you. God can help you. God can take you up out of where you are. Three. They know God's justice and love. They know both of them. And they know that both is exhibited in the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Him becoming flesh, and He was going back to God. And what He did then, and what He's doing now as high priest and Savior and all the jobs that He does, we understand justice. God is not going to give up His ideals of right and wrong, good and evil, because He knows what it is. But He's also going to love us.

Genuine faith understands those two things. It fears evil because it can destroy us. It hangs onto God because He loves us. And then that last thing is that people with genuine faith admit they don't always know what God's doing. We don't know always what God's doing.

But that's okay because we're not God.

It's a rude awakening some day when you finally realize, I'm not God, and He doesn't run the universe by my standards, by my ideas.

And then you can have the ability to go before God and say, yeah, I don't get it, but you know what you're doing, so I'll follow anyways.

We'll really get down to it. The basis of genuine faith is this is just the belief in God. It is to trust Him. It is to trust God. It is to trust in His goodness. It is to trust in His greatness. It is to trust in His mercy. And it is to trust in His justice.

And overall, it is to trust in the promises that He has made to each and every one of us.