TOPIC:‌"A Revolutionary Faith for Contemporary Times"

                  by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Romans 5:1-11

 

‌‌"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (5:1).

 

‌If ever there was a time when people needed a revolutionary faith by which to live it is today. Things and places all around us are being destroyed. Look at the recent devastation of the Gulf coastal area by hurricane Katrina. But the faith which so many professed church people have today lacks genuine confidence in God's absolute sufficiency of meeting their needs, forgiving their sins, overcoming their failures, and giving them a real purpose for living.

 

‌These people read about the great and glowing examples of faith upon the pages of the Word of God, but they have no real assurance of such faith within their own hearts. They listen to the Pastor's sermons, they recite the church creeds, and they even profess to have had some kind of religious experience, but in reality they have no living, contagious faith in the risen Christ.

 

‌On this Sunday, the Lord of glory with the help of the Apostle Paul, wants to turn our feeble, and sometimes dull faith, into a flaming and radiant trust in Jesus Christ. Let's begin our journey which leads to a revolutionary faith for these days in which we live.

 

I.

 

‌Consider, to begin with, a THEORY which needs to be DISCARDED. Leaving the text for just a moment, I want you to turn with me to chapter 12 of Romans and look at the words found in verse 3: "according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."

 

‌There is an enormous amount of confusion today over the belief that some people have faith and that others do not. That is not true! The fact is that all people have faith. It is an element of human nature that God has given to each one of us. It is universal and there is no human being in all the world without it. The difference lies in the object of their faith and what they believe. But the fact is that faith is a universal element and practical exercise found everywhere in human experience.

 

‌Take for example the difference between Christians and Muslims. The truth is that both of these groups have faith. The difference lies in the fact that the object of the Christian's faith is Jesus Christ and what He taught, while the object of the Muslim's faith is Mohammad and what he taught. Consider this: One man may put his faith in the sun, the moon, or in a venomous, slithering, slippery cobra, while the other man puts his trust in a sympathetic, suffering Christ who died on a hideous cross at Calvary. And get . . .