Unbelief
I.
It’s very irreverent to
not trust God
A. When we reverence God we
trust Him (Psalm 115:11)
1. Trust – To have
confidence, be confident, to be bold, to feel safe, be careless, lean on
2. Psalm 86:2 (AMP) –
Leaning and believing on Him, committing all and confidently looking to Him,
without fear or doubt is to trust him
3. It would be irreverent
to:
a. Not trust in him
b. Not be confident in him
c. Not be bold
d. Not be careless, be
fearful or be in doubt (that makes worry extremely irreverent)
e. Not lean on him –
Leaning or relying on another source for support is irreverent
B. Reverence and trust
(Psalm 31:19, 34:7-9)
II.
The irreverence of unbelief;
there’s no greater manifestation of irreverence than walking in unbelief
A. Out of my respect and
reverence for God, I trust Him (Psalm 40:3)
1. My respect and reverence
for God is going to give birth to faith, trust, and belief in what He says
B. They continually
questioned the validity or truth of what Jesus said and in doing so they
dishonored Him (John 8:13-59)
1. The theme here is that
they didn’t believe Jesus
2. 13-They told Jesus that
was He was saying is not valid (true) and it was worthless (had no worth)
3. 49-The didn’t honor and
reverence Jesus and we can see that in their lack of trust in what he says
a. The dishonored him with
their unbelief
b. They were basically
saying that we don’t value you or what you’re saying as important because it’s
not true
C. When you say that you
don’t believe a person it’s very irreverent because it questions the very core
and nature of a man; the very heart of who he is
1. Satan is the Father of
lies (John 8:44)
a. Lying is his very nature
and make up; there’s no truth in him
b. Lying is at the core of
who he was from the beginning (Genesis 3:4, 2 John 1:7, Revelation 12:9)
2. Truth is the very nature
and the very heart of God
a. Everything about Him is
truth
(1)
His
Word (James 1:18, John 17:17)
(2)
His
Spirit (John 16:13)
(3)
Himself
(John 14:6)
b. God cannot lie (Numbers
23:19, Titus 1:2)
(1)
Us
knowing that God is a God of integrity and truth is very important to Him
(Hebrews 6:18, Psalm 89:34)
3. God hates lying and when
you don’t believe His word you are calling Him something that he hates
(Proverbs 6:17, 8:13)
a. Unbelief is rooted in you
acknowledging something that God says as being a lie
(1)
To
be in unbelief you have to acknowledge that what God says is a lie
(2)
Most
believers would never say they don’t believe what God is saying with their
mouths, but do make that confession with their attitude
(a) Romans 15:13 –
There’s joy and peace in believing and discouragement and worry in unbelief
b. In a sense unbelief says
that God is the son of the Father of Lies, Satan himself
4. EX: Imagine your spouse
telling you something that you have no way of knowing that it is true, but by
believing them when they tell you it’s true. Then you respond back with I don’t
believe you. That’s irreverent and
disrespectful. You’re questioning
the very core and the very nature of who they are.
D. Reverence is a
willingness to do whatever is necessary to build faith in overwhelming desire
to not want be irreverence towards God in unbelief
III.
The reverence of faith
A. Romans 4:16-21
1. 19-The report of my body
and her body is not valid, it’s of no worth, it means nothing to me I don’t
consider it
a. When you choose to attend
to the evil report and that report effects your
attitude you are saying, “Lord what you say is not valid and it has no
worth. What God says means nothing
to me because you I don’t believe it to be true.”
b. The report that is valid
and has worth in your eyes is the one that you give attention to and the one
that effects your attitude
c. 18-The report of God is
what’s valid to him, it’s of worth to him, and he’s considering it
2. 20-AMP-This is reverence
(Psalm 86:2)
3. I don’t know of a greater
manifestation of irreverence than to tell you God you don’t believe Him. At the same time I don’t know of
anything more reverent than when it looks like God’s word is not true, it looks
like His word is not so, and it looks like His Word is never coming to pass and
you stand up and say out of reverence and respect for my Father I trust Him.
B. Genesis 22:1-12 –
Abraham was reverent because he trusted God
1. Genesis 21:12 – He
had the promise that through Isaac his seed was going to be called
2. Hebrews 11:17-19 –
He trusted God and His Word
3. God knew that Abraham
feared him because he didn’t withhold his most valuable thing in his life, but
Abraham didn’t withhold the most valuable thing in his life because he trusted
God
C. Genesis 6-7, Hebrews 11:7
– Out of reverence for God Noah trusted God and built that ark for 100
years before that flood came
D. Faith reverences God and
pleases Him (Hebrews 11:6)
1. Faith shows God respect
and reverence
a. It shows God that I
respect, reverence, and honor you and your Word more than I do anything or
anybody else’s word (Romans 3:3)
(1)
Part
of believing God is when you value what He says over anybody and anything
else
2. Watch unbelief in our
songs and in our conversation
a. I never want to do, say,
or think anything that says I don’t believe God
b. To believing something to
be true that is in opposition to what God says is to call God a liar; how
irreverent