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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

01 Reality Check

02 To Know God

03 Pride Versus Humility

04 The Role of the Bible

05 How to Study the Bible

06 Prayer Warriors

07 Practical Prayer

08 Having Faith

09 Sin, the Gospel, and the Law

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Continuing right along with our Growing in a Relationship with God study series, this week we are on lesson 8 titled simply, Having Faith.

Now we've looked at prayer in our relationship with God the last couple of weeks and now we're moving into faith.

This whole quarter, Pastor Howard, has been about practical elements in a dynamic relationship with God and it would seem silly to talk about a relationship with God without mentioning some study on faith.

Right, because as we mentioned in our last lesson, without faith it's impossible to please him.

So we don't want to make for a good relationship.

This week I actually put the talking points together and I think We don't have any other preliminary comment that we need to cover No, so why don't I pray and then you can walk us through those talking points for this.

All right Father in heaven We are so thankful for your word and we ask Lord that this week as we review this lesson that you would bless this presentation and bless all of our teachers and participants across the world feel that this study will draw us closer to you, will deepen our relationship with you, will help us to be better witnesses for you, and help us to be ready when you come again.

As we start to outline this week's lesson, I want to again affirm the contributor and the editors who put this lesson together because I have found in preparation for these lessons that Sabbath afternoon seems to have a usually a very clear like this is what we're gonna cover this week and at the end of the lesson there's a nice summary of this is what we just covered this week so we find both of those elements in this week's lesson also.

So from Sabbath afternoon paragraph 3 our lesson intro says, this week let's explore the topic of faith, What to do with doubt and unbelief, what, according to Jesus, strong faith looks like, and what it means to have the faith of Jesus.

Now, there's a lot of things kind of piled in there, but my takeaway from that is basically anything that touches on faith that we should have is kind of covered in this lesson, at least some element.

So I'm guessing a lot of classes could pull out 1 of those elements and feature it or try to do a survey and what we're doing this week is trying to cover all of it but in an organized simple way.

Not just maybe, definitely in 3 talking points.

Why don't you tell us, why don't you take us through those 3 talking points, Cameron?

Talking point number 1, faith is absolute trust based on abundant evidence.

That's from Sunday, I mean Sabbath, Sunday, and Tuesday's lesson.

That'll be the largest 1 probably in our discussion, my guess, but problem number 2 is also important.

Faith is only as strong as it is practiced.

Okay, again, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, it's a good portion of this week's lesson, but faith is not just a theory or something you have and you keep in a warehouse or on a shelf, it's practiced and exercised.

And finally, and most importantly of all perhaps, we can and must have the faith of Jesus.

This is from Thursday, but till as day people are those who have faith of Jesus and we got to know what that means.

Faith is absolute trust based on abundant evidence.

The quintessential faith passage is Hebrews chapter 11.

Pastor Howard, if you'd be so kind, would you simply read verse 1 as we get our start to grasp what faith even is before we know how to apply it and experience of it?

Hebrews 11 verse 1 says, God who at various times and various ways spoke and times passed through the prophets, through the fathers and the prophets.

Hebrews 11 verse 1 says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Okay, faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Or as the memory verse says from the New Living Translation, faith shows the reality of what we hope for, it is the evidence of things we cannot see.

Now I think it's, I've always kind of thought it was fascinating that in this description of faith, the word evidence is put in there.

And you would think like well faith is kind of the antithesis of evidence.

Evidence wouldn't be faith, it would be just trust in a thing you can see.

But apparently there is a relationship between faith and evidence that God expects us to have.

You know, we were built as thinking people with brains and a logical, you know, processing in our minds that God, I think, expects us to do.

Remember when it comes to the problem of sin, he says, come let us reason together.

God has given us a brain and expects us to use it as rational, reasonable people.

And the same applies with faith, that yes, it is trusting in something we don't see, but it's based on some stuff we do see, evidence, right?

So, Steps to Christ, page 105, this was not found in the lesson but I just had to put it in there if you'd read that for us.

It says, God never asks us to believe without giving sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith.

His existence, his character, the truthfulness of his word are all established by testimony that appeals to our reason.

Yet God has never removed the possibility of doubt.

Our faith must rest upon evidence, not demonstration." I love that.

Faith rests on evidence, not demonstration.

So a faith that always had to be seen, that would be demonstration and that's not faith, but it's not also opposed to evidence, it's built on evidence and because of the evidence we can step forward in faith in what we don't see yet.

I'm just thinking about faith is another way of saying trust, at least 1 way of saying trust or trust is 1 way of saying faith.

Like trust doesn't just come, it has to be built.

I've got to, you've got to, I've got to know you're trustworthy by evidence.

There are evidences that as I view those evidences and interact with them, then my trust in you grows.

Well, it's not any different with the Lord.

The Lord gives us evidences so that he doesn't expect us to blindly trust him, to trust him based on the track record that he's revealed himself.

But as we see that track record, he then expects us to trust that if those evidences are clear.

If we didn't, then that's to your point that you just made, that there would be no faith.

There's no need for faith if it's like every step of the way it's like, nope, I got to see it first.

There's a point where because you've demonstrated yourself trustworthy, you get to a situation like, whoa, what are we doing here?

Like, look man, you're gonna have to trust me right now.

And to our next sub point, faith is a gift from God.

Well, first of all, as we mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, you've already brought out how faith, the Bible says without faith it's impossible to please God, so it is a vital necessary element of our Christian experience, a trusting faith in God.

At the same time, in the book of Romans, are you looking up Romans chapter 12?

Well, I was looking up Hebrews 11 verse 6.

Alright, alright, because you said 11, I'm like, oh that's interesting.

Well, now I'm headed to Romans, so let's just erase it.

For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly as God has dealt to each 1 a measure of faith." As God has, so we're to behave as God has given us a measure of faith, right?

The implication being, well not even implication, the explicit statement here is that God is the source of our faith.

So the very faith that God demands us to have, because without faith it's impossible to please God, he provides by giving us this quote measure of faith.

So just like everything, if we need repentance, absolutely, but he gives it to us as a gift.

So in salvation, in our experience with God, there are necessary things that he says you have to have them, but you could have the pressure, well how do I conjure that up?

You can't work it up, you can't think it up, it has to be given, and then as God gives it, we exercise it and grow it.

So this, like every other element of the Christian life, is a gift from God that we need to have and he provides.

Yeah, we've talked about this before in the terms of creation, God's the uncaused cause of everything.

In other words, we're not the source of anything, so whether it be faith or trust or whatever else, God had to originate it.

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Series

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

08 Having Faith

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 Reality Check

30m

02 To Know God

30m

03 Pride Versus Humility

31m

04 The Role of the Bible

30m

05 How to Study the Bible

29m

06 Prayer Warriors

29m

07 Practical Prayer

29m

08 Having Faith

28m

09 Sin, the Gospel, and the Law

28m

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