Transcript

00:01 Paul Tripp: Hey, Shelby.

00:01 Shelby Abbott: Hey, Paul. Good to be with you.

00:03 Paul: Good to be with you, too. Well, today we're going to talk about something that is so important, it's kind of hard to characterize its importance. We're going to talk about faith, the nature of faith. What is faith? And I want to start with a story I've told many times.

00:27 My brother, Tedd, and I were both pastors in northeastern Pennsylvania — Ted in Hazleton and me in Scranton — and we were asked to speak for this conference retreat on faith. And so, I was tasked with speaking first and I wanted to poll the crowd, set a gauge the understanding of faith and I said, "Would someone just tell me what faith is?"

01:08 And the first person says, "Well, it means to trust." And I said, "Okay, what does it mean to trust?" And someone said, "Well, it means to believe." And I said, "Well, can somebody describe for me what it means to believe?" And they said, "Well, it means to have faith."

01:28 And we had just made the circle. And it impressed me that day, I'll never forget that it's so easy to throw around biblical theological language that you haven't fully defined in your mind. You don't fully understand. It's part of your vocabulary, but maybe not with the kind of theological, biblical understanding you need in order for it to operate the way God wants it to operate in your life and I think there's a lot of things like that that we think we understand when we don't.

02:07 It's sort of like my car has an internal combustion engine in it. I know that it sort of... the gas goes in there and spark plugs fire, and that drives pistons, but that's about it. I have very little understanding of how that operates. Or I'm holding an iPad in my hands. I mean, I use this thing every day. I understand nothing about why this works the way it works.

02:44 And I think it can be that way in the Christian life and I think that's why there are so many people who may be in good churches but aren't really growing in maturity. You don't really see the fruit of that in their everyday life. You don't see the fruit of that in their marriage or in their parenting or the way they spend their money. They get way too moved by cultural trends. They have idols in life they don't see and recognize.

03:17 Shelby: Something bad happens, they panic.

03:19 Paul: Yes, they're totally unprepared for suffering. So I thought it'd really be good to talk about one of the most basic elements of the Christian existence, the Christian life — faith. And I want us to begin with this passage in Habakkuk that is then repeated in Romans.

03:53 It comes to the context of the prophet announcing judgment on Babylon. God was going to use Babylon to judge His people, but what Babylon does was evil; so Babylon was going to end up being judged for its evil. And so, it says, "^2:4Behold his soul is puffed up..." That's Babylon he's talking about.

04:17 Shelby: Okay, which chapter are you in?

04:18 Paul: It's 2:4. ⁴Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by... faith. Paul picks that up in Romans 1:16-17 and places it now in a uniquely gospel context. ¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

05:06 Now, you have to ask yourself the question then, what does it mean that the righteous will live by faith? Paul is trying to communicate to us the utter essential nature of faith and I was thinking about what's a good illustration that'll help us to understand what Paul is talking about here.

05:42 And it's like you and I stay alive through the intake of oxygen — breathing. You can't go along without oxygen without dying and so, in order to take in oxygen, we need these organs — mainly your nose — to breathe in the oxygen.

06:07 So in a spiritual context, faith is your nose and grace is the oxygen. And so, grace is what you need to live, but without faith, you don't access the oxygen of grace and so, Paul is saying something really significant about the importance of faith, all the nutrients of grace, all the conviction and empowerment and all those things.

06:55 What does Paul say in Ephesians? All the eternal blessings of God's grace in Christ are accessed by us through faith. No faith, no spiritual life. And in a way that you can't say to yourself, "You know, breathing such a hassle. I'm just going to stop breathing." You can't say that about faith, as in your spiritual life. You're not saved by faith. You're saved by grace through faith.

07:44 Shelby: Okay, this is one of those things that you're talking about at the beginning, that people say these things, but they don't necessarily understand them. So I'm really, really glad that you're starting with the basics here to unpack what grace is, what faith is, and how they operate in our lives, spiritually.

08:00 Paul: So you're not alive because you have a nose. You're alive because of oxygen, but you couldn't take that in unless God hadn't built that organ to take in oxygen and it goes into your bloodstream and keeps your body alive.

08:19 So the thing that separates a believer from a non-believer, death from life is faith because that's how I take in the grace of God which justifies, sanctifies, ultimately, glorifies. It's just so, so important to understand that and there's a way in which in every moment of your life, you're either breathing in the nutrients of grace or you're not.

09:04 Shelby: What do you mean by that?

09:06 Paul: Well, you're living by faith or you're not.

09:11 Shelby: Yes, can give me an example of what it might look like to not live by faith?

09:20 Paul: Well, I feel weak. Well, God's promised me... He's told me I'm going to be weak and He's promised me His empowering grace. And so, instead of running to Him for His grace, I live in panic and because of my panic, I'm anxious all the time. I'm paralyzed. I don't live with courage. I avoid things that I shouldn't avoid. The list goes on and on. Well, that's because I'm not breathing in what God has — the oxygen of grace that God has offered me and so, I'm living in a condition I don't need to live in.

10:02 Shelby: I think that can characterize a lot of people who are obviously regular attenders at a church, maybe even members, followers of Jesus. You can run the gambit of who this might be true of. I've certainly been there plenty of times when something small would happen in my life that kind of starts a domino effect that makes me panic about a lot of things, something unplanned happens or my circumstances change and then, all of a sudden, I'm immediately angry or incredibly anxious or frustrated at people in my life who I shouldn't be frustrated at. This is a faith issue for me. Is that what you're saying?

10:47 Paul: Yes, so I like the way that Paul says this. He doesn't just say you're made alive by faith. He says you live by faith. That's between the "already" of your conversion and the "not yet" of your home-going; and that's a real important distinction.

11:08 People are very aware of belief when they're coming to Christ because that is a moment of conscious choice, conscious belief. But Paul's saying your entire Christian existence is a life of faith. You live by faith. Now, you are made alive by faith, but you live by faith.

11:33 Shelby: Yes, that's one of the things that I try to communicate to young people in college ministry is how did you come to Christ? And they'll give the answer of "by faith" or "by grace through faith". And I said, "Well, how do you walk with Christ?"

11:50 "I read my Bible, I pray, I go to church, I'm involved in discipleship," and the list will go on of all these things they need to do. And I'm like, "Let's flip to Galatians really quick," and I'm like, "The foolish Galatians who started by faith who are trying to live it out by works, that's what we're tempted to do all the time. We're tempted to work out what we believe can happen by faith." Now, there's nuance there, of course, because we have to be involved in the process. Can you unpack that a little bit?

12:24 Paul: Well, I think that there's an awful lot of believers who fundamentally think — although they may not have this in their formal theology — that justification is God's work. His forgiveness is His acceptance, His imputing to me the righteousness of Jesus is His work. Sanctification is my work; but the Bible speaks to that.

12:55 Philippians 2:12-13 says work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it's God who works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure; so it's always God's work. God may employ me in His work, but I would never have the desire to obey if it were not for the operation of God's grace.

13:30 I would never feel conviction if it were not for the operation of God's grace. I was doing one of the Ask Paul Tripp questions and it was a guy struggling with an area of sin and why does this bother me and in one of my responses was the very fact that you'd ask that question is a sign of God's grace because it actually does bother you and the average person walking down the street is not mourning their sin.

14:02 Shelby: Conviction of sin is like...

14:04 Paul: It's God's grace operating and so, there's never a point in my life where I'm not dependent on God's work in me constantly. I'm never a grace graduate. It's never, "I'm in now. ------ Now, I got it out." My standing before God is never based on my performance. My spiritual health is never just based on my performance.

14:40 Now, it doesn't mean that Christian disciplines aren't important. Of course, they are, but it's God who works in me both to will and to do. I would not wish to follow God and I would not have the power to follow Him if He weren't producing that in me.

15:01 Shelby: Okay. To a certain degree, this is really, really helpful to hear and it really takes the pressure off in a lot of ways, but I want to go back to maybe my 19-year-old self when I first became a believer, of trying to understand what it meant to walk by faith.

15:20 And I remember thinking what do I have to do? I remember that question going through my mind all the time. It's easy to hear what you're talking about and feel like, "Okay, it's dependent on God to rescue me. It's dependent on God to work through me. It's dependent on God to give me the power to live the Christian life. What do I do? What do I do?" If someone sat across a table from you at a coffee shop and asked that question, how do you think you'd answer? Maybe it's the wrong question.

15:49 Paul: No, it's a very good question and we're going to get there.

15:53 Shelby: Okay, all right. Keep me in anticipation.

15:54 Paul: Basically, what I want to plant in people is that faith is not just essential for your salvation, but it's essential for your life as a believer. It's just as essential as breathing in oxygen. Now, I want to look at another passage. These are two just fundamental, foundational thoughts about the nature of faith. First is absolutely essential.

16:34 This is Ephesians 2:8-9, one of the most familiar verses in all scripture. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹not... of works, so that no one may boast. Most people, when they read that passage and they come across "it is a gift of God", they think that grace is the gift of God and it is, but I want to propose that is the gift of God, is defining the whole phrase "by grace, you have been saved through faith; it is the gift of God.

17:20 Shelby: That entire sentence, the gift. Okay.

17:22 Paul: Now, here's why that is important and this is good — I have to say — classic reformed theology. Faith is absolutely unnatural for us. If we are dead in trespass and sin, we do not have the ability to believe.

17:42 Shelby: Dead people don't do anything.

17:44 Paul: I mean, when you go to a funeral, the only person that you expect nothing from is the person in the casket because they're dead and so, it's impossible for me to believe without God imparting to me that ability. That's what Jesus is talking about when He says, "Be born again."

18:12 It's the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit that makes me alive to conviction, alive to God's truth, alive to the sacrifice of Jesus for me, gives me the ability to grieve my sin and cry out for the grace of His forgiveness. Impossible to do if I'm dead and it's so important to understand that because if faith were in the grasp of everyone all the time, Jesus wouldn't have had to come.

19:03 So not only is faith essential, it's impossible apart from God's grace. So here's the mind-blowing thing. Grace precedes faith, not the other way around. Faith doesn't precede grace. Grace precedes faith.

19:26 Shelby: That's really important to hear.

19:28 Paul: I mean, it's so beautiful. So I think hundreds of thousands of believers get the order reversed and think faith precedes grace, as if all of us walk around with this natural ability to believe. You just don't. There's a place in Acts where Barnabas and Paul are preaching, and it says the Gentiles heard the word of the Lord and those who were ordained to eternal life believed. Everybody heard. Everybody, with their mind, understood all the words; but God had to act in order for people in that crowd to actually be able to believe.

20:27 Shelby: Which is somewhat difficult for a lot of people when they read certain things. I heard a preacher one time run across reading scripture and say, "Predestined," and he goes, "Don't worry, that word means just exactly what you think it means," and then, he moved on. I was like, that's helpful to hear and so, that kind of stuff goes not well, sometimes, with people because they want to believe that they are involved in this process. They're the ones who choose God, but we don't.

21:00 We don't ever choose God. We choose ourselves and so, it's really helpful for me to hear and for you to say that grace comes before faith because if I were to ask the average Christian, "How are you saved," and they were to get the answer, they say, "Through faith by God's grace," and they might mean something that is correct, but in general, it's really helpful to understand that God is the one who reaches down and touches the dead person, and makes the dead person alive before they can even believe.

21:36 Paul: It's absolutely resurrecting grace because if I'm dead in my sin, I'm not alive to God. That's what Paul says. "Now, you're alive to God." It's such a beautiful thing to say. "Well, how did I get alive? I can't resurrect myself." And there's another thing, this absolutely silences. It's the question of losing your salvation.

22:14 Shelby: Yes, let's dig into that first.

22:16 Paul: Well, I can't really... what I didn't create. If God has to act on me in order for me to believe, then if the salvation is lost, God's lost it and the whole house of cards comes down. It's impossible for you to lose what you didn't gain and we can go further. You can't lose by your sin what you didn't produce by your righteousness.

22:56 Shelby: Good. Keep going. Keep talking about that.

22:59 Paul: So, you know, if you understand the order of salvation which theologians talk about all the time — it is so important and most people do not understand the order of salvation — God, in love, acted upon me so I could react toward Him. So Jesus then says, "My sheep hear My voice and they know Me, and no one can snatch them out of My hands."

23:35 And then, in case people are questioning His power, He said, "Oh, by the way, I and the Father are one. If you believe in the power of God Almighty, I and the Father are one." So Jesus is saying, "I have chosen these ones to be My sheep. Because of that, they have come to know My voice and, oh, by the way, no one can take them away from Me."

24:08 So if you understand the order of salvation, my standing with God was not based on my choice and my action because God had to act on me first. God saved me and if salvation is lost, it means God does not have the power to keep me.

24:32 Shelby: Really, really helpful to hear that because there's a lot of — I don't know in your circles that you run in — there's a lot of young people who wrestle with this, of thinking that their sin can outweigh the grace of God and even hearing the sheep thing that you were talking about.

24:49 Just this past week, our mission week at our church for the youth, the youth pastor decided to bring in someone who had sheep. So she brought sheep to this camp, and the goal was to let them loose in this field and have everybody in the camp call them to try to get the sheep to come over, and none of them responded. And then, the one who owns the sheep would say the same thing that she told everybody else to say and all of a sudden, the sheep look up and they start walking toward her.

25:20 So that was really, really helpful, I think, for the young people to understand, really helpful for me to hear the story about what happened because that really illustrates the fact that God is the one who's in control of all these people and we respond to Him because we were made for Him.

25:38 Paul: Scripture says it in just simple words. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And so, the gift is not just the gift of God's grace, but it's the gift of faith that God makes me alive so — I mean, we've all had this experience. For me, it was as a nine-year-old boy where all of a sudden, for the first time, I experienced conviction of my sin. It was overwhelming. I couldn't sleep that night. I had to respond.

26:21 Why? Because my heart is now alive and I couldn't get to God fast enough as a little boy because of the weight of this on me and all of a sudden, I had the faith to believe that God heard and answered my little cries. And that night, I went to bed in peace. Isn't that amazing? As a boy, it's all God creating that inside of me and the peace that followed was His grace affirming that I was His child.

27:08 It's all the Lord and so, you have to humbly admit that faith is unnatural. Even more powerful, that faith is impossible. Dead people don't do anything. They don't believe anything. They don't cry out. They don't feel. They're dead and so, in order for all of those things to bubble up inside of me — which all of us experience at the moment of our conversion — God has to make me alive.

27:47 Shelby: Going back to also what we were talking about earlier, of walking by faith, I think it's helpful to hear that at the beginning, that God is the one who brings faith and then at the end, it can't be lost. It's His forever. But the middle part is one of those things that we get confused. There's this jockeying of strength and power and wanting to live that I know we're going to eventually get there.

28:15 Paul: Can we talk about that? Let me just talk about that for a moment.

28:18 Shelby: Yes, because it seems so simple, but it also feels very complex.

28:20 Paul: One of the cruel, deceitful tricks of the enemy, Satan, is to sow doubt in the heart of a believer. Now, he has no power to take away your salvation, so his work is to mess up the journey and because once you begin doubting God — I've dealt with this in people in counselling so much — people who are struggling, they quit praying, they quit reading the Bible everyday.

29:10 One person said, "I can't go to church and sing those songs because they don't seem like they're in my life," so she quit going to church. She didn't want to answer questions from fellow believers so she quit going to her small group. Those are all life-giving resources.

29:27 It's equivalent to "I doubt my physician, so I don't take the medicine that he's prescribed for me anymore" and that's always the work of the enemy. That's spiritual warfare. He wants you to live in doubt. He wants you to back away from all the means of grace that produce strength and peace and rest and courage and obedience and all those things that fuel a healthy spiritual life.

30:10 And the epicenter of that doubt is "God doesn't love you anymore, He's withdrawing His grace from you because you are too evil". That's why in Romans 8, the crescendo of Romans 8 is "nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus". Paul wants to say, "No, no, no, no, no," because he knows that attack. Paul understands that attack is universal.

30:38 Shelby: Yes, I mean, certainly I've experienced that personally. I've been a Christian now for over 30 years, I think. No, not that long. About 30 years. My memory is going because I'm so old, but I'm wrestling with those struggles all the time. I feel like the journey has been messed up or God doesn't love you anymore, or the temptation not to open my Bible, the temptation not to pray.

31:04 Why? Why would I ever cut myself off from any kind of medicine or help or chicken soup or fluids if I'm feeling sick? No, I would run to those things even though I might not feel the fact that they're changing my health, they are proactively working inside of me even though I can't see it.

31:24 And sometimes, that's what's happening with the spiritual element, too. It's like going to church. You may not feel it when you're there. Reading your Bible. You may not feel like praying. You may feel like it's bouncing off the ceiling, but all those things are going to be good for you. Why would you cut yourself off from those life-giving resources?

31:40 Paul: It's important to make the distinction between conviction and doubt. Conviction is a work of grace. It's not condemnation. It's conviction. Conviction is not God turning His back on you when you feel bad about something you've done or said or haven't done or said. That's God reaching out to you and drawing you near.

32:10 Condemning doubt is never God's work because Jesus bore all our condemnation. So if I'm feeling condemned, that's not coming from my Lord. He will convict me because that form of remorse — grief over sin — is a healthy thing, drives me to Him. Feelings of condemnation drive me away from Him and that's never God's work of grace. And so, when it comes to those moments, the question is who are you listening to. Is this coming from God's word? Is it coming from good preaching? Is it coming from God's people? No, no, no, it's not.

33:04 The other thing is I think that part of what Satan works with is our desire to be strong on our own and our desire to be righteous on our own. I want to be righteous. I don't want to have to trust in the righteousness of Christ. I want spiritual independence and when I don't live up to my own standards, then that gives Satan a hook to work with, but what's fueled that is just all wrong.

33:39 It's never my righteousness. It's never my performance. Should I desire to live a life that's pleasing to the Lord? Sure, I should? I mean, the command is, "Be holy as I am holy," so it's a pretty high standard, but I never stand before God based on my wisdom, my strength, my righteousness. Never.

34:06 Shelby: Yes, it's really good to hear you make that distinction because a lot of times, we think we read through scripture and we believe that I've got to muster this kind of stuff up on my own. I've got to do well, and if I'm believing lies, I need to fix that myself. And sure enough, there's opportunity to be able to correct faulty thinking by being in scripture, and going and hearing sermons; but we need people in our lives.

34:30 We need community. We need discipleship. We need someone intentionally pulling our gaze up to the correct posture, so that we can see the reality of what scripture is saying instead of believing those lies. I would not be where I am today if I didn't have people like you in my life who helped correct faulty thinking, who lovingly guide and direct me in different ways, as a friend, as a brother in Christ. I've got other friends who help me with that. My wife helps me with that. Christianity can never be a solo adventure. It's not. It's not going to ever be an isolated thing. You've got to have people in your life to remind you of these.

35:09 Paul: Yes, and part of the "living by faith" is humbly understanding you haven't arrived. I mean, I've known the Lord since I was nine years old. I'm just gone back to reading Calvin's Institutes [of the Christian Religion] again, one of the most thorough statements of the Christian faith...

35:31 Shelby: You did not read those when you were nine, though.

35:32 Paul: No... that's ever been no ever been written and I'm doing that because I don't think I've arrived, and I'm not embarrassed to say I've learned so much just in adding that as part of my devotional reading every morning. It's been very stimulating and very helpful; and I want to breathe in the nutrients of God's grace and I won't stop until my heart stops. It's just so, so important.

36:12 So these two pillars, you have to have in place. First, faith is absolutely essential. It's the means by which we access God's grace. Faith is impossible. It's unnatural because if I'm dead, it's not natural for me to do anything and so, it's grace that precedes faith. I need God to act on me so I can believe and move into that relationship with Him.

36:51 So, so important to get those two things in place and I think there's a lot of people whose Christian lives are weakened by the fact that they don't understand that; and it makes them susceptible to so many of Satan's tricks. He is a deceiver and he wants to harm your walk with the Lord. He wants to sow doubt and division and insecurity, and it's just so evil.

37:37 And so again, that distinction is important between the conviction that is God drawing you near and doubt, which is the evil work of Satan to sow into you thoughts of condemnation, when Paul boldly declares there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

38:04 Shelby: Yes, can you talk maybe a little bit about condemning doubt and then, maybe doubt that might be healthy, that might lead to greater faith, that might lead to deeper, healthy conviction of the Holy Spirit? Is there a distinction between them?

38:22 Paul: Sure, there's the doubt of wonderment. God will confuse you, I mean, because we all live in the middle between God's revealed will and His secret will. In other words, His revealed will is everything that's in the Bible and His secret will is all the things He's ordained for my life; and there are times when those don't seem to match up.

38:57 I don't sense God's presence. I don't see His promises. I sure don't feel like I'm experiencing His power. Now, those moments, it's the doubt of wonderment. I don't know what God is doing and the way to deal with that is just run to Him.

39:23 That's very different than what I would call the doubt of judgment. I have come to the conclusion God's not faithful, He doesn't actually love me, what He says isn't true, and I move away from Him. We're all going to experience the first doubt because God's ways are not our ways and He has chosen to reveal some things to us, but understands our limits and has decided there are many things He will not reveal to us because we couldn't take them if we knew it. I've gone through things I'm very thankful I didn't know ahead of time. I would have freaked out.

40:08 So that's God as creator, understanding our limits. But because we don't have that, the fact that God's secret will is secret, we'll enter moments of confusion and wonderment; and that's [what] the psalm is saying. "How long, O Lord? How long will You let my enemies triumph over me?” Now, what's He doing? He's saying that to God. That's the right choice.

40:49 Shelby: Yes, going to Him with your confusion.

40:51 Paul: Yes, versus "I've already made the conclusion that God's not trustworthy and I'm moving away from Him".

41:02 Shelby: Super helpful to hear because a lot of people might hear you say doubt is bad, always bad; and it's not necessarily always bad. It's that condemning doubt that will lead you in the wrong direction.

41:13 Paul: Sorry, I will say it even stronger. I think doubt is an inescapable part of growth and faith because the more you have just given your life over, the more you want to understand, you want to know, you want the peace that passes understanding, you want to rest in your Lord and there are moments when that's hard. We all have these "why-would-God" moments versus "yes, well, I don't believe that He actually loves me".

42:03 Shelby: One of the things that I think that is really important is to read the book of Job to help young people or old people or anybody really understand that Job did a lot of things wrong. He did a lot of things incorrectly, but one thing he did not do was run away from it. He didn't do what his wife told him to do, which was Curse God and die. That's what he did not do. That would have been the egregious sin, but he went to God complaining to Him.

42:29 God put him in his place, of course, near the end of Job. It's really interesting to read God speaking to a human, going, "I'm sorry, were you there when I created the world?" That's a very fascinating conversation, but I think Job made a lot of wrong choices, but even in his wrong choices, he took them to God and that's one of the things that he did correct; and God counted it as righteousness to him.

42:51 And in fact, He said, "All your friends that made you doubt whether or not you should even come to Me, you better pray for them because you did things right and they did not." So it's, I believe, helped my unbelief. That's a good place to be in.

43:07 Paul: Yes, it reminds me of... there's a Japanese form of theater, I think it's called kabuki theater, where there are two stages. There's a stage above and a stage below, and there are two dramas going on and the drama above actually controls the drama below.

43:26 You have these two strains in the narrative of the Bible. One is the inescapable march of redemption caused by a sovereign God who cannot be stopped and down here are the up and down struggles of people to believe Him.

43:46 I mean, you almost can't name a name in scripture that didn't have some form of a struggle of faith. It's just the way it is and, fortunately, God's not stopped by our struggles of faith. His plan keeps marching on and we're drug along by the inexhaustible nature of His grace and His power.

44:18 Shelby: Yes, that's really helpful to hear. That's a good illustration.

44:22 Paul: So let's go to Hebrews 11 because Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter in scripture. Probably, there's no single passage of scripture that's dedicated to discuss faith more than this. It will take us elsewhere, but Hebrews 11 is just incredibly helpful. Let me read the first three verses.

44:57 ¹Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ²For by it the people of old received their commendation. ³By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

45:17 Here's my way of understanding what Paul is doing here and I can remember the first time this sort of became clearer to me. The first sentence I don't think is intended to define biblical faith. I think it defined faith. You can't be a human being without having faith in something.

45:52 I mean, every time I flip on the electric switch in my house, I'm exercising faith because I believe that act will actually light my room, although I cannot describe how that happens. Or you turn the key in your car or press the button nowadays. Faith is assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen. We all are convicted, live upon with assurance of things we can't see.

46:30 Shelby: Sitting in a chair, you're trusting, you're having faith that it's going to hold you up. I may not know how it works, but it works.

46:35 Paul: It's physics. And eating and thinking that somehow this peanut butter sandwich is going to turn into nutrients that will course throughout my body and contribute to my strength. So literally, everyone has that operating in their life.

47:04 The difference between Christians and unbelievers is not that we exercise faith. It's the object of our faith that is the difference because I love having conversations with people who mock faith and then, I start asking them about things and they realize they're exercising, they have a very firm system of belief that's operating. The thing that's distinctive about biblical faith is the core object is God because everybody has faith in something.

47:46 Shelby: Yes, what kind of questions would you ask a person who maybe have mocked the fact that you're a person of faith? What would you say to them? Obviously, you said you would ask them questions, figure out details about their life.

48:00 Paul: I usually start with physical things, like the chair or the car or right the light switch. But then, there are always moral assumptions that they're making, right and wrong. There are always philosophical things they're assuming, none of which they have any ability to prove.

48:26 All people are, you know, "Where'd you get that?" Everybody has that. Everybody has a system of belief they do not have the independent ability to prove that, but they would argue for it vociferously. That's that first verse. It's in everybody's existence.

48:51 Shelby: It really is and it's really important to help us understand that Christians are not people of faith and other people are not. They're just, you know, secular or whatever, they're not people of faith. Everybody's got a belief system. Everybody's putting their trust in something. Sometimes, you have to dig to find it, to figure out what it is. Ours is a little bit more obvious, but we're all on the same level.

49:12 Paul: So let's track this down because this is really important. This means that human beings made an image of God are, by their very nature, religious. It's impossible for them not to believe something. It's impossible for them not to make moral assessments and conclusions, and it's impossible for them not to structure life based on those.

49:46 My mantra — you've heard this before — is human beings do not live life based on the facts of their experience. They live life based on their interpretation of the facts. That is a spiritual, religious function. So everybody then has their own Bible. It may be the one that was revealed by God or it may be one cobbled together of their own making, but they have this manual with its teachings and commands that structures his life. Everybody does.

50:27 It's interesting when I'm around an unbeliever and they would say, "I would never think of..." And I think, "Well, where'd you get that?" You are now saying this is a moral thing/line that I would never cross and I'm offended when other people cross it. That's religion.

50:52 Shelby: It's interesting, I was at a family gathering recently of extended family and my brother-in-law, who deconstructed, actually. He would have called himself a Christian at one point and then now, he says that he is not — which we're not going to get into the theology of that — but he asked this question of everybody one time, casually, in the evening which was what's your favorite thing about being alive? What's the best thing about being alive?

51:19 It was fascinating to hear the room full of mostly Christians answer that question and then, have him answer that question and listen to how he responded on what his value system was. Essentially, what he started to reveal was kind of what you were saying — his own personal bible now of what he believes is the core of why he exists, why he gets up in the morning, why he enjoys life.

51:44 It was really interesting. I poked at him just a little bit to try to ask a few more clarifying questions. He said his best thing about being alive was his free will, freedom to do what he wants to [do], like, "I can roll around on the floor if I want to or I can go eat yogurt for the next three hours if I want to," and I was like, "Freedom is you're really interesting, okay. Are you really free from stuff?" And we I started to poke and ask those questions.

52:10 I wanted him to think. I'm not going to argue my brother-in-law — who I love dearly — back into the kingdom or into the kingdom at all. I'm not going to argue him there, but I will ask good questions and I think that's one of the things you're getting at, is you can ask people questions to help them understand that they have faith in something.

52:29 We just need to help them direct their faith to the appropriate place, which is in universal truth, of absolute truth comes from scripture. It comes from God. People just decide to manipulate it and mold it into their own image, which is where the danger is.

52:47 Paul: Yes, Jesus points at the fact in the Sermon on the Mount that everybody lives for some kind of treasure. "Treasure" is a value word. We all have values and we all build our lives in pursuit of what we value. We're value-oriented, goal-oriented, purpose-oriented human beings. You can look at any person, look at the way they structured their life and you can see values. So this assurance of things hoped for, conviction of things not seen is everyone.

53:38 The turn in the passage comes in the next couple verses because it distinguishes then the people of old received condemnation. Why? ³By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

54:00 What distinguished the Israelites from the Egyptians — we know the Egyptians were massively religious — was that the Israelites, at some point, placed their faith in God. It's not that they had faith the faith. The Egyptians exercised faith everyday. It was false religion and faith in vain, but it was faith.

54:35 Shelby: Yes, not how much faith, where your faith is.

54:39 Paul: Yes, it's object and right away, Hebrews puts God in the center and the most impossible thing to believe that you could ever believe that God spoke words and this world came into existence. Come on, get a real grip.

55:04 Shelby: It is pretty incredible, what we say we believe.

55:08 Paul: Yes, we know this, that belief in God as creator is the absolute fault line of humanity because it's so outrageous to believe that there's a Being of this kind of power who existed before the earth and these galaxies that actually spoke this into existence.

55:45 There's a Christian biologist-physicist who keeps saying, "Don't let anybody tell you that scientists are creating life in a lab because they always have to start with a substance. They are combining things to make a new form of life, but they're not creating life."

56:23 None of them have the power to speak into a petri dish and life happens. They have to start with something. Creation is God making this world out of nothing and so, what Hebrews does is say this is the nature of faith. It has God in the center and then, you embrace. The most important thing to embrace is God as creator. The most important faith words in all of the Bible of the first four: "in the beginning, God". And so, that's the defining distinction.

57:11 Shelby: Yes, I like what you're talking about, what the scientist is saying because I just read that they have now developed the ability to create salmon in a lab that was approved by the FDA, so now that people can actually eat it and that, in and of itself, is just strange.

57:32 But it's really helpful to hear, "Well, they didn't just create it out of nothing. They combine things to put it together in order to make that happen." This is really, really helpful to hear what that scientist said and we're all kind of that. We're all Dr. Frankenstein. We're all putting stuff together in order to create this and just adding electricity to it.

57:53 Paul: And it doesn't matter how molecular or cell level, you're still starting with something.

57:59 Shelby: You're starting with body parts, yes, all of us are.

58:01 Paul: Yes, and so right away, you get the fundamental dividing lines. First, the existence of God and, second, God is creator. So again, everybody's religious. Everybody believes in things they cannot prove, they cannot see. What's distinguishing about Christian faith, biblical faith is God is the object of that faith.

58:36 Shelby: And again, going back to your previous point, that is a gift from God, to believe in Him as the one true God is a gift from Him. So it starts with grace, He gives you faith and then, you live by grace after that.

58:51 Paul: And you understand it's a gift because of the outrageousness of the claim. First, that there's a Being that exists — that's God. I can't point to Him. I've never heard Him. I've never seen Him. I can't touch Him.

59:15 And that He created — I can never go back and sort of physically prove the doctrine of creation, although people have tried, but that is declared by His word and so, it's not natural for me to just say, "Oh, yes, I believe that." That's God given me the grace to believe what is absolutely true and life-altering.

1:00:00 Shelby: Yes, and it is outlandish and crazy, but it is more plausible to believe in that than to believe that the universe just came out of nothing. I heard an apologist say there are many atheists who don't believe in the virgin birth, but they do believe in the virgin birth of the universe, that it just came out of nothing.

1:00:24 So they would look at the virgin birth of Jesus and go, "That's ridiculous. That would never happen." Yet, they would say that there's no God behind the creation of the universe, or they would say it was extraterrestrial or something like that. And it's like, "Well, you're still believing in a miracle."

1:00:38 We all have faith in something, but it does take God intervening to help us understand what is actually revealed by Him in the scriptures and it's plausible. "In the beginning, God." That makes the most sense out of anything.

1:00:57 Paul: Yes, well, there is no scientific presupposition in terms of origins that doesn't require faith. It's again, faith in what? Or we would say faith in who? So I want to verse 6 because the next section, 4-7, is the clearest definition of biblical faith that's in Hebrews 11 surrounded by examples of what that kind of faith produces and the definition is without faith, it's impossible to please Him — God — for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

1:01:57 First of all, again, He reinforces what Habakkuk and Romans says, that faith is essential. ⁶... without faith it is impossible to please [God]. Without faith, there is no God-honoring Christian existence. ⁶... for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists. That's the first thing. ⁶... and that He rewards those who seek Him.

1:02:23 So faith is first, mental ascent to the thing that God declares about Himself. God declares that He exists and at some point, I have to ascend to that or the whole house of cards of faith falls down. But faith is never just academic, theological and that's why he says, "And He rewards those who seek Him." Faith is not just what you do with your mind, but what you do with your life.

1:03:19 So having said that, I want to go back to "believe that He exists". What does it mean to believe that He exists? Well, I want to refer to one of your favorite passages. It's Acts 17. Paul is in front of Greek philosophers. There's a statue to an unknown god and he says, "Oh, by the way, boys, you can know Him," and he says three things about God: that God is creator, that God is sovereign, and that He's savior.

1:03:56 You cannot believe in the existence of God without believing those three things. He made everything that is, He is sovereign over everything that is, and He has willingly chosen to redeem His fallen creation. Why are those essential? Because God, over and over again, declares those three things to us.

1:04:26 So you can't have this, "Oh, I believe in God." And you ask people what it means and it's just amorphous and undefined, and most people that say they believe in God don't. They may believe in some rendition of a god-like thing.

1:04:47 Shelby: Yes, not the one true God.

1:04:48 Paul: And I experienced again and again when I was regularly counseling people, when people define who God is, I would say, "No, no, no, no, no, that's not. Let's go and examine who God declares He is and those three essential things." He created everything that exists, He rules it by His sovereign will, and He has chosen to redeem His fallen creation by His grace. And one day we'll make everything new again.

1:05:30 Shelby: Yes, super important to not only understand. This is new information. I've never heard you say this before, so this is super helpful to hear from you. I think that the natural response — and you said we would get here eventually and I know that we're running a little bit low on time — but I think sometimes there's an element of fear that people have that they go, "Wait, wait, wait, what did you say again? Let me write those things down to make sure that I'm doing those three things," because there's this religious default in the heart of every human being to want to get things correctly and do the right things in order to make sure that they're okay. So if you were to say something like what you just said and someone were to respond with, "Well, now, I'm afraid that I'm not going to get it right," how would you respond to their response?

1:06:24 Paul: You won't.

1:06:27 Shelby: Oh, great.

1:06:28 Paul: Jesus was perfectly righteous on our behalf precisely because God knew we wouldn't be.

1:06:36 Shelby: Even when it came to the elements of faith.

1:06:37 Paul: Yes. So let's track these down to the way you live because I said you believe God exists, but it's meant to form that He rewards those who seek Him.

1:06:51 Shelby: Right, yes, where's the proof of the belief?

1:06:54 Paul: Yes, if I believe in the existence of God, if I believe the first four words of the Bible are the most important words, then I believe that I'm not the center of my story, God is. So let's take my marriage. The most important thing in my marriage is not what Paul wants out of it, it's what God wants for my marriage. The important thing in my parenting is not what I want from my children or what I want for my children, but what God wants for them.

1:07:28 Everything changes if I believe that I'm not the center of this story, God is. My story has been embedded into the larger story of redemption. So it makes a huge difference. Luella and I, we have an incessant conversation when I'm a writer and royalties come in, what would God want us to do with this money? It's the very first thing that comes to us because we understand it doesn't belong to us. If God is creator, none of it belongs to me. It all belongs to Him. I'm but a steward of His property, so it really changes everything.

1:08:20 Let's talk about God being sovereign. The goal in life is not working myself into control because I'll never be able to do that. That's a horribly frustrating existence. I can't even control the fob that opens my car and you'll never have control over people and situations in your life. And I don't need that because God is in complete control of everything and so, my life then, is shaped not by what can I control, but what has He told me to do with my life. What responsibilities has He assigned to me?

1:09:20 Shelby: Yes, the general responsibilities revealed in scripture and then, specific ones.

1:09:24 Paul: So I've drawn for people these two circles — the circle of responsibilities is inside, the circle of concern is the outside. Circle of responsibility are things that God has assigned to me that I can't give to anybody else. The only proper response is to obey. Circle of concern are things that are still a concern to me, but are not my responsibility or within my ability to control or to do. What's the response? I entrust those to God.

1:09:50 Shelby: What are some examples, yes?

1:09:51 Paul: I'm concerned about the flooding in Texas. Breaks my heart, but I have no ability to control weather. I have to entrust those to my Lord. I have to pray that God would send help and resources, and anything that would keep people from experiencing that again.

1:10:13 So believing in the sovereignty of God is enormously restful and peace-giving. And then, believing with Him as savior that there's hope for messed up people like me. There's hope for my self-centered children. There's hope for this world because God is gracious and kind and tender and forgiving and abundant in mercy and grace, boundless in love.

1:10:54 So then, I want to be part of His mercy. I want to be an agent of His grace. I want to reflect His love. I mean, you cannot really believe in God as creator, sovereign, and savior without it massively changing the way you live your life. That's why the second part is so important because if that doesn't massively change the way you live your life, you don't actually believe Him.

1:11:23 Shelby: Yes, you might get it right here, but if your life is not living it out, you actually don't have it right here.

1:11:28 Paul: It's again, if I believe my doctor and I go home and I don't take the medicine, I don't believe my doctor.

1:11:39 Shelby: Yes, your actions always give proof to the fact of what's going on in the inside.

1:11:43 Paul: That's exactly right and it's so important to see those two elements. I first need that mental, theological knowledge. That's why the Bible is in words. That's why it's on a page. That's why it's been recorded and preserved for us, so I can go back again and again. I need to know, I need to understand.

1:12:06 But that doesn't fully define faith because if you actually do believe what you've come to know and understand, you will then live in light of it and so, I do believe that I press that button and I put my car in gear, it will go; and so, I don't walk 15 miles. I drive.

1:12:40 Shelby: Yes, this is why James said faith without works is dead because it bears the evidence of the fact that "do you really believe without the manifestation of what you say you intellectually assent to on the inside, that the physical manifestation of what that looks like by the way you live your life is not true.

1:13:01 Paul: But think about this. How many Christians live as if their life and the resources belong to them? A lot. How many live in fear and worry and anxiety because they can't control things? How many people live feeling unloved even though there's a Savior that loved them and gave His life for them, who go to church, who call themselves Christians, who don't actually live in light of what they say they believe?

1:13:45 There's a golfer who is tremendous and as a Christian and went to his banker, who I know, and said, "I'm making a massive amount of money. I never thought I'd make this money. How much should I give?" And his banker said, "Well, you got to start by asking the right question. The right question is, "How much should I keep," because none of it belongs to you."

1:14:18 Shelby: The banker said this? Wow, praise God! That doesn't happen very often.

1:14:23 Paul: And he was absolutely right. The order is reversed. I mean, how much would our lives change if we really did believe that it all belongs to the Lord? He created for His purpose and His glory. "For from Him and through Him are all things. To Him be the glory." They came from Him, they exist through Him, and they are for Him.

1:14:50 Shelby: Missions wouldn't struggle with funding at all.

1:14:53 Paul: The church is a sleeping giant. How much more rest in peace if we thought the wisest Person in the world, the definition of love is in control of all of this? Remember, I was struggling with my father's death. I don't know what his spiritual state was. My brother, Tedd, said to [me], "Dad is in the best, wisest hands ever. You can trust him into the hands of the Lord. The Lord will do what is right," and that brought just so much rest to my grieving heart. And then, how many Christians keep revisiting their salvation?

1:15:50 Shelby: Out of fear, you mean?

1:15:51 Paul: Yes, or don't realize that obedience is his own reward, that there's a reward in everything that God calls me to. Every command is grace and they're not horrible duties. Get up everyday and read your Bible. It'll change you. Maybe not in a week, but you will be a different person.

1:16:17 Cast your cares upon the Lord in the morning. Take that backpack off your shoulders of all those weighty things and put it in God's hands. It'll change you. We just talked about what it looks like to believe that God is creator, sovereign, and savior. It literally is life-altering and that's what faith does.

1:16:47 Shelby: It helps you not to freak out at every little circumstance that happens or you mentioned the flooding in Texas. As of this recording, there was no Epstein files, the FBI said, so everybody's outraged by what's happened. It's like justice has not been served and it's like, "Well, it depends on what you believe about the timeline."

1:17:14 Justice will be served because everybody's in the hands of a Creator, a Sovereign, and a Savior. They're in those hands, sovereignty of God. Justice doesn't necessarily live within the timeline of our own lives. It lives forever and God is going to make everything right. Do we believe that? If we believe that, we won't be as outraged by several things.

1:17:37 Paul: And one of the downsides of the ever-present connection to everything in the world — because I carry that tool in my pocket, we call it a phone, but we very seldom use that — is that I am now in contact with so many things that I have no personal relationship to or no control over, and it can create all kinds of anxiety and worry; and I think biblical faith is just so important.

1:18:17 You know, the stats are that 80% of the money that comes in to our Lord's church comes from about 20% of the people, that there are some percentage of population of people who attend church every Sunday or at least a couple times a month, who have never put a dime.

1:18:49 Now, that's "what's mine belongs to me", but sadly, people don't know that. They don't know that that's what they're doing and, you know, we pat ourselves on the back because we give 10% of what is ours when it all belongs to Lord.

1:19:10 How can I use my house for the Lord? How can I use the gifts that I have for the Lord? I mean, maybe you have a landscaping business. How can you use that? Maybe the poor people can never use your services. How about taking Saturday and giving that away just for the glory of the Lord and say to them, "God has blessed me and I want to pass those blessings on."

1:19:52 Shelby: Yes, don't record it and don't post it online. Feel free to just do it for the audience of Jesus.

1:19:58 Paul: Yes, absolutely. So we're really talking about things that are so significant and important today because that's what faith is. Faith just gets down to the bedrock of what it is. It's so essential, it's God's gift and although everybody believes in something, what marks us out is these two things: we believe in God's existence and that means we believe in Him as creator, we believe in Him as sovereign, we believe in Him as savior; and we live like it.

1:20:36 The question I would ask as we sort of shut down this first conversation on faith is do you live like it? Even saying that, to me is convicting because I'd have to say honestly and I will confess this — not always. Until we're on the other side, we'll still have the habit of taking our life back and judging life by whether it pleases us or was easy for us or made us happy or however you would characterize that.

1:21:13 Shelby: I've known you a long time. It's been ten years now and I can easily say that you are the kind of person who actually live this out. It helps me to understand that you really do believe all the stuff that you talk about, all the stuff that you write about, communicate about, and we discuss, you actually believe it.

1:21:35 You're not doing it perfectly. You and I have had those kinds of conversations. I'm certainly not doing it perfectly and you're helping me along with that, but that's one of the things that I love about you. There have been times when I've read something that you've written or I've listened to a talk of yours and I go, "Yes, he delivers this well, but he literally believes this. He actually believes this without rolling his eyes, without any kind of sarcasm or cynicism."

1:22:02 You live this out to the best of your ability and you live under the banner of God's grace; and so, you're an example of that, not only to me as a friend, but also like, "Hey, if you're not putting your life behind what you communicate or you say you believe, it's null and void." Thanks for doing that.

1:22:20 Paul: Well, that's very kind. As you're speaking, I was thinking I have nothing else. I have nothing else but this. This is my life. I don't know where I would be if I wasn't anchored by those three things about God. I just couldn't imagine. I'd just be lost, crazy person and so, they do mean everything to me.

1:23:04 There's literally nothing more important to me than what we've talked about today and I want, to the best of my ability, to live in the beauty of these things. It's not a burden to me. It's not, "Okay, I got to do this." You believe in God as creator, sovereign, savior, it will form for you a gorgeous life, a beautiful life, a life of blessing and I've really experienced that.

1:23:42 Luella, my wife, was gone for a couple weeks because Nicole, our daughter, has had breast cancer and she wanted to be with her during her surgery and after. And because we'd been apart for, I think that's the longest time we've ever been apart in 54 years of marriage, we spent Tuesday together. She arrived Monday morning from California and I don't know how many times during that day we said to one another, "We live such a blessed life," and we weren't talking about money or that kind of stuff.

1:24:25 It's just amazing to live in light of God's truth. We go to bed every night, before we go to bed, we pray together and we'd literally do take all those burdens and concerns, place them in God's hands, and sleep in peace.

1:24:53 Shelby: That's great. It's a good way to end the day. It's a good way to start the day, like what you said. Start the day, put that backpack on.

1:24:58 Paul: It's just beautiful. How many parents are burdened because they wake up in the morning, they load onto their shoulders all the cares and concerns of their children as if God didn't exist. And there's so many things that your children need that you as a parent can't deliver to them.

1:25:24 Shelby: Yes, and that applies to every relationship, basically.

1:25:28 Paul: Yes, absolutely. These are just liberating, blessing-bringing truths and to embrace those with your mind and say, "I'm going to believe and I'm going to live like," I believe is the best life ever. You just can't find a better life.

1:25:49 Shelby: Yes, that's a great way, I think, to end this first part of the conversation.

1:25:53 Paul: It's just so beautiful and don't approach faith as a duty. Approach it as a blessing.

1:26:03 Shelby: Yes, great way to frame this whole thing. It's a blessing, it's not a duty.

1:26:11 Paul: And there's so much more we want to say. I want to go back, when we do this the next time, to this same paragraph and illustrate how the writer of Hebrews picks three examples, three men that demonstrate what living by faith produces.

1:26:33 Shelby: Yes, and give us some tangible things to look at and unpack next time. So thanks for this. Appreciate it.

1:26:39 Paul: Yes, it's been fun.

1:26:42 Shelby: It's been great.

1:26:43 Paul: We'll continue.

1:26:44 Shelby: Yes.