The Fundamentals of Faith: A to E for Spiritual Growth

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the podcast. Let me start out today by just asking you a question here. If you could summarize the Bible, the Word of God, if you could summarize it in just a sentence or two, what would you say?

If somebody asked you, what's the overall theme of the Bible? What would your answer be?

You know, for me, I would say the theme of the Bible is really just have faith in God, trust him, live your life from a position, from a posture of faith. Can you agree with that? You know, God's Word, it's given to us to teach us how to live out our days in real faith, not just pretend faith, but real faith.

And God, he's given us so many examples in the scriptures in order to teach us. We have examples of faith failures, and we have examples of faith victories, don't we? And we're taught what to do by the word, and we're also taught what not to do.

You know, the Bible will show you how to walk in the greater things of God. And what I've seen recently is, in the scriptures, we can find and recognize some faith fundamentals that were developed. They were practiced and applied by those believers who went furthest in the plans of God.

We can see them living out these fundamentals that they practiced, these fundamentals that they developed in and applied in a way that it just took their life to a higher level. They experienced things. They handled things that other people weren't able to experience.

Other people weren't able to handle. And it's those fundamentals of faith that I want to talk to you about over the next several episodes here on the podcast. And that's going to be the title of this series, is The Fundamentals of the Faith Life.

So fundamentals are important to anything that you do, even natural things. If you're going to play the piano, there's fundamental things you have to learn to do. I remember in typing class, you had to learn the home keys.

You know, that was a fundamental part of learning how to type was get your hands on them home keys. You remember that? I played basketball growing up through high school.

And I was decent, you know, average. But how I got started playing basketball, I was terrible when I first started. But how I got started was in second grade, 1985, my family bought a small little piece of ground, 20 acres, in Howe County, Missouri, down around West Plains, out in the country, off a dirt road kind of out in the middle of nowhere.

And we had a single wide trailer we put on there. And it was a cool spot, man. We had a little hobby farm kind of.

We had some couple of cows, a few pigs, some chickens and geese and guineas, a couple of rabbits. We had a nice garden spot, a bunch of flowers. Our place was meticulously kept.

It was a beautiful little spot. And when we got moved out there, thank goodness, right across the road, I mean, we're out in the middle of nowhere, but right across the road, there was another kid, another boy my age. We were in the same grade, and his name was Eric Judd.

And Eric Judd was a stud athlete. Even in the second grade, he was a stud. And actually, he ended up playing college basketball at Missouri State in the late 1990s.

He played on that team that went to the Sweet 16 and played against Duke and Grant Hill and all those guys. And man, Eric was a ball player. He could have played college football, baseball, probably whatever he wanted to do, whatever he put his mind to.

Now, he was athletic. He had athletic ability, but what Eric Judd did was he valued the fundamentals more than most people. He would just work at it.

He had a work ethic that was different than everybody else. Even at that age, I mean, in second grade, he was probably playing at a fifth grade level already. He was just fundamentally more developed than other players his age.

And so anyway, we get out there in the country, and I want to hang out with Eric Judd, so I'm going to learn how to play basketball because he wants to play all the time. So when we first started, I remember I would just pick the ball up and run with it and just sling it up there at the goal. And he told me, he said, no, man, that's traveling.

You can't just run with the basketball. You got to bounce it. You got to dribble the ball.

And so he started teaching me the fundamentals of basketball. And when we first started, you know, we would play a lot of pig and horse just working on shooting because I couldn't play him one on one. I didn't have enough development to compete with him at all.

So that wouldn't be any fun. So we worked on shooting drills. And then over time, I grew enough that we could start to play.

We could go further in the game than we had earlier because I had developed. And you know, that's so true in anything that you apply fundamentals to. The more you develop, the further you can go.

That's true in our faith walk as well. You know, we're talking about a natural example like basketball. But the truth is, we see these same principles applied in the Scriptures.

Those who were able to go further and experience more of what God had for them, those were the people who developed in the fundamentals of faith. They were those who, they valued it more. They wanted it.

They were hungrier for the things of God than the average person. They were those who were committed, who were all in. They were like Eric Judd playing basketball growing up.

He valued it more. He was more committed. He was willing to work harder.

You know, it's told that Kobe Bryant, who was one of the best basketball players of all time, it's said that he would make 700 to 1000 shots every day after practice, or before practice. Not just shoot, he would actually make 700 to 1000 additional shots every day. He developed the fundamentals.

He worked on the fundamentals harder than the average person. And really, if you think about it, a pro athlete is somebody who's mastered the fundamentals, or they're able to perform them at a higher level than everybody else. Well, when handling the things of God, when dealing in the things of God, the same principles apply.

God says he will honor those who honor him. And so when you take his things serious, when you take living a life of faith seriously, and you're hungry for it, you value it, it's important to you, you honor it with your time and your energy and your resources. When you do those things, it positions you to go further, to go higher.

And we see that in the scriptures. And from our positions that we're setting in now today, we can look back at those examples that the Lord's given us, and we can learn from them, can't we? We can learn from what they did.

And so that's what we're going to endeavor to do in this series, talking about faith fundamentals, the fundamentals of faith for a life of faith. And so here's what we're going to do today. We're going to keep this short.

I want to just introduce to you these five fundamentals that we're going to be talking about. And I believe they're essential for you and I to work on. We need to work on these things if we want to advance.

If you want to go further in the things of God, it's important for you to develop in these five things we're going to talk about, these five fundamentals. And we see them throughout the Word of God, especially in the lives of those who were able to handle greater things for the kingdom. So here they are.

Let's introduce these. And I'm going to call them the A through E's of faith. The A through E's of faith.

Let me explain what that means. Each fundamental, there's five of them, we are going to tie to a letter A through E. And this will help us remember them as we move forward.

And it'll make sense here in just a second. So let's just get into it here. The first fundamental starts with the letter A, and it is to acknowledge the truth of God's Word.

If you're going to live a life of faith, if you're going to advance and go further in God's plans for you, it is going to be an essential fundamental that you acknowledge the truth of God's Word. You must acknowledge that God's real, that He's the Creator of the heavens and earth, that He sent His Son to die for you and raised Him from the dead, that you have the Holy Spirit, that God has a plan for you, that He's your shepherd, He's your guide, He'll provide and heal and direct and take care of you. The truth of the Word of God, you're going to have to have to practice acknowledging that that Word is true for you.

It applies to you and your life. That's an essential fundamental, is acknowledging God's real. This Word is true.

So that's the first one we're going to talk about. The second one starts with the letter B, is to believe. A fundamental of faith, if you're going to advance in the things of God is you will have to go from just acknowledging it, just acknowledging the promises of God to actually believing them.

You must be a believer. And that journey from just acknowledgement to believing, that can be a lengthy journey. That can be a long process of time, depending on you.

And your ability to renew your mind and learn to think different. Believing, when you believe something, it gets to the point that you think faith thoughts. You speak faith words.

You live by faith.

So the A, the first fundamental is to acknowledge the truth of God's Word. The B is to believe it, to transition into believing. The C, the third one, starts with the C, is to confess the truth of God's Word, to start to speak it out, to confess it.

When you start to speak the promises of God, this is when things start to happen in your life. You know, if you don't believe it enough to confess it, you don't believe it. If you don't believe it enough to say it, you don't believe it.

And so you've got to back up to that fundamental of belief and get your belief together so that you can start confessing it and speaking the promises of God over your life. So that's the C. The fourth one, the D, it starts with the D, is to do what God tells you to do.

That's a fundamental. That's something we have to work on. We have to work on being doers of the word.

Not just a hearer, not just a thinker, not just a meditator on the word, but an actual doer. The Bible tells us it's only the doers that get results. So we want to become a doer.

That's a fundamental for us. And then the last one starts with an E, a fundamental is to expect, to expect the promises of God to come to pass, to expect that what God tells you he'll do for you, he'll actually do it. You know, if you're going to live a faith life, if you're going to advance in God's plan for you, you have to live in a position of expectation.

If you don't expect God to do what he says he'll do, you're not going to take steps of faith that are going to be required for you to go further. We must have a sense, a spirit of expectation. And so that's the fundamentals that we're going to be talking about, and we see this throughout scripture.

People who advance for God's kingdom, they acknowledge God. They acknowledge his word. They transitioned.

They grew to the point they actually believed it. Then they started to speak it. They started to confess it.

And they were doers. They started to do what God told them to do, and they walked in a spirit of expectation. Those are the people who were able to handle greater things.

They were able to go further. They developed in those fundamentals, just like Eric Judd playing basketball. He developed in the fundamentals so that he could play at another level.

He was able to play college basketball, which very few people do. And it applies to our faith walk, too. When we work on these fundamentals, we can go higher.

We can go further. And so I want you to really think about these fundamentals. I want you to take some time to write them down, A through E.

And think about, are you applying these to your life? Are you working on them? Are you practicing?

You know, a lot of basketball players are content to never practice. They just want to show up at game time. And those kind of players never go to the next level.

They don't win at the level somebody who's committed does. It requires practice. And so I encourage you to take some time this week to think about that.

Reflect on it, and take inventory of where you're at. And the good thing is, we're all growing. You're never going to grow to the point that you don't practice.

Kobe Bryant still shot hoops, still shot for hours a day, despite his level of expertise. And it's the same for us. You're never going to grow to the level of faith that you just quit.

You quit practicing. No, this applies to every one of us. All of us need to take inventory and say, okay, am I putting forth the effort here that I need to put forth?

And God's so gracious and so patient, and He'll work with us and coach us and direct us and encourage us. And as He does, we can come up higher. We can, even if you've gotten out of shape, you haven't been in the gym, so to speak, you can get back after it starting right now.

Amen. Amen. Let's pray, and then we'll take this further in the days ahead.

Father, we thank You for encouraging us with Your Word. Thank You for these fundamentals of faith. Thank You for pointing them out to us and helping us.

And we pray that as each person listening, as they take inventory this week and in the days ahead, that Your Holy Spirit would reveal to them areas that we need to practice more. We need to get back on these fundamentals and start working and honor You with our time and with our talents and our efforts. Because Lord, we want to go further.

We want to go higher. We want to be able to handle greater things. We want to be able to play at a higher level.

And so we ask You to help us and to coach us and direct us. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.

Well, thank You for taking the time to listen to the podcast. We'll talk to You soon. But until next time, be blessed.

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