Message Follow Up | Solid Rock / Sinking Sand: Part 2 – Righteousness
By Matt Dawson
I’ve never been a fan of the term “Blind Faith.”
It’s usually used in a derogatory manner to project the foolishness of people who believe in a God they can’t see just because some old book tells them to. I understand why they think this way – and if that were all it was – they would be right.
Yesterday in our service, I challenged everyone to “exercise their faith” as a way of helping us know that we are “building our house on the rock” that is Jesus Christ. I gave many examples of ACTIONS and BEHAVIORS we can take to keep us humbly relying on Christ alone in every area of our lives.
However, there is a part of exercising our faith that comes in believing when there is really no evidence to point to that we should believe.
Abraham did this. One of my favorite passages in the book of Genesis is in chapter 15.
“And Abram believed the lord, and the lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.”
Genesis 15:6
Abraham and his wife had no children. They were “advanced” in age (in their 90’s) and God made them a promise that his descendants would inherit the earth and would become as countless as the stars in the sky.
There was no evidence that this would happen.
There was no logical reason how it could happen.
Everything that Abraham could SEE was telling him that there was no way.
But Abraham BELIEVED GOD!
That belief is the first time we see the foundational idea that God gives us righteousness (A Right Standing with God) because of our FAITH.
Sometimes, just believing God and His promises is a HUGE exercising of our Faith. As the writer of Hebrews would describe “the assurance of what is hoped for, and the confidence of what is unseen.”
Don’t get stuck on that idea that every act of exercising your faith is a HUGE LEAP of actions and behaviors. It’s easy to make our RISKS FOR GOD an idol in and of themselves. Sometimes JUST BELIEVING GOD when everything around that we can SEE tells us a different story.
Some call it “blind” faith. In anything other than God, then you would be correct.
When it’s faith built on the Rock of Jesus Christ… It’s just called Faith.