Faith, Hope and Love have been described as the great triumvirate of Christendom. 1st Corinthians chapter 13, outlines which of them is the greatest of all. These three pillars serve as the foundation of Christianity, because without them, we are dead in the water. As Carl begins this four-part series, he describes how each of these pillars are intertwined. These unseen tangibles are the bedrock of our Christian Walk and a greater knowledge of their working will serve you well. Get ready to understand why your faith can vacillate and how to rectify this predicament. Join Carl now…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Friend, we’re going to begin another series on the topic of faith, hope, and love, or charity as it’s said in 1st Corinthians 13:13 of the King James Bible. This is the great triumvirate of the New Testament. Faith, hope, and love interact together. They are co-joined, but there are different aspects that are important as we walk the Christian life out.
We know that faith comes by hearing God’s Word. We know that hope is essential first, because without hope we cannot put faith or substance behind that which is hoped for. And finally there is love, and how do we describe love? It’s the agape, unconditional love of the Father. So, I will begin a session now. We’re talking about the great triumvirate of faith, hope, and love tonight and what that means. Faith, hope, and love, they work together in unison.
1st Corinthians 13:13 from the King James, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity.” Now if you look up that word in the Greek, you’ll find out that it is actually agape love, which has been rendered that way in the more modern translations. So the King James kind of loses some people there, because of course when we think of charity we think of non-profit organizations and giving stuff to goodwill. Romans 12:13 says, “The measure of faith has been granted to everybody. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.”
Everybody has been granted faith for salvation, amen? We can’t say, I don’t have faith to get saved, sorry, I’m not going to do it. No, everybody has been granted the measure of faith. And faith can grow or it can diminish, and that’s where it comes in. You’ve been given enough faith to get in. Jesus, can I come in? Sure, come on in. Now that faith grows, it’s not going to stay where it is. So why is love the greatest of these three? Faith, hope, and charity, or love, abide, but the greatest of these is love. Why is love the greatest? Because faith works by love. If we step out of love, you’re going to find that it’s very hard to believe God, and the main reason for that is your conscience.
Your conscience will start condemning you if it’s Satan talking to you, and your conscience will actually be convicted by the Holy Spirit saying, you know what, you really didn’t speak very nicely to that person the other day, and we need to talk about that. Conviction is for correction. It’s positive, it’s a thing that brings you closer to God. The condemning tongue is the accuser of the brethren. When we start accusing people, we’re doing Satan’s job. In Revelation it says that Satan is, his actual name means accuser.
He is the accuser of the brethren. And once we step into those shoes, our conscience is going to be affected by that. And when our conscience is affected, it is no longer clean, and then we struggle to move in faith because we’ve stepped out of love, right? Some of these things are going to be very familiar to people in this room. Some of these things are going to be, you know, you’ve never heard it before. Let’s read it. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. The things which are made here, they began in the causal realm, which is the spirit realm. The natural realm is the effectual realm. The spirit realm is the causal realm. This is where it starts.
But faith is the substance of things hoped for. God put words behind his faith. He spoke the world into existence. Can I get an amen? That’s how he did it, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for. In other words, we’ve got to start with hope. Everything begins with hope.
If you have no hope, you have nothing. Because if you have no hope, you can’t really have faith to believe for anything. You’ve got to start with hope, right? I really hope the Broncos will win. Well, what substance are you putting behind that, brother? Are you supporting them? Are you putting that t-shirt on? Are you going around and saying, you know, I mean, I believe those Broncos, man, they’re going all the way this year. I’m using an extreme example. We can hope for things, but we need to put faith behind what we hope
And there’s a difference, right? So faith is the substance, the words, the actions behind what we’re hoping for. But the basis of hope always comes back to God’s word. We have nothing to stand on unless it’s in here, unless it’s in the word of God. Faith, if it is a substance, it can be measured. It says here in the first verse, faith is a substance, therefore it can be measured. Some people have more faith than others. We’re going to get into that shortly. Faith can be seen. Matthew 9:1 says, “And behold, they brought to him Jesus, a sick man of the palsy, lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven.” He could see their faith. How? Because they did something. They brought the man.
They brought him into the area, right? So they could see the faith that was involved. How do we give substance of faith? Through our words, through confession, through prayer, through praise and worship. Just now, we just gave substance. We said, God, I believe you’re real. And his presence came. Amen? How does faith grow? It comes by hearing. Hearing the word of God. That’s how it grows. Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Over and over again. That’s how it comes. If you haven’t been in the word for six years, you might have noticed your faith has gone down a little bit. We have to chew on the word every day. You know, don’t give me that, pastor.
Every day we’ve got to read the word and we’re going to go to hell if we don’t. No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that when you read the word, it’s for your benefit because faith is going to rise, right? If I start preaching on finances, the area of faith in finances is going to increase in this room. If I start preaching on healing, faith is going to rise on healing. If I start preaching on deliverance, can you see a pattern? It’s whatever is spoken, whatever word is given. You hear it, your faith rises.
Why is it so important? Faith has been described as the currency of God’s kingdom. It’s how we get stuff done. Faith is how we get stuff done in the kingdom. We need faith in God, not of ourselves. You know, many people have gifts and talents in this world. Tiger Woods, for example, is a very talented golfer. There’s many talented musicians, but the faith is in themselves because they know their ability. They know from experience they can get things done. But we’re supposed to have faith in God, right? Mark 11:23, I talked about that passage before. It talks about speaking to the mountain, whether it’s Kilimanjaro or Mount Evans or whatever it is. Symbolically, it’s speaking to the obstacle in your life. But right at the beginning of that passage, it says, have faith in God or have the God kind of faith
It’s not faith in us, it’s faith in Him and His ability to move. Amen? However, faith can fail. Ouch. Luke 22, verse 31 says, Peter, right? Jesus is speaking to Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail.”
And when you are converted, strengthen your brethren. When it was harvest time, they would bring in the wheat. They would have a winnowing fork, about five or six foot long, with forks at the bottom. They’d go down into the wheat, they’d throw it in the air. The tares and the wheat would be separated. Tares look exactly like wheat. The tares would fly off in the wind. This is what Satan desired to do to Peter. He wanted to shake his life back and forth.
Has anybody been shaken before? When that happens, we do not want to start talking about how bad things are and things are going to get worse and oh me and oh my and et cetera, right? We need to go back to the roadmap. We need to go back to the compass. We need to go back to due north and say, no, this is what the Word says I’m going to stand on it. In the time of testing, we don’t go with the wind and go, oh, yeah, this is terrible. Isn’t this terrible? It’s awful. Faith can be placed in several categories in Scripture.
OK, so there’s many types of faith. I’m not making this up. Common faith, weak faith, great faith, genuine faith, active faith, unwavering. That’s the one I want. Wavering, little faith, faith without root, strong and growing faith. So the Bible is replete in the New Testament alone. Nothing from the old there of different descriptions of faith. As I said, faith is replete in Scripture. I’m not going to read all these out to you. OK, there’s so many examples here. Faith can grow, lead to utterance, work through love, save from sin, sanctify, purify the heart, justify, impart the Holy Spirit. It can make men children of God. Amen. How did you get saved? You heard the word, you repented of your sins, you confessed with your mouth and you entered into the kingdom of God. And that’s the same way for healing. It’s the same way for deliverance. God has not changed the way we receive. Amen.
So, faith can be made without effect. It can be examined. It can be shipwrecked. Oh, man. The people who shipwrecked their faith in 1 Timothy 1:19, had seared their conscience. Again, the mystery of faith, as Paul describes it, is having a pure conscience. That is the mystery of faith. 1st Jn 3:21 says, “Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then we have confidence towards God, right? whatsoever things we ask, we shall receive of him because we do his commandments.” So there is a confidence that comes with a pure conscience. If that starts to be interfered with, when you come to pray, you know, well, maybe I need to deal with that issue that we had the other day when I didn’t speak really nicely to that person, you know. I should deal with that first before I pray. Yes, good idea. Get it to the side.
Deal with it. Then your confidence rises. And then the heavens are open. Amen. They’re no longer like brass because there’s no restriction. The conscience that’s not pure can eat away at you. And you’re not sure whether God is answering your prayers, right? Does that make sense? So, there’s many examples. Made sound. Faith can be tried.
Faith, we know that. Faith can be overthrown. Faith can quench the fiery darts of the wicked one, right? It’s a part of the armor, right? In Ephesians chapter 6. Some people know that inside out. So I took all of those words and made a table because I’m an engineer. And engineers love tables. And they love structure and numbers, man. It’s awesome. Look at this. So we tabulated positive and negative aspects of faith. The positive are here. The negative are here. And thank the Lord there’s more positives than negatives. Faith can grow. It works by love. Heals the sick. Dispels fear. Purifies and sanctifies. Justifies. Gives access to grace. Imparts revelations. And brings Christ consciousness. Take a note of that statement right there. Brings Christ consciousness. We’re going to be talking about that later.
On the negative side, it can be shipwrecked. People can depart from the faith. There are people who have taught for decades in certain denominations and decided that they have fallen for false doctrines. And even the devil, you know, gets saved and goes to heaven. And that’s cool. And we’re going to believe that. We’re going to believe in universalism. They have departed from the true faith. We call that apostasy, which is moving away from orthodox doctrine. If you look up that word faith in the Old Testament, it means trust, basically. Therefore, faith and trust are synonymous. But check this out. I found this on the internet. Look at it. He’s shaking the hand, but he’s also ready to pull the trigger. It says life is full of fake people. Trust no one. Ouch.
That doesn’t sound like the Christian attitude. It’s the attitude of somebody who’s been wounded. They have a wounded heart, and they put a barrier around themselves so they won’t be hurt again. But at the same time, when you put a fence around yourself, you cannot have intimacy with the Father, and you cannot have intimacy laterally as well, right? So when you put barriers around your heart, you’re actually restricting intimacy in your life. Amen? Christians are supposed to be trusting but not naive. We use wisdom.
We let the Holy Spirit guide us in relationships. There may be some relationships you have right now. You could have friends. You can have acquaintances. You can have close friends. Maybe the Lord’s saying, Hey, you need to check up on some of your friends. They’re not necessarily helping you out right now. Some of your friends are influencing you negatively, and it’s time to distance yourself. I’m not saying that’s happening, but I’m speaking about it. I didn’t even think about saying it. What I am saying is just look at your relationships in this life because they can impact you in the long run. Treat people as God says so in His Word.
Don’t give up on people just because of what has happened in the past. You may have had some betrayal. You may have had some bad experiences, but don’t give up on people just because of your experience. We don’t turn to first experience chapter 3, right? We turn to first, right? Amen. Michael got it. Everybody else will get it later. Working hard tonight.
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