 Okay, welcome back to our second lecture on BC 111 Faith. We've been learning about how confession releases faith. And we've been looking at different scriptures that are teaching us how important it is to confess our faith. And we will just continue on that a little bit and just share some practical things we can do to apply this principle of faith in our lives. So let's turn in our Bibles now to Hebrews chapter 13. Let's go to Hebrews. We've been looking at several scriptures from Hebrews. So now we go to the last chapter, Hebrews 13. Could somebody read for us verses 5 and 6, please? Hebrews 13 verses 5 and 6. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, so we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Thank you. Now notice what he says, Hebrews 13, 5 and 6. The writer of Hebrews is saying, I'm picking up in the middle of verse 5. He says, he himself has said, God has said. So, you know, he's telling you, you know, just live right. Don't covet anything. Be happy with what God's blessed you. He's encouraging us to walk right before God. And then he gets into this. Why? Because God has said something. He has said, God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And then look at his reasoning. Verse 6. So we boldly say, the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man can do to me. Look at that. He's telling us, God has said something. So we boldly say something that's in alignment with what God has said. That's in agreement with what God has said. God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we boldly say something that's in agreement with that. In fact, he actually quotes scripture in both cases. God said, he quotes scripture. So we boldly say, he quotes scripture. That means he's quoting from the Old Testament. God said, so we boldly say. And what we boldly say is the word of God. And what we boldly say is in agreement with what God has said. That's what I want to point out. So confession is stating something we believe in our hearts. We believe what God has said. So I want to encourage you to practice this in your life. Learn to confess. Learn to make your declaration. Learn to say what God has said. And to say in agreement with God has said in every situation. So for example, in your time of prayer. So today in the morning I woke up and maybe around 4.30, whatever time it was, then washed up, went into God's presence. And just began to say, God, I thank you. Jesus, the Bible says, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, has cleansed me from every sin. God, I thank you that my sins have been forgiven for his name's sake. Father, I thank you. Then I started talking about, you know, I'm confessing what God has said about me. God, I thank you. I'm a new creation in Christ. I am the righteousness of God. Christ has been made to me, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Lord, I thank you that I am seated with you in the heavenly places. What am I doing? I am in my prayer time, in my time with God. I am confessing His Word. I'm telling God, I believe your Word. So confess, make your declaration as you pray in His presence. Right? Say God, thank you. This is what you have said about me. You see the Bible tells us the Word of God is like a mirror. Right? Look at it. This is who you are. You're looking at it and you go before God and you say, this is what Lord, I believe. I believe that what you have said about me is true. Then you acknowledge who God is. Father, I thank you that you're the covenant keeping God. I thank you for the blood of Jesus. It has brought me to covenant with God. I am in covenant with you. You are God. Your Word is forever settled in heaven. God, you are watching over your Word to perform it. So in your worship, so in your prayer, declare the Word. In your worship, declare the Word. God, this is who you are. You're the covenant keeping God. You're the God who will not fail His Word. So you declare His Word. Then when you face situations in life, do the same thing. God has said, so I boldly say. So suppose you face a situation of need. What has God said? God has said, or the Word of God says, my God shall supply all your need, according to his riches and glory through Christ. So in that situation of need, you may need money to pay rent. You may need money to buy something. You may need money to pay the bills. You may need money to do ministry for so many things in life. We need money. But what do you do when you face a need? You say what God has said. God has said, so I boldly say, my God shall supply all my need. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. God makes all grace abound toward me so I can do it. We just launched a new initiative. So actually this happened in the month of May. May 10th, I remember that date. I wrote it down in my notebook. I was praying before God. Somebody had challenged me. They said, you know, we need to do admissions. We need to do something very big, big on scale. So I went, I was praying. So May 10th was a Tuesday. I was praying. I said, God, you know, my brother, he challenged me. He said, look, let's do something big. God, what is that big thing that you will tell me that we can do? You know, yes, we are doing things. It's all, you know, we are doing every day Sunday service. That all that is going on. But we have to do something that is big that will impact our nation. That will impact the nations. What can we do? So I was praying, God, I said, God, give me, give me idea. Give me, you know, direction. Then, so that day, this whole idea of, you know, of church planting of, of, and of course we always wanted to plant churches and we've been doing it very slowly, but to accelerate that process. And so, well, I received all that whole thing and I wrote it down in my notebook, the plan for that to, you know, to have to raise up 10,000 people who can go and plant 10,000 churches. So that's a big vision. Okay. We got to do that. Now, of course, I, you know, after receiving that, I didn't just go and do it on my own. I shared it with the pastoral teams of, you know, when we had a pastoral team, my meeting, I shared it with them. We discussed it. We actually had two meetings. So in both the meetings, we talked about it. We discussed it. Then we refined it. It's okay. So got all, got their all agreement and so on. And then two months back, shared it with the church family. So I think it was in July or August. I sent an email saying, okay, this is one of the things I'm starting to do this, you know, to serve people. Some, you know, throw it back and appreciative. And then we got everything organized and we just launched the church planting accelerator program. Now, in our very first meeting with the pastors, we were doing calculation, you know, how much money we'll need to do this kind of thing. And hey, you know, just for us, then, you know, the numbers were so big. So we said, okay, let's start some with something small and then grow it. Right. So even to start with something small, like if you want to help 50 people or 100 people, if you want to help 100 people, start churches in India. Okay. What's the amount we need? You know, three to four crores of a piece. So, so here's the thing I want to share with us. Okay. Then you want to do something for God. You have to do it by faith. It's not like, you know, we have all this money sitting and saying, okay, now we're going to do it. No, you got to go out by faith. It's okay. We have an idea. We have a plan. This is what we're going to do. But you got to do it by faith. And faith involves action. That's our next chapter. We'll get to it. But faith also means you speak and you declare God will make all grace abound toward us. That we always having all sufficiency will abound to every good work. So how are we going to do this? And how have we stepped out to do this work in faith, trusting God, that as we believe his word, God will help us, you know, to help at least 10,000 people start churches all across India and around the world. God will do it. But we have to speak of a faith and we have to act our faith. So just giving an example that, you know, what in every area, in every area, you know, you hear from God, you pray, hear from God, then you have to step out in faith. You have to use your faith to do the work. And part of using your faith is to speak, to declare, to say that this is what God has said, you know, that God will provide. So in every situation, I want to encourage you to speak your faith. Now, we have a book called Speak Your Faith. You can download the PDF and hopefully it'll get printed very soon. We're just starting off our printing. But anyway, this book Speak Your Faith has very easy chapters, small chapters. So let me see. It has one section. Declaration of God sort of my life where from A, starting from A to Z, it gives you, you know, how to speak the word of God on different concerning different things in your life. So what I, what I, from the early days, this from my early teenage years, when I learned about, you know, the importance of speaking the word, I made this little plan for myself. From A to Z, I put out these keywords. Okay. For A for authority, A for answer to prayer, A for anointing, B for blessing, C for courage, E for exploits, F for future. So I just go. So in my mind, it's easy to remember. And of course now it's written down here. So it's easy to, you know, you're going from A, B, E, F, G, all the way to Z. And then for each topic, you say what the word of God says over your own life. The word is in your heart. The word is in your mouth. So you just say. So I just declared the joy of the Lord is my strength. The Holy Spirit fills me with peace and joy. You know, it doesn't have to be exact Hebrew, exact King James version. Just say it. This is what the word of God says. You know, you say, I've been justified in God's eyes. I stand before God just as if I never sinned. You know, I am righteous in the eyes of God. So you're saying what God says. So I keep time to say what God has said. Now, so that's a discipline, a part of your personal devotion time, a part of your time with God where you just speak his word because God said my words should be in your heart and it should be in your mouth. So take some time. You can use this outline or you can make your own. So I just wrote this down because I used this outline for many, many years. If you want to do it from declaring who you are in Christ, you can use this outline. You can do that. And then basically from starting from Genesis, all the way to Revelation, you know, all the way to, you know, all the way to Revelation or this is Revelation 1211. I just give all the scriptures that teach us about speaking the word of God, you know, and then I'd encourage you to read it. These are very small, small chapters. So you can just use it like a daily devotional. And all the scriptures that teach us about the importance of saying what God has said, you know, so this book, little book, Speak Your Faith. You can download it from our church website. Or once it's printed, you can, you know, ask for your own printed copy. It's free. And then read it and just strengthen yourself in this area so you understand, you know, that you can speak the word of God over your own life. Right. And to use it as a discipline, you know, that in your devotion time, keep some time just to declare the word, speak it over your own life. It'll strengthen your faith. And then as you face different situations, just say what the word says, you know, because God has said, I will boldly say. Now let me close this chapter, finish this chapter by just saying, you know, there's a right and wrong confession. That means in Romans 10 6, which we read, he said, do not say, but don't speak like this. Don't say, oh, God is in heaven. I hope he'll help me. Don't speak like that. Romans 10 6, Romans 10 7 said, don't say Jesus went down to the dead or who will bring him up? In other words, he's saying, don't speak like this. Don't speak defeat. Don't speak gloom and doom. Don't speak as the God is so far away. Don't speak as the God is dead. Don't speak like that. But you know, sadly, sometimes some believers talk like that. Oh, the devil is attacking me. The devil is troubling me. The devil is disturbing my life. Why are we glorifying the devil? Don't talk about the devil. Talk about who God is. Talk about what the word of God says about you. Yes, there may be a challenge. There may be a difficulty. There may be a situation. But take a hold of the word of God. You will overcome it. You will overcome it. So don't talk about the devil. Don't talk about, you know, the struggle. Talk more about who God is to you. Talk more about what God can do for you and what God can do in your situation and what God can come through to you. So practice this. Submit to God. And again, do this out of faith in your heart. Don't just do it like a technique or some sort of a routine. Do it with faith. God, I really believe your word. That's why I'm speaking like this. God, I really believe your promise. That's what because you have said, I will say. That means it comes from a heart of faith. I'm not teaching this as a technique or some, you know, blind thing you follow as a ritual. Now, don't make it a routine or a ritual. Make it something that's from your heart because when you do that, it's very powerful. Okay. So let me pause here before we start the next lesson. Let me see if there are any questions people want to ask. Let's see now. Let me go back. Sri Radha. We can also confess through singing of songs that is worship songs. Yeah. You can also declare. And of course, most of our songs would be a declaration of who God is and so on. Okay. So we can sing songs, worship and declare God. Yeah. All right. Nina is the word asking us to be without covetousness and be content because he will never leave us now for because or is a promise that he will never leave us conditional that we should be content. Okay. Let me just read that again. It's the word asking us to be without covetousness and be content because he will never leave us or forsake us or is the promise that he will never leave us conditional that we should be content. Oh, okay. I understand your question. It's based on Hebrews 13, 5 and 6. Now, so think about this. God has already made a promise to us. I will never leave you or forsake you many places. I am with you always. So Hebrews 13, 5 and 6, the writer of Hebrews is saying, you know, because God is with us, because God is with us, you know, he said he will never leave us now for because therefore we don't have to be covetous. We can be content with what we have and so on. So that's the logic because the word keyword there is for or therefore, let your conduct and you be without covetousness be content with such things as you have for he himself and so that means because because of God having said that he will be with us, we can be like this. We don't have to worry about, you know, other people, how they are blessed and what they have. We know God is with us. We know and therefore we can boldly say, you know, the Lord is my help. I will not fear. All right. Is this a part of your 10 year plan? Yes, we will refer to it. He's a man. Okay. Yeah. So I don't know how you know about 10 year plan. I don't think I ever told the first year students. Hmm. I'm not sure what I shared with the first year class, but anyway, um, yeah. So part of, you know, so I have a little plan on what I'm going to do in a different stages. And one of the things that isn't the plan is to see churches planted across India and other parts of the world. And and and and and of course, I don't know the details of how God would do it, but I could see that. Here this, this whole thing that we're beginning to initiate is kind of helping fulfill that part of the plan, which is to help others plant churches and, you know, just be a support to them. Yeah. Okay. Any questions? So let's move to the. So what we did in lesson number 11 years, one way to express faith one way. I'm not saying I said it's one way, right? Because there are many more ways we're going to learn one way to release your faith. What we see in scripture is to confess the word, which is to declare the word, just to say what the word says. Of course, it has to come from a believing heart. Believe in your heart, say with your mouth, that is releasing your faith one way. Now we're going to look at that. There are several ways. We're going to look at the second way to release your faith. That means how do you bring your faith out of your heart to actually work in your life situation? And you know, when you and I put our faith to work, then God's power goes into operation and works miracles. So the second way we're going to learn that we see in the Bible is to act of a faith, right? Act of a faith, actions. The work you actually do, what you do, is an expression of faith. Let's please turn in our Bibles. Still, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 11. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 11. Let's please, could somebody read it for us? 2 Thessalonians 11. Therefore, we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power. So, thank you. So notice Paul, as he writes with Thessalonians, he's saying, look, we're praying for you that God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness. You know, let all the good things that God has planned for you, purpose for you, may it be fulfilled. So he's praying for these believers that God will fulfill all the deep plans for you. And notice, he says, in the end of verse 11, I may God, so I'm just reading that part of verse 11, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power. So God will fulfill or complete your work of faith with his power. That's very important. From our side, we must work our faith. When we work our faith, that means we act in alignment to our faith, because we believe we will do it, work of faith. Then God will fulfill our work of faith with power, with his power. That means you work your faith, you do what you can in faith, then God will complete your work by his power. His power will come upon your work of faith and make sure that work is completed. So like I was giving that example, how we launched this initiative just last week on church planting and these applications are coming in from all across the country. You know, when we, like I said, when we try to do our calculations, how much money, so much money we need to help people to start these churches. Okay, yeah, we do our homework, that means we plan and all of that, but we can't sit here and say, oh, it's so much money, we don't have it, we can't do that. What must we do? Okay, let's start. Let's work our faith. Let's stretch. Let's go. Let's do it. And as we start working our faith, God will help us. He will fulfill, he will complete our work of faith with his power. Right, so we just have to trust God. We just have to trust him and begin to do what you believe, begin to act your faith. Right, so here's the second important thing. To exercise faith in God, to release your faith in God, you must start doing something. You must work your faith. You know, to go out there and start doing it and believe that as you start working, God's power will come and complete your work. You may not have all the things needed. When you look at it and say, God, what I'm doing is so small, the need is so great. That's okay. You start with what you have and you start working your faith. When you start doing something, then God's power will come and God will complete it by his power. So that's very important. Now, let's establish this aspect a little further. If you go with me to James chapter 2, and we're going to read a few verses from James chapter 2. James chapter 2 verses 14 to 22. James chapter 2, 14 to 22, and also we will read verse 26. Could somebody read that for us, please? What does it profit my birthing? If someone says he has faith but does not have works, can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and desperate of daily food and a one if he is saved to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body. What does it profit? Does also faith by itself? If it does not have works, it's dead. But someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works and by works, faith was made perfect? Verse 26 For as the body, for as the body without a spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Thank you. So James chapter 2. So James, this is a very interesting book, the book of James. James was the half brother of Jesus. So he obviously saw Jesus grow up and then he saw Jesus launch his ministry and he saw Jesus doing the ministry and so on. Anyway, eventually James became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, James has writing and he is talking about practical faith. So he says, okay, we have to. So he's emphasizing doing things because you have faith. That's the main emphasis in chapter 2 of James. That means you say you have faith, good, but if you don't do something, it's useless. So if you have faith, you have to do something. You have to show your faith, show your faith by what you do. And I'm just putting it in simple words. So he begins by saying verse 14 onwards. He's talking about verse 14 through 16. He's talking about somebody who doesn't have food, somebody who doesn't have clothes and if I say I have faith in God, okay, it's nice, you have faith in God, but do something to help somebody else. Right? Somebody else is there who doesn't have food, who doesn't have clothes. I may say I have faith. Okay, that's nice. But my faith must cause me to do something in that situation, which is give some food to the person who is hungry, give something, some food to the poor person who needs that. So that's what he's saying, verses 14 to 16. And then he comes to this conclusion, verse 17. He says, look, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. That means if you say you have faith in your heart, I believe in God, I believe in his Bible, I believe in his word, I believe, you have faith in your heart, okay. But if that faith is not moving you to do something in a situation, then that faith is dead. It's dead faith. What is dead faith? It's faith that doesn't produce. It's faith that is useless. It is ineffective, it's dead. So important, important teaching. James is telling us, if our faith doesn't move us into action, then that faith is useless faith, is dead faith. That's the main thing. So verses 14 to 16, he gave a scenario of people who are in need. Some may be hungry, somebody's naked. Faith responds to that situation. Then he goes on to say this, this is verse 18, that faith is made visible or faith is expressed through our works. So he says, verse 18, I will show you my faith by my works. That means this is the way I can express my faith. This is the way I can demonstrate my faith through what I do. He says, see, to say you believe in God, even devils believe. That's verse 19. So it's not enough to say, I believe in God. I believe His word, et cetera. The devils also, they also know there is God. They fear, you know, they tremble. Of course, they don't fear Him in the sense of reverence or worship or submission. It's more of torment because they have done things against God. But the point James is getting across to us again, he repeats that in verse 20. So what he said in verse 17 is repeating in verse 20 says, faith without works is dead. It's unproductive. It's ineffective. It's useless. And then in verse 21 and 22, he says, he points to Abraham. So now he's pointing to some other situation. In verses 14 to 16, he was pointing to a situation where there are people with needs. Now he's pointing to Abraham. So look at Abraham. So let me, let me, you know, explain this further of what I'm saying that you must have some works. You must do something if you have faith. Let's just look at Abraham. Okay. Abraham, he believed God. And verse 21, not only did Abraham believe God, so the Old Testament tells us in Genesis 15 verse 6, it says Abraham believed God. So not only did Abraham believe God, but he says in verse 21, Abraham was justified by works. That means what was really important in Abraham's life was what he did. What did he do? Verse 21, he was ready to offer Isaac on the altar. So that is an expression of his faith in God, the fact that he was willing to do it. It was expressing his faith in God. And he says, verse 22, so don't you see that the faith, faith was working together with works. So notice how faith and works going together. Faith is working with his works, verse 22. And through works, that means through what he did, the fact that he was willing to go up and offer Isaac on the altar through his works, his faith was made perfect. So verse 22, let's spend some time on that. Very important verse. What's he teaching us? He's saying, you know, Abraham, he had faith in God, but he showed his faith in God by what he did. And faith and works, they work together. It's like two sides of the same coin. You know, if somebody had a coin, one side had something on it and the other side had nothing on it, then it's not a complete coin. Nobody would take it. You got to look at both sides. Yeah, it looks good. It has the, you know, whatever has to be embossed on it. And yeah, that's a coin. That's a valid coin. You can use it. So it's like that. Faith and works. It's two sides of the same coin. Faith and works. If you have both, then you can transact or you can make something happen. So faith working together with his works and through works is faith produced. His faith was completed. His faith came to a maturity. It came to a place that it could produce. So understand this. Your faith in your heart, how can you make your faith produce? That has to be works. You have to do something. And when you do something, then your faith and your works together will cause the outcome of your faith to take place. And then once again, he repeats in verse 26, just like the body without the spirit is dead, faith without works is dead. You know, he says that three times, faith without works is dead. It can't produce. It will have no effect. Right? So in the Weymouth translation, he talks about his actions. So, you know, works, meaning his actions. Or he talks about, yeah, his actions. And through his actions, his faith was perfected. So we need to have actions that express our faith, that demonstrate our faith. And when you have actions, when you're doing something, align your faith. That's when God's power goes in. Sorry, it goes into operation. And that's when your faith can actually be brought to maturity, brought to a place where it can produce. Okay. Any questions on this? Let me pause here. When will be counted worthy of our calling? So, okay, so this is based on 2nd Thessalonians 111. The answer is right now, starting now, right? That God would count us worthy of our calling. So that means we, where are we? So God, you know, enables us to walk in that manner in a way that shows, you know, that we are worthy of our calling and then also to step into the things he has called us to do. So the answer is here and now as we journey with God, step by step, God counts us worthy of what he has called us to do. So why do you have Ameth's translation? It gives you James to 14 to 26 in the textbook. Oh, Sean. So I use a lot of translations. So let me just quickly show you, you know, when you come to, when you come to the course on hermeneutics, I will show you the benefit of using many, many, I've explained to us why there are so many different versions of the Bible and the advantage of looking at different versions of the Bible. You know, one of the tools that I would be explaining to us in the course on hermeneutics, so let me just share this, is a tool that I use and I've been using this since 2001. It's called Esword. I have it right here in my laptop. And so I'll share with you the course on hermeneutics in the studying script. So you see here, I have many different versions of the Bible. So if I want to, you know, so of course I can, I normally read from the New King James Version. So I can read it here, but if I can quickly compare versions. So, you know, I can look at, you know, how that same verse is put in different versions. And so it kind of helps us understand. And I will explain to you what these versions are and so on. So it helps you understand. And then of course, you can look up the Hebrew and the Greek. So I, you know, I can look up the Hebrew words, what the words mean. And then I also have the dictionaries right here. So I can, you know, look up the meaning of the words in these dictionaries. So the advantage of looking at various versions is that they bring out certain emphasis. Right. So the reason I put Raymond's translation is because he uses the word actions instead of word works. So works, you know, for, for some of us works, he's like, okay, what is it? Well, it simply means actions. Right. So that's why I put Raymond's translation purposely to highlight that word. Now I am using King, I use New King James, but I'm trying to use, I'm trying to move to the New American Standard Bible 2020 edition. I will explain to you, you know, how these translations work. So the New King James is word for word, but the NASB is the one that's closest to the original text. So I'm kind of slowly kind of use, trying to use both. And of course I compare various versions. Okay. Sean, excellent example of faith should be followed by action is Mark chapter four versus 35 to 41 Mark. Mark four, 35 to 41. Okay. Yes. Okay. So it's about them crossing over the Red Sea, crossing over the sea and the water and the storms arise. So on. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. Let me try to finish. We have just few more minutes. Sri Radha. It's just in the Bible that we are saved not because of works, but Jesus on the cross. We said it and believed in our hearts men say it was through our works and faith that we were saved as you can. So we were saved through our works. No. So we are saved by grace through faith. Right. So salvation is by grace through faith. Now, what we are talking about is about expressing our faith. So now that you're saved, show your salvation, work out yourself to demonstrate your salvation, demonstrate your faith in God by doing practical stuff, doing things. And we're also talking about faith in God and other things, faith in God for healing, faith in God for other things. How do we exercise that faith? Well, you've got to, one of the ways is you've got to show it through action. Okay. So we're not talking about being saved. We're saying because you're saved, this is how you exercise faith in God. All right. Are we all good for today? All right. So let's pause here. I want to ask somebody to pray with a class and then we will dismiss. We will continue this next week. And we will go forward. Could somebody just pray with a class and then we will dismiss, please. Laura, thank you for this day. Thank you, Jesus, that we have learned a lot today about faith and how we must put into action. And that without words is that, thank you, Jesus, that your audience here, the teachers, to guide us to help the children. So maybe put up with me, Jesus, or that you have given us. Processors to help us understand your word, to live a greater life filled with faith. And thank you, Jesus, that we have been with our influencers and the host with the leading guide us. And thank you all for everything and thank you for the time that we have. And thank you, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you, everyone, for connecting to the class. Have a good break and enjoy your next class. Thank you. Bye now. Thank you, everyone.