Pastor Joel Weben argues that true faith requires building entirely on Christ, citing Psalm 127:1 to assert that human labor without divine foundation is in vain. He contrasts this with secular good deeds, insisting believers must prioritize God's glory over human flourishing while strictly obeying the Ten Commandments. Weben interprets prohibitions against stealing and false witness as mandates to oppose civil theft and reject unnecessary cloth masks, labeling the latter as harmful virtue signaling. Ultimately, he concludes that lasting covenants and societal work succeed only when founded on Christ's gospel rather than selective adherence or pseudo-Christ teachings. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
Text
Building in Faith and Grace00:07:47
Quick note, we are officially consolidating our Questions and Theology Applied podcast under one feed.
In addition to the typical Theology Applied episode you've come to expect on Tuesdays, you'll now receive an episode of our show called Questions on this same feed every Friday.
Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show, would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five star review?
This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
Thanks.
Hi, this is Pastor Joel Weben with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of our show called Questions.
Today's question is as follows How do Christians build in faith?
How do Christians build in faith?
I've written down a few notes for this one.
I'm going to go ahead and read that now, starting with Psalm 127, verse 1.
Psalm 127, verse 1 says this Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Fleshing that out a bit more, I've written a little bit of commentary on that text.
Here's the following.
Just as God works through covenants, so must we.
Before beginning a work, we must count the cost and resolve to finish it.
The work of sanctifying the self begins with conversion and a covenant to Christ in baptism.
The work of building a home begins with marriage and a covenant to our spouse in a wedding ceremony.
The work of building the church begins with church membership and a covenant to the other members.
Of the church, and even the work of building in society often begins with a trade and some form of legal contract.
All lasting covenants have Christ as their foundation.
However, a man cannot select his own preferred Christ or a pseudo Christ.
Rather, he must have the Christ of the Bible.
In addition to having the right Christ, a man must also have the whole Christ.
You cannot choose for yourself certain portions of Christ.
While discarding others that offend your sensibilities.
To avoid building in vain, therefore, we must have the right Christ and the whole Christ as our one and only foundation.
And if our building is to last, that is, to endure, we must have Christ below, but also Christ above.
We must build upon Christ, Christ below, with faith in his gospel and obedience to his law.
But we must also have Christ above.
That is, we must build to Christ with the earnest desire for his glory and his fame.
In other words, to have Christ as the foundation of our building is to build in faith.
And to build in faith is to build with a reliance on Christ's grace and a desire for Christ's glory.
Now, I know that's a lot.
Let me break it down just a little bit more.
Romans 14 says, anything not done in faith is sin.
Have you ever stopped and thought about that?
Or think of Hebrews that says, without faith, it is impossible to please him.
There are multiple portions of scripture that basically argue this basic principle that even if you are doing something in your outward behaviors and actions that would align with the moral will of God, but it is apart from faith, it is ultimately sin.
If we are behaving in such a way, our outward behaviors are aligning with the moral will of God, but it is not done in faith, it is ultimately sin.
It is an offense to God.
Apart from faith, even our good works are filthy rags.
Our righteousness is but filthy rags in the sight of God.
So the question is this What is it to do something in faith?
What does it mean?
To act in faith, what does it mean to have my behaviors and my thoughts and my speech, my everything about me, my whole person?
What is it to live in faith?
And I have defined that as simply as I can to live in faith, to act in faith, think in faith, speak in faith, feel in faith, everything that we do, our whole person, to live in faith is to live.
With a reliance on God's grace and a desire for God's glory.
See, the atheist could cure cancer doing something that outwardly is good.
The atheist could help walk a sweet old lady across the street.
The atheist could remain faithful in marriage throughout the course of their entire life.
The atheist could not cheat on their taxes.
The atheist could be very diligent to never use vulgar speech.
The atheist could be a good dad in many regards or a good mom in many regards.
But at the end of the day, the life of the atheist, even their best works and their best deeds and their best thoughts and their best words, are an offense, an affront to the holiness of God.
Filthy rags.
Why?
Because an atheist will never do anything.
Even if their behaviors outwardly align with the moral law of God, it will never be done in faith.
That is.
The atheist will never live with a reliance on God's grace and a desire for God's glory.
At best, we might say that the atheist is relying on the strength, the beauty, the intelligence, and the gifts of humanity.
And they're doing all that they do with a desire for the flourishing of humanity, the good of humanity.
One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
But that is still not in faith.
To do something in faith is relying on God's grace and desiring God's glory.
The Christian, when living by faith, when righteously acting in faith, the Christian is saying, What I'm about to do, I could not do if it were not for the grace of God that strengthens me, that keeps me, that sustains me, that empowers me and enables me to live in accordance with God's.
Will.
So, what I'm about to do, I'm only doing because of the grace of God.
I am completely dependent and reliant upon God's grace.
And I'm doing it not just for my good and not just for the good of humanity, the flourishing of mankind.
No, I am doing it ultimately that God might receive the glory that He is worthy of, the glory that He is rightly due.
That is what it is to build in faith.
So, back to the original question.
How do Christians build in faith?
How do they build in such a way that things will last?
Well, to build in such a way that our work in this life, our accomplishments in this life, are building in doors for generations.
Loving Our Neighbor00:07:02
How do we do that?
We must build in faith.
You want to build in a way that lasts, build in faith.
What does it mean to build in faith?
It means to build upon Christ as the foundation and up to Christ in terms of his pleasure, his glory, his fame.
That's how we build.
Now, what does it mean to build upon Christ as a foundation?
It's a reliance on his grace, but it's also an adherence to his commandments.
To build upon Christ is to build in accordance with Christ's blueprint.
Christ's commandments, of which, just to be specific here for a moment, he has two Matthew 22, 37.
And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest commandment.
And the second is like it.
Matthew 22, 39 now, that you should love your neighbor as yourself.
Christ's two commandments is to love the Lord and to love our neighbor.
And these two commandments ultimately serve as two tables of Of the law of God, that is the moral and eternal law of God, which we find in the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20.
To love the Lord our God, the greatest commandment from Christ, is exposited for us in the first four of the Ten Commandments Do not have any other gods before me, do not make any graven images, do not take the name of the Lord in vain, and remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
How do we love the Lord our God?
With all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and elsewhere?
Jesus says, and with all our strength, we do this by not having any other gods before him.
We do this by not making any graven images.
We do this by not taking the name of the Lord in vain.
And we do this by remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.
How do we love our neighbor?
The second greatest commandment.
How do we love our neighbor as we love ourselves?
Well, we don't get to define that.
That's not up to our own creative license and freedom.
Why do I think this is loving to my neighbor?
I think that is loving to my neighbor.
No.
What does Jesus say?
What does the Bible say is loving to our neighbor?
Well, that's the second table.
Of the Ten Commandments, Commandment number five through ten, starting with Commandment number five, honor your father and mother.
Your father and mother are your neighbors.
Honor them.
Commandment number six, do not murder your neighbor.
Thou shalt not commit murder.
Commandment number seven, thou shalt not commit adultery.
Your spouse is your neighbor.
You must be faithful in marriage to your spouse.
Commandment number eight, thou shalt not steal.
And that doesn't just mean you personally sneaking into the window of your neighbor while he's sleeping at night and taking some jewelry, but that also means you cannot vote for civil theft.
You cannot vote for certain political parties that want to legalize national theft, where certain individuals are all of a sudden entitled to something that someone else has earned.
So that's commandment number eight thou shalt not steal.
Commandment number nine thou shalt not bear false witness.
I am not loving my neighbor when I lie to my neighbor or when I perpetuate by my compliance and complacency lies that my neighbor has already been fed, aka wearing three masks.
When there's no reason to do so, when the CDC has actually come out and officially said that if you're wearing a cloth mask, it's fashion.
Even the CDC has said that at this point.
So if I'm wearing a cloth mask, even according to the lying CDC, I'm bearing false witness.
I'm virtue signaling.
I'm not protecting my neighbor and his physical health.
I'm perpetuating a mode of nationwide panic and fear.
It is deceptive and harms my neighbor.
Lastly, commandment number 10 thou shalt not covet.
I shall not envy what God has sovereignly chosen to assign to my neighbor.
And I cannot seek to make that mine through any kind of neo Marxist ideology.
That is not loving my neighbor.
So, how do we build in a way that will last?
We need to build in faith.
How do we build in faith?
Well, to do anything in faith is a reliance on God's grace, a desire for God's glory.
It is to have Christ as the foundation of our building.
Psalm 127, verse 1.
Unless the Lord Builds the house.
Those who build it labor in vain.
How do I ensure that the Lord is building the house?
Why need to have the Lord as the foundation of the house, building the house on the rock and not on the sand?
For Christ to be my foundation, that is to rely on his gospel, believing his gospel, faith in his gospel, and obedience to his commandments.
He has two commandments love the Lord our God, love our neighbor as ourselves.
Where do we go to find out what it looks like to obey those two commandments?
The Ten Commandments.
So, I am obeying his commandments and trusting in his gospel.
That is what it is to have Christ as the chief stone, to have Christ as the foundation of our life, the foundation of our building.
So, we want to build upon Christ, building in faith, but also we want to build to Christ, relying on his gospel, obedience to his commands, but also with a desire for his glory and his fame.
That Christ is not only our foundation, but he is our aspiration, he is our heart's desire.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And who is there on earth beside you?
He is the portion of my heart forever.
That more than anything else, I don't want to just make a name for myself and I don't even want to just better humanity.
I want all that I do to ultimately, first and foremost, to bring glory to Christ.
When we build in this way faith in the gospel, obedience to God's commandments, and a desire for Christ's glory, we can be sure that we are not building alone, but that the Lord Himself. Is building the house and he is building it upon himself as its very foundation.
And he is building this house through us to himself for his eternal and lasting glory.
Because all of this, by the grace of God, is being done in faith.
And that is how we live a life in our speech and our thoughts and our actions and behaviors that we create, we produce, we build in such a way that it lasts and endures for generations.
That's our episode for today.
I hope it was helpful.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks so much for listening.
But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.