What is Faith? Part 3 (P003)

Get Radical Faith with Beatty Carmichael | Bible study, Bible teaching, the bible teachers podcast, help me teach the bible, 1 year daily audio bible, jeff cavins show, naked bible podcast, bible study podcast hour, steven lawson, flower mound, charis

Caroline: Hi everyone. I’m Caroline Springer. Welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. This is one of our special calls, our Radical Faith calls. I’m going to pass over the call to Beatty for just a moment. If you maybe want to explain what your vision is and idea is behind the Radical Faith series.

Beatty: Sure. Most of these podcast calls are all focused on how do you grow a real estate business from a marketing perspective, but really we’re not only real estate agents. For those of us who are Christians, we’re also children of God and we have a responsibility there. We do these calls called Radical Faith and I just want to be right up front real quick. If you’re not interested in Christianity, if you don’t want to hear my views or perspectives from a religious standpoint, then you can go on and delete out of this podcast because that’s all we’re going to talk about on this call is how to server the Lord and how to live by faith. So that’s my little plug before we get started.

Caroline: Perfect. Well, thank you, Beatty. I like it. It’s their free pass if they don’t want to listen.

Beatty: That’s right. Free pass to leave before you get offended, right?

Caroline: Yes, there you go. That’s a little claim labor kind of thing. Just a quick reminder about who Beatty is. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber. He’s the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Also, like Beatty just mentioned, he is a Christian and has been for much of his life and has been a Christian businessman for much of his life as well. I know just from dialoging with him back and forth on these and then watching Beatty work as a Christian businessman, he has so many testimonies of really actively seeing the word at work in his business and in his business partnerships, it’s really inspiring and refreshing in the world that we live in because so many people want you to keep your faith out of the business world. Whatever industry that you work in and for most of our listeners, that’s the real estate industry. Today, I really don’t have a topic because Beatty wanted to surprise me with what we’re talking about. We’ll just have a free, open dialogue and then just a reminder for those of you that are on our live call, we do have the lines muted, but we will open up at the end for questions and answers. So, Beatty, I’m very interested and curious what we’re going to be talking about since I don’t have any outline or idea.

Beatty: We are actually going to be doing a continuation of the last 2 Radical Faith calls. We’ve been on the focus of trying to understand what faith is. Where this goes, as a Christian, is we want to first understand one of the core concepts of Christianity, of our relationship with the Lord and that is really understanding what faith is. Until you understand what faith is, it’s impossible to live as Christ lived because everything Jesus did was by faith. The only thing he really ever rebuked his disciples for, I think that probably out of 10 different rebukes I’ve seen 8 of them if not 9 are all focused on ‘Oh, ye of little faith’. Now, there may be more than 10, there may be less than 10 but the bottom line is, except with 1 or 2 exceptions is the only thing that Jesus rebuked his disciples about is their lack of faith. The question is, what is this thing that we call faith? Why is it so important? How do we apply it in our lives? If we can really understand it, then we can really start to follow it. Does that make sense?

Caroline: Absolutely. Even going through some of these podcast calls in this series have been challenging and good for me too. They’ve brought me to more of an understanding and like you said, and even shedding more light on some of those things that you were saying where Jesus rebuked them for a lack of faith. Depending on the church that you go to, sometimes that gets watered down and some of that is overlooked. I think this is a good challenge but a refreshing, good challenge because when we’re invited into it, that’s what we are created to walk in. It’s a lot easier than it may feel at times because we don’t just have our strength, we have the Lords. Yeah, that makes total sense. I’m with you.

Beatty: Great. If we look at the ultimate goal of our Christian life, it’s to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and become more into the image of Christ. That’s the process of what’s typically called sanctification. The question is, how do we get there? The first step is the concept of faith and that’s why I want to dig into it a little bit more. When we start talking about faith, Jesus talks about faith and belief as 2 separate things. The Bible starts to make clarity that faith and belief are actually different. However, for simplicity sake, as we go into this right now, I’m going to combine them together. Sometimes Jesus may say, believe. Sometimes he may say, have faith, but for real basic understanding, we’re going to assume that they’re both the same and maybe on a later discussion we’ll separate them out and define what they are separately. With that, let’s talk about what faith really is. I want to go back to just a few foundational passages that start to give us a framework and some simple truths. One of the truths that apart from faith, we can receive nothing from the Lord. James I, 6 and 7, let’s test your scripture memory. Do you know what James I, 6 and 7 says?

Caroline: Oh, gosh. You always put me on the spot like that.

Beatty: I’ll bet you’re looking it up in your Bible right now. No, I’m teasing.

Caroline: Well, I know it’s about faith and then when you’re asking the Lord and you don’t doubt.

Beatty: Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it.

Caroline: Is it something along those lines? The reason is because we just talked about that recently so I promise it really was because of that.

Beatty: I love it. Well, it was a special circumstance. Here’s what this says. It says, ‘but he must ask in faith without any doubting for the one who doubts ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord’. Here, we can find one of these pivotal truths that without faith, it’s impossible to receive anything from the Lord. This is also where Jesus says in Mark 11:24, which is the next foundational truth, and that is ‘when we pray by faith, we receive what we ask for’. We know it to be true because it’s a spiritual truth, but sometimes the question is if we pray and we don’t receive, it doesn’t invalidate the truth, it just means that we did not fully apply it. But here’s what Jesus says. Mark 11:24, ‘Therefore I tell you whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours’. A real simple question, is that an emphatic statement or do you think there’s a lot of wiggle room in that statement?

Caroline: No. I don’t think there’s a lot of wiggle room in the Bible at all.

Beatty: Yeah, right, okay.

Caroline: I think that’s a truthful statement.

Beatty: It’s a truthful statement because Jesus said it and therefore if we pray, say, well, I prayed in faith and I didn’t receive it, all I can tell you just because you didn’t receive it doesn’t mean that you prayed in faith. We have truth and then we have experience. We’re going to get a little bit into today, but more in subsequent sessions what happens when we think we’re acting by faith, but we’re really not and how does that impact what we get. We have this second foundational statement that when we pray by faith, we receive what we ask for. The third foundational statement that I want to kick off this call with is at the heart of all sin is unbelief or a lack of faith. As you read through Old Testament to New Testament, especially going through the Israelites coming through the desert and in the wilderness and for 40 years. What the Lord’s word keeps saying is they did not believe, they did not trust and because of that, God’s wrath burned against them. What we find is that the lack of faith or an unbelief is really the root of all sin in our life. This is where one of Jesus’ primary rebukes, ‘oh ye of little faith’. That’s the only thing he really rebuked his disciples for consistently. Why that and what is is it? That’s the preamble. Let’s start talking about this. The Bible tells us specifically, let’s test your scripture memory location on this one. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, ‘faith is’, so you remember where that might be?

Caroline: That’s in Hebrews 11.

Beatty: Yay. Good job.

Caroline: The reason I remember that is because we did talk about that in one of our recent calls, but that is a verse that I will go to a lot at ones time in life.

Beatty: Hebrews 11:1, ‘now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen’. The Bible tells us what that is. I want to read 2 other versions of that same verse to show you how these translations start to explain it further. In The Living Bible, it says, ‘What is faith? Faith is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It’s the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead’. Now, let me define the word ‘hope’ in the Bible is not used the same way as we use it here in America. I hope it doesn’t rain. That’s the way we use it here in America. In the Bible when the word hope is used, it’s an absolute assurance of a promise. The hope of salvation. It’s not like, well, we hope I’m believing this thing right. No, the hope of salvation is the absolute assurance of it. When it says that it is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us even though we cannot see it up ahead, this is talking about it’s this absolutely certainty of what’s going on. The Amplified Bible gives my favorite definition this one. It says this, ‘Now, faith is the assurance or the title deed of things we hope for. Being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of reality. And then it puts in brackets [faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. What we have, Caroline, is we have the concept of faith which is a title deed. We talked last time about a title deed being, you know if you have title to your car that means you own it, is that right? Do you remember that?

Caroline: Yes.

Beatty: Okay. So you own the car, which means you have claim to it and no one can take it from you because it is yours. And that is what we are talking about with faith. It is title deed of the things that we hope for. This is now starting to move into where faith really starts to come in because faith is not in the physical world; it is not in the Earthly realm. It is of the spiritual world or the Heavenly realm. And faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses. In other words, it’s perceiving as reality what in the physical realm we have nothing to tell us it’s there. This is why faith is sometimes so difficult for people. It’s because we are trying to apply our physical senses and our physical being into it. And it’s a supernatural type of element. Okay? That is why it is kind of tough at times. Let me ask you a question. Can you truly believe in and have faith in something that is not true? What do you think?

Caroline: That is not true? I would think, no.

Beatty: No, you can’t. There is no way to truly believe and have faith in something that is false. That would merely be a deception but you can’t have faith based on this definition. By definition, it the title deed. It is the absolute actual ownership of it, which means that it must be true. And so what I want suggests is that there is a difference between truth and what is true. Okay? Let me see if I can make sense with this. We are children of God, sons of the Kingdom. Does that make sense so far?

Caroline: Yes.

Beatty: Does our Father have and possess all possessions? Does he have all provisions and have enough to meet all of our needs?

Caroline: Yes.

Beatty: Okay. So it may be true that I am broke, but truth is my Father owns it all and can take care of all my needs. It may be true that I sick, but truth is, He can take away my sickness and disease because that is the heart of the Father. It may be true that I am broken and downhearted, but truth is, I have all joy and peace in Christ. Do you see the difference between true and truth?

Caroline: Right. I think that is a great depiction of it.

Beatty: So truth, is God’s word. True is what I perceive in mind’s eye, my natural eye, as what is my reality right now. What we are going to find, especially in the later things that we talk about, is that there is a difference between what is true and what truth is. And truth trumps reality because reality will change. If we go back to Jesus’ statement back in Mark, it says, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” So we have this thing that says believe which is the root word for faith. Have faith that you’ve received it and then it will be yours. But the converse is true. If you don’t have faith and you receive it, then it is not going to be yours. So we have the difference between truth and true. Truth is you believe by faith and it is yours. What’s true is that you may not believe by faith and it’s not yours. So true, or reality, is not fixed but truth is. And you can only faith in what is truth because you can only have faith in what is fixed by the Lord. I may be kind of confusing you, but are you following where I’m going on that?

Caroline: I am. I think that is a great reminder. I think you are such a great teacher the way you explain the differences between things. I am completely following you. I think that was a great explanation between those and what that means for us. I am following.

Beatty: So the next step is, where does this faith come from? And so, Romans tells us, in Romans 10:17: “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” So now we have the scriptural reference that faith is based off of truth, which is the word of Christ. But I want to dissect this passage in Romans a little more. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. I remember when this passage was explained to me. Go back quite a few years ago; this is now 1997. Okay? I’m an unemployed, stay-at-home dad. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We have a baby in diapers. Another baby came that year. I was trying to make ends meet. I did 13 different things that year. We had a mortgage on the car and a mortgage on the house and everything else. I did 13 things to try to make money. My entire income set this year was $11,882. That was my adjusted gross income. You can tell that I didn’t do a really good job, but the Lord blessed us. I’ll share more about that later. But we came through a period of time when we had nothing. During that period of time, we continued to give 20% of whatever we earned directly into the Lord’s work before we spent any of it. So even in our lack, what happened was, we realized we could trust the Lord and he would take care of us. Kind of the net of what happened there was, we were never late on any of our payments. In fact, we never missed a payment. We never went hungry. We had plenty of everything we needed. The Lord completely took care of us. It was an amazing experience.

When I started our business and the business started to grow, I was meeting with a Christian business man, a mentor of mine named Tom. We were looking at our PnL. For those of you who don’t know what a PnL is, it’s basically like a scorecard that basically tells you if your business is making money or not. Every month we are growing my $20,000 profit. $20,000, $40,000, $80,000, like that. And I’m over here tickled pink. I’m all excited. I’m meeting with my friend Tom and saying, “Tom, how can I have faith when I can see the money on the PnL?” Because, in my mind, faith was, you have no knowledge of what is going on and therefore you merely have to trust the Lord to take care of you. That was my definition of faith. Does that make sense? Does that kind of ring true that most people’s definition of faith is, “I’m just trusting the Lord because I have no knowledge of anything else”? Are you following where I’m going on that?

Caroline: I am and that is exactly what I was thinking. I think that is probably true for a lot of people from what they have experienced and from what they know. I’m sure that would resonate with a lot of people.

Beatty: So faith is not trusting God; I hate to say it that way. Trust comes out of faith but trust is not faith. If we come back to Romans 10:17, it says, “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” And so I asked Tom, “How can I have faith when I can see the money and it is growing every single month.” That is when he said, “Faith doesn’t come from seeing. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” Where is that? Romans 10:17. And it totally rocked my world in starting to understand what faith really meant. So I wanted to take this moment to start to dissect this and talk about this. So there are two key words in this passage. “Hearing” and “word.” “Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ.” So if you look at the Greek word—and I’m not a Greek scholar, I just happen to have a concordance that happens to have the Greek in there. The word hearing means audible. It is not reading. Faith doesn’t come by merely reading the word; it comes by hearing it. Now, there are different ways to hear it. Sometimes the Lord highlights it off of the page. Other times he impresses it in some significant way. Other times, it may be audible. I mean, I’ve heard the word of God audibly once in my life. It was really clear and it surprised the heck out of me. I looked around, “Where did that come from? No one is here.” But faith comes from hearing the word of God. It is that audible side of things.

The main thing I want to focus in on is “word.” Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. And there are actually two primary Greek words used in the New Testament that translate into the English word called “word.” Let’s test your Greek knowledge. Do you have an idea of what those words are?

Caroline: That I do not know.

Beatty: Okay, so the two Greek words are: logos and rhema. I knew you knew it. What happens is, sometimes we hear these things but maybe they don’t come out quit so quickly. I am not trying to embarrass you; I’m just trying to create dialogue.

Caroline: I did know both of those words as soon as you said them.

Beatty: Here is what they are. Here is a simple definition of logos: A statement that embodies an idea. Let me give you three verses and I’ll show you how this comes out. Mathew 5:32 states, “Jesus says, ‘But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the reason of unchastity makes her commit adultery.’” That word reason, “except for the reason of unchastity” – that is logos – except for the idea of unchastity. Then you have Mark 2:2. It says, “And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door and he [talking about Jesus] was speaking the word to them.” That word is logos. He was speaking a statement that embodies an idea. He was talking to them. Then we have another example that is in Luke 1:2. It says, “Just as they were handed down to us by those who, from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” The word is the Gospel. “Eyewitness and servants of the word” is logos—a statement that embodies an idea. So we see this word throughout scripture and it is important but it doesn’t have a whole lot of power behind it. It’s just talking about a concept of an idea. Are you following along with me?

Caroline: Yes.

Beatty: So then we look at the word rhema, which is the other primary Greek word. Now, if there are any Greek scholars out there, I understand there are lots of meanings and lots of ways to interpret the word. I’m just focusing on what I call the framework of what goes on here. I’m not trying to become a Greek scholar. I’m just trying to share generally. This is just generally framework of what these are. So a simple definition of rhema means: By implication of matter, especially of an operation, command or dispute. So it is a little more specific, but when I start to show you how rhema is used in scripture, or at least in sample scripture, we start to see that it is different from the word logos. This concept of faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, hearing the rhema of Christ. I think this is significant because now it starts to give us an idea of what we can actually have faith in. Okay? So let’s look a couple passages. The first one is in Mark. It’s Mark 14:72. This is at the time when Jesus has been taken before the high priest. It says, “And immediately the cock crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him, ‘Before the cock crows twice, you will deny Me three times.’” “He remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him.” “Made the [rhema] to him.” So Jesus made a very specific comment, very specifically to Peter that had a very specific outcome. That’s a rhema. Okay? So we look at Luke 1:38. This is Mary talking to the angel. “And Mary said, ‘Behold the bondslave of the Lord; may it be it done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.” “Let it be done to me according to your word,” according to your rhema, according to that statement, that direction, that command, that promise, that forth telling of what is going to happen. Okay? Here is another one in Luke 5:5. “And Simon answered and said, ‘Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as you say and let down the nets.” “I will do as you [rhema] and let down the nets.” Do you see the difference between logos and rhema? Logos is kind of a general idea, but rhema tends to carry with it very specific instructions, very specific promises of what is about to happen. Do you see this played out in scripture?

Caroline: Absolutely. I think too with rhema it almost feels like there is more of an action with it, even though it is still a word, it kind of feels like there is more of a speaking action. I don’t know if that is right, but it feels that way.

Beatty: You are right; it is more of a speaking action. It is something that you can sink your teeth into. And so when we talk about faith and living our life by faith and acting by faith, it is not simply acting by ideas, it is acting on truth. And so if we go back to truth versus true, you can only have faith in truth because only truth is solid and in each of these examples of rhema, there was a truth given and that truth occurred and, therefore, when that truth was given as a rhema, then the recipient of that truth could have faith in it that it was going to happen. It’s confident assurance of something to occur that we cannot see right now. Does this kind of wrap it together a little bit?

Caroline: I think it does. I think that was a great explanation too and even gave people a picture of it. That’s great explanation of that.

Beatty: So if we go back to the amplified version: Faith is the title deed, okay? When Jesus told Peter before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times. That is a title deed. You can take that to the bank because Jesus made a comment that is the absolute truth and then it occurred. An angel told Mary, “You are going to have a child and you are not going to have relationships with a man to have that child. You are going to be a virgin.” She said, “Be it done according to your word.” That was her title deed because the Lord had delivered that message to her. Or when Jesus told Peter, “Drop down the nets.” “We worked late all night, but by your command we will do it.” That’s what rhema is. This is where faith comes from. It comes from this concept of rhema. What’s interesting is the Holy Spirit is just an amazing helper. So you have the Holy Spirit that is sent to us, as believers, to guide us through the scripture, to interpret the scripture, and to highlight things to us. It’s basically guiding us through the entire path in life to ensure that we hear God’s instructions to us. So basically it’s our choice if we want to follow it or not. It’s not really our choice, but He gives us some choice in the matter. And so what happens is, we can be reading God’s word and we might read something that would normally be logos, such as Jesus giving the parable of the servant with the ten minas. The master says, “Well done faithful servant. Because you were faithful with a little, take charge of ten cities.” So if you just read that you are going to say, “That’s a nice story.” But then something may be going on in your life and the Holy Spirit causes that passage to stand out and you read over it and it’s like your eyes just latch onto it. Almost like a pair of magnets and something is really unique. Have you ever had that happen as you read the scripture, something just kind of stands out and you go, “The Lord is telling me something here”? Have you ever had that happen?

Caroline: Oh, absolutely. Things or highlighted or things jump out or something happens and I start thinking about it. That has happened to me. Something will happen and I’ll be reading about it and then I’m look, “Oh, that was you.” So absolutely.

Beatty: Perfect. So here is what is going on. The Holy Spirit will take that passage and highlight it. And when that happens, in this kind of loose terminology of logos versus rhema that becomes your rhema. That now becomes something that you can have faith in because not it has spoken to you by the Holy Spirit. Now obviously we want to make sure that it’s the spirit that his highlighting it not just our own desires. But as you mature as a believer than you can discern the difference between when the Holy Spirit is telling you to take notice because this is for you versus when we are trying to say, “Oh, I want this for me.” Okay? But when the Holy Spirit highlights it, then what happens is he takes the general word of God, the logos, and he turns it into a rhema for you that now you have the title deed to it. And now when you pray for that, believing that you received that you received, believing by faith, then that is when you receive it. This is when you ask for something, let not a man doubt, otherwise you should expect nothing from the Lord. So when we have the title deed, then we have no way to doubt it. Is this starting to open up these concepts?

Caroline: Absolutely. I was just thinking about how that is coming full circle and connecting. I think that was great explanations that makes connections between all of that. I think that for a lot of people these are concepts or thoughts that maybe they’ve heard a lot but this is bringing new or deeper truth or revelation to the depth of what we are being invited into. I’m thankful that I get to be on the receiving end of this.

Beatty: I love it. Well, do me a favor because I know we are out of time for this segment. I would love for you to sum up what you got out of this, anything that stands out and we will kind of start to wrap up the call.

Caroline: Okay. You put me on the spot here. I think like you said in the beginning, one of the concepts that I think that I’m continually trying to renew my mind about is about hope and assurance and like in that verse where the title deed example you were using about salvation. This is like our deed. Because I think that sometimes the world that we live in—or like you said, the American culture—we look at things through a certain lens. We look at faith; we look at hope. We look at what we can ask for through a certain lens. Maybe even what we’ve experienced or seen other Christians say is available. I think this has been really good as an invitation. “Hey this is real. This is what we have access to. It’s not like an “I have to try.” It’s not an “as hard as I can pray and ask the Lord for something.” It’s like a complete washing of your mind, of saying, “Okay, this is true. This is what we have access to. This is what is real. This is the Kingdom and the reality that I choose to be more aware of than what my surroundings are. Even like you said, if it’s something that we pray for and haven’t seen what we’ve asked the Lord for, it’s just saying, “Hey Lord, this is what your promise is.” I’m going to stand in this. I’m going to stand in this truth and in this promise and continue praying and continue believing. I feel like this is a good and an exciting challenge what we are invited to as sons and daughters, what we have access to, to not question it and not doubt and not ever stand back from what we know to be available in truth. When you are talking, my mind is going a million different places of different things and different examples and to my own relationship with the Lord. So those are the things that I was getting out of it. I don’t know if that is a perfect summation.

Beatty: I think it’s a great summation. Absolutely.

Caroline: Okay, good. I think there is a lot we can learn from this. I’m going to share the recording myself.

Beatty: Well good. I think we are probably about out of time for this session. Is that correct.

Caroline: Yes, we are. I didn’t want to interrupt you because it was so good. But yes, we are out of time and we need to wrap it up. Beatty, thank you so much for your time and for your willingness to share a revelation that you received from the Lord and what you’ve walked with in the Lord and for giving us all of this great challenge of who we are and what we are called to do and what is available. So, if you are on the live call with us, what we are going to do is wrap up and if you have any questions that you would like to ask Beatty, just hang on and we’ll go into a short Q&A session. So I think that is all for today. But thank you again, so much, Beatty, for sharing.

Beatty: Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed it. Y’all have a great day.

Beatty: This has been the Get Sellers Calling you marketing podcast for real estate agents and I’m Beatty Carmichael. For simple to do, proven marketing strategies focused exclusively on finding sellers and getting more listings, visit our website at GetSellersCallingYou.com.

Poo3