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Colin Smith: Grasping the relationship between faith and obedience is really important for the Christian life. I'm going to give you three pictures of a relationship between faith and obedience. Two of them are wrong. They're wrong pictures and therefore should be avoided at all times. One of them is right and should be pursued whatever the cost.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. Colin, I want to back up to the first part of what we heard there. Grasping that relationship between faith and obedience. You said that that is really important. Why is that the case? Why is that so important?

Colin Smith: It may sound theoretical, but it's actually very practical. Think about it. You will know someone who claims to have faith, but as far as you can see, it's made very little practical difference in their life. Their life hasn't really changed. Instinctively, you know there's something not right there. There's a breakdown between faith and obedience, and it's a problem.

You probably know someone else who is really pouring enormous effort into living a life that is pleasing to God, but they don't seem to have much peace. They don't seem to have much joy. You think to yourself there's something not right there. There's a breakdown. Here's someone who's pursuing obedience and yet they don't seem to have the rest that faith brings. This is a very practical issue. Faith and obedience belong together. Faith leads into obedience, and obedience is the wonderful fruit of faith.

Steve Hiller: We're going to look at how faith does obey God in today's program. I hope that you will join us in the book of Hebrews. We're in chapter 11 as we begin our message. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Please have your Bible open at this wonderful passage that has been read from Hebrews and chapter 11 as we resume our series Living by Faith. We've seen that faith believes what God has revealed and trusts what God has promised. That's what faith is.

Hebrews 11 teaches us through a series of examples, each of which illustrates an aspect of the faith to which we are called. We saw earlier that in the story of Abel, faith listens to God. We came to the story of Enoch and we saw that faith walks with God. We came to the story of Noah and we saw that faith fears God. Today we come to the story of Abraham, where we learn that faith obeys God. Chapter 11 of Hebrews and verse eight: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.

Now we're told here that God called Abraham. Abraham obeyed when he was called. You might think that a person who was called by God must have been very especially holy. You might think that surely this man must have been seeking God very much, loving God and desiring God with all of his heart. Precisely the opposite was the case.

We learn in the book of Joshua in chapter 24 and verse two, Joshua says to God's people: Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, and they served other gods. Abraham served other gods. He worshipped idols. He worshipped gods of his own making. He didn't even know the God who made him.

But one day, God appeared to Abraham as he had appeared to Adam and to Eve in the garden. Acts in chapter seven and verse two: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. Can you imagine this? Can you picture him with a pile of rocks? He's got these little idols on the top, and he's bowing down and he's saying his prayers to the idols. He thinks the idols are able to help him. As he's saying his prayers to the idols, suddenly the God of glory appeared to him.

The God who made the heavens and the earth actually took visible form and stepped into this man's life uninvited. God appeared to Abraham, laid claim to his life, his love, his loyalty, and Abraham's life was never the same again. Notice how Abraham responded when God called him. By faith Abraham obeyed. That's the main theme that comes to us from the example of the faith of Abraham. By faith Abraham obeyed. I want us to look today at the obedience that faith brings, then at the patience that faith demands, and then thirdly at the future that faith anticipates.

First then, the obedience that faith brings. Just these four words that are very important: By faith Abraham obeyed. Do you see that these words are actually describing the relationship between faith and obedience? They're actually telling us how obedience comes about. How did Abraham obey? How can we today grow in a life of obedience? How can you become more obedient to God?

We're told that by faith Abraham obeyed. That's how he did it. In other words, he believed what God had revealed and he trusted what God had promised, and that was how he obeyed. His obedience sprang from his faith. Grasping the relationship between faith and obedience is really important for the Christian life. I want to spend a little bit of time here. I'm going to give you three pictures of a relationship between faith and obedience. Two of them are wrong. They're wrong pictures and therefore should be avoided at all times. The reason I'm drawing attention to them is that they tend to lurk in our minds and I want us to be able to remove them from our minds. One of them is right and should be pursued whatever the cost. Here are the three pictures I'm going to give you: the mixing bowl, the buffet lunch, and the apple tree.

First of all, then, the mixing bowl. This picture is about confusing faith and obedience. Get the picture: you're in the kitchen and you're ready to bake a cake for someone's birthday. You have all the ingredients out on the table and you get the flour and the butter and the sugar and the eggs, and then you mix them together until you have a delightfully smooth batter. But of course, now that you have the batter, you no longer have the flour and the butter and the sugar and the eggs. They've all dissolved into each other. They're all mixed up.

Some people get faith and obedience all mixed up. Rather like the batter, they can't tell them apart. You've probably heard someone say something like this: When I look at my life, I know it's not what it should be. In fact, it's a long way from what it should be. I sometimes wonder when I look at my life, am I really a true Christian at all?

You see what's happening. You've maybe said that yourself. Here's a person who's looking at their obedience, and what they see, as all of us see, is that our obedience is far from complete. Then they say, "Well, if my obedience is far from complete, maybe I'm not really a Christian at all." Do you see that the problem there is to confuse faith and obedience? It's to get them all mixed up so that you can no longer distinguish the one from the other.

If you have what I'm going to call a mixing bowl problem, then I want you to notice from this verse that there is a clear distinction between faith and obedience. By faith Abraham obeyed. Faith is not obedience, and obedience is not faith. The distinction is really, really important. The Bible says we are justified by faith. But if you get faith all mixed up with obedience, then you'll end up thinking actually that you're justified by obedience. Since your obedience is never complete, well then you would never be able to have real and lasting peace. Beware of the mixing bowl. Don't confuse faith and obedience.

Let me just give you an illustration before we move on to the second picture of how devastating it is if a person confuses faith and obedience. I read recently a very striking testimony from way back in the 19th century of a woman whose name we simply know as Mrs. Drake. She was a believer back in the 19th century who endured for a very prolonged time great darkness. She was a believer, but she seriously doubted for a long time whether she really belonged to the Lord. "Am I the real deal?" And it caused great darkness in her soul.

After some time, God very wonderfully brought her out of this, and looking back on the experience, this is what she said: The fountain of all my misery hath been that I sought that in the law which I should have found in the gospel, and for that in myself which was only to be found in Christ. You see what this lady was doing? It may be that some of us are still trying to do this, and therefore we experience darkness rather than peace.

She was trying to find peace in obeying the law, when the only way to find peace is in believing the gospel. She was looking for righteousness in herself, when true righteousness can only be found in and through Jesus Christ. She says this was the fountain of all my misery. I lived for years like that. If you confuse faith and obedience, you will never be happy. You'll be looking for righteousness and peace in all the wrong places, and that's why you don't find it. Faith finds peace in believing the gospel. Faith finds peace in the gospel that obedience to the law can never produce. Faith finds righteousness in Christ that we can never, ever find in ourselves. Let's bury the mixing bowl today. Beware the mixing bowl. Don't confuse faith and obedience.

Steve Hiller: Let's bury that mixing bowl. You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Faith Obeys God. So if that mixing bowl is a wrong picture, stay tuned because that means we've got one more wrong picture to get to, and then we're going to take a look at another picture that's going to be so much more helpful, helping us rightly relate faith and obedience. So hope you'll stay with us.

Open the Bible is a listener-supported ministry. It is your generosity that allows us to bring you Pastor Colin's teaching whether you listen on the radio, online, or through the app. As you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to say thank you by sending you a copy of Brad Wetherell's new book called Saved to Sin No More. Colin, what's one thing that you'd like people to take away from this book?

Colin Smith: I think the number one thing is encouragement in the Christian life. I think a lot of folks have the idea that to be a Christian is basically to commit to a disciplined pursuit of a good and a moral life. It's so much more, and that's the heart of what's in this book, speaking about union with Christ. I was just talking to someone who's past the age of 70 this week, and he told me that for 35 years he had regarded himself as being a Christian and everyone else would have regarded him as a Christian too. He said, "But it was only in the last five years that he really came to understand a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ." He said, "I had religion for 35 years. I've only had a relationship with Jesus for five."

There's all the difference in the world. The first thing he said when I said, "Well, tell me about the difference," he said, "Well, I've begun to experience victory over sin." Then he spoke about peace and he spoke about joy and he spoke about hope. It's simply not possible to gain victory over our besetting sins if all we've got is our best effort to live a good life and to overcome the things that plague us. What makes it possible to really make progress in the Christian life is that Jesus Christ himself lives in the life of a believer by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. That makes a whole new life possible. This book really gives an introduction to this central, though sadly I think little understood, truth of the Christian life: Christ in you, that's the hope of living a new and a transformed life. It's a wonderful book and I think it'll be a great encouragement to all who read it.

Steve Hiller: Again, the name of the book is Saved to Sin No More: How Union with Christ Empowers a Life of Holiness. We want to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give your gift online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Or again, our website is openthebible.org. Well, if you joined us late, we're in Hebrews chapter 11. Let's get back to the message. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Let's bury the mixing bowl today. Beware the mixing bowl. Don't confuse faith and obedience. Let me give you a second picture that also takes us in entirely the wrong direction, and it's the buffet lunch. You'll see, of course, that this is precisely the opposite of the mixing bowl because it is a picture of separating faith and obedience.

Think about the buffet lunch. Everything, the food is presented to you in a way that is set out for choice. Each of the elements of the meal, everything that's on the buffet, is in a self-contained, separated compartment. It's all arranged so that as you go up to the buffet, you can load your plate with all the things that you like, and then you can pass on all the things that are not to your taste.

It would be very easy for someone to think that faith and obedience are a bit like a buffet lunch. Here's faith. I'd like that. I mean, that gives me the taste of forgiveness. That gives me the taste of heaven. But here's obedience. That might be a little hard to chew and to swallow. I'll pass on that for now. Faith and obedience are not like a buffet lunch, which is why, by the way, Paul speaks about the obedience of faith.

A person who thinks that to be a Christian is simply to add belief in Jesus to an unchanged life needs to hear the challenge of James. You remember James says in the New Testament: What good is it, my brothers, if someone says that he has faith but does not have works? He says he has faith. Can that faith save him? James is making it clear that as with Abraham, where there is faith, obedience will follow. Beware of the buffet lunch. Don't separate faith and obedience.

So there are two pictures that completely misdirect us. Let me try and give you a picture that therefore will be more helpful: the apple tree. That rightly relates faith and obedience. There, of course, is a clear distinction between the apple and the tree. You eat the apple, you certainly don't eat the tree. There's a big difference. But the connection is obvious. The apple springs from the tree. The apple is formed by the tree. There is no apple without the tree.

If you want apples, what do you do? You plant an apple tree. If you want obedience, what do you do? You plant the tree of faith because it brings forth the fruit of obedience. By faith Abraham obeyed. As faith puts down deep roots into the Word of God, gradually and increasingly, and it probably will be quite small at first, obedience will grow. Faith is a living tree that is bursting with fruit.

That, of course, is what we're learning from Hebrews in chapter 11. Think of it this way: the very first verse begins by describing the tree. It tells us what faith is. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That's faith, that's the tree. Now the whole of the rest of the chapter is then telling us the good fruit that this tree bears.

What is the fruit? Faith listens to God. You see that in the life of Abel. Faith walks with God. You see that in the life of Enoch. Faith fears God. You see that in the life of Noah. Faith obeys God. You see that in the life of Abraham, and there's more still to come. Fruit that is just bursting out from the deeply rooted tree of faith. That's what this chapter is all about.

Do you see this wonderful principle that should be a great encouragement for every Christian believer today? Grow in faith and you will grow in obedience. The more you believe what God has revealed, the more you trust what God has promised, the more you will grow in obedience because that is what faith produces. By faith Abraham obeyed.

Here is something really important therefore for a healthy Christian life: the obedience that faith brings. Second, the patience that faith demands. Notice verse eight. It begins: By faith Abraham obeyed, and then it ends: and he went out, not knowing where he was going. Very striking. When God called Abraham to a life of faith, he didn't tell him what that would involve. He didn't tell him where it would lead. He went out, not knowing where he was going. God didn't give him a map to show where he would go. God didn't give him a brochure to say what his life would be like when he got there.

Faith demands patience, and it demands patience because we don't yet know what God has not revealed. What will a life of following the Lord Jesus Christ mean for you? What does the future hold for you? There isn't a single one of us who knows. Jesus says, "Follow me," and when you step out in faith and in obedience to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, none of us knows what that will involve or where that will lead. Luther said, and I love this comment: This is the glory of faith, simply not to know.

That's what faith is. The glory of faith is simply not to know. If you knew everything that's going to transpire, you wouldn't so much be walking by faith, you'd be walking by sight because you'd know. But we don't know. Now we know in part. One day we will know fully, even as we are fully known. But right now, we don't know, and faith demands patience because of what we do not yet know. Sometimes we will find ourselves asking the question: Why do I have to go through this? What possible purpose does God have for me in this? We ask why, and as we see from our Lord Jesus at the cross, the Father is under no obligation to answer the question. We walk by faith, not by sight. That demands patience because of what we do not yet know.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Faith Obeys God as we're taking a look at Abraham today and seeing how there is an obedience that faith brings and also a patience that faith demands. We're going to continue to look at that and see the future that faith anticipates on our next broadcast. I hope you'll make it a point to tune in for that. If you ever miss a program, you can always listen online. Just come to openthebible.org and you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. You can also listen through the Open the Bible app, which you'll find for free at your app store. Colin, it's Friday and the weekend's coming.

Colin Smith: Yeah, and I want to encourage you to get to church on Sunday. Across the country, people who love Jesus will be gathering to praise Him, and if you love Jesus, that's something you'll want to be part of. Find a church where the Bible is opened. If you live in the Chicago area and you don't have a church home, I'd love for you to join us at The Orchard. There are six locations in the northwest suburbs. For more information, go to theorchard.church. That's theorchard.church.

Steve Hiller: Thank you, Colin. And thanks for listening. I'm Steve Hiller and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

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