The following is a transcription of Pastor Melissa Scott's teaching on the Promises of God as she preached live from the Los Angeles University Cathedral.

Part 1

What Is Faith?

I'm guilty of assuming that everyone knows what Faith is. If you ask people why or what they believe, you will encounter a lot of people that have not learned the basic principles of Christian Faith. For that matter, if you went into their homes and could ask them "What is Faith? Define Faith for me," you would probably not get a complete answer. I confess I love digging into God's Word and pulling it apart. I love grammar, I love history, I love God's Word. Today you will hear a basic Faith message.

Let me start with this. We read in the book of Acts 16:25, Paul and Silas are praying. They're in prison, praying and singing to God at midnight. Now my guess is that at any given time you could read that passage and not focus in on the same word that I'm going to focus on right now. Midnight. At midnight, in a dark cell, probably rat-infested, at midnight. In your life whatever your midnight is—and it can last a minute, it can last an hour, it can last who knows how long.... What I love about Paul is that if we look and analyze his Faith, you will never see it waver. His Faith is always at the same level. "I've learned in whatsoever state I'm in..." a solid not-moving expression of a state of being. That prompted me to think, from my vantage point, that most people have equated Faith with some emotive hope. When things come, when trouble comes, when tribulation comes, when your midnight comes, do you get pushed around? You may have faith in faith, or faith in something else, but Faith in God and what He said is what we are going to talk about.

There are many expressions of Faith in the Bible. There are people in the Bible that you'll encounter, particularly in the Old Testament, who have little or no Faith, for example, Gideon and his vocabulary of doubt. Moses didn't lack Faith. He just said "What am I going to say?" When God called him, he said "Who am I? What am I going to say? What am I going to tell the people?" I don't believe it was a lack of Faith. Remember this is the man that lived in the palaces of Egypt and left them to follow God. That took courage, and courage is a large part of Faith.

We always go back to these basic principles. "Without faith it's impossible to please God" and there's got to be a Faith element in the whole equation. We have been taught Faith is an action. These are the ABC's of Faith: 'Action, based upon belief, sustained by confidence.' It's not based on emotion. People tend to equate Faith with 'I hope' and hope can be crushed, Faith cannot. I'm going to use a picture analogy, "The stone that the builders rejected," your Faith should be as solid as that. The disciples prayed "Increase our faith." That can be our prayer as we grow and study and hear, Faith comes by hearing God's Word. If your Faith increases and increases and then somehow your Faith is on the decline like the Stock Market, you've got something wrong with where you're investing your Faith. I can tell you it's not in God and His Word. For He is God and changes not.

We were reading in Revelation, Jesus is in the midst of the Churches. Now I want you to follow my line of thinking. Jesus is in the midst of the Churches and yet—the letter being sent to the seven Churches in Asia, which is the universal Church, which is the Church through history, through time—yet evil still crept into the Church with Jesus in the midst. I want you to think about that because a lot of people will say "Well, a House of God should never have that." Well, go back to the Garden, that's the original House of God. Satan still found a way in there. That's why we have the Parable of the Wheat and Tares, not only applying to you and me in the world but underneath the canopy of the Church. It says 'Leave it to grow there until harvest time. The wheat I'll put in my barn; the tares will be burnt up, but leave it there until then.'

There are places in God's Book where Faith can't work until He activates it. Let me explain. Read Philemon, in the letter written by Paul to Philemon you'll read something that probably most of us—including myself until I read it, really read it—overlooked. Onesimus stole something from his master, Philemon, and ran away. Philemon's house was an ekklesia, it was a Church and under his master's roof where Onesimus lived, where he served, he couldn't be saved. He stole something and he ran away. Divine providence, believe it or not, made him run to where Paul was—in prison. I don't know how Onesimus heard Paul, but he heard the Gospel preached by Paul and he was saved. It couldn't happen in his own household where he lived and served but it happened there.

Part 2 of the God Promises by Pastor Melissa Scott.

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