Knowing Whom We Believe: A Life Verse That Anchors Faith | Graham Murray

Who Before What: The Foundation of Faith

I know whom I serve before I know what some people will say, "What do you believe?" But it's who I believe that really qualifies what I can say about what I believe in.

Second Timothy chapter 1, verse 12 says: "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

This is a bond of promise, and it is a gold standard. It is an immovable and unshakeable promise that God will look over and take care of that which we have given to him. When you give your life to Christ and seek to follow him, you have to remember that it is in the hands of God that you progress and grow.

This verse of scripture was the first scripture I ever committed to memory when I was saved at the age of 15. I didn't know a great deal, but this one impacted me. It has never diminished, never faded in its impact, and it still is powerful because the word of God is a living word - it doesn't grow old or stale.

The Power of Kept Promises

I have to know whom before I know what, until I know him. All the other words may just be technical, but when I know him, then I know in whom I have believed.

Like many, you've probably been asked repeatedly: "What do you believe?" I always counteract that by trying to explain who I believe before I can qualify what. Because without the who, the what is just technical.

I didn't know anything about theological spiritual truth at the age of 15 when I put my hand up in church and said I wanted to receive Christ as my personal Saviour. But I knew that I knew that I knew what I had done that day. And I also knew that God was gonna have to carry me and hold me and keep me.

Let me share a memory that came to mind. I made a decision on a Sunday night and somebody counselled me, then I was handed over to the youth leader, Kevin Tugwell, who went on to be a minister himself. He said to me, "Well, you've made a decision for Jesus. You wanna come to the youth meeting on Wednesday?" They really were fishing all the time. "You gotta come on Wednesday."

So I said, "Okay, it's a youth meeting. I'll be there." And he said, "I will wait outside the church door for you."

I had to catch a bus to church, and just 15 years old, I was thinking, "If he's not there, I'm going home." Because a promise made and a promise kept is powerful, but a promise made and a promise broken is shattering.

I went to the corner of the street across from what is now Cardiff City Church, and I hid behind a post. I was saying to myself, "If he's not there, I'm going home." And lo and behold, he came out and just stood there and waited. And I thought, "He meant it." That commitment anchored me.

You have to know in whom you believe to qualify what you believe.

A Legacy of Faith

The Apostle Paul was writing to his protégé Timothy, highlighting some of the most important things in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 2-7:

"To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve with a clear conscience, as did my fathers, when I remember you constantly in my prayers. As I remember your tears, I long night and day to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I am sure dwells in you as well. Hence I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and of love and self-control."

This speaks directly to a spiritual legacy of my own. My grandmother and ultimately my mother and myself were all in the same church - it's a connection that I resonate with. Legacy of family growing in God.

My grandmother was saved in a crusade in the early days of Pentecostalism, my mother followed later on, backslid for a little while. I became a Christian, she came back to the Lord fully, and so we were bonded in that respect.

When God Provides Before We Even Know We Need It

Now, let me ask my wife Linda to share a very important story in our life as we started ministry straight out of college, green as grass, with no more experience other than a local church, and we found ourselves in no man's land.

[Linda Murray shares their testimony]

It was an ordinary working day. We got up and were gonna go shopping. We had a small baby, our very first child. In those days, we're talking nearly 50 years ago, we had a very, very limited income and I had to be very careful. When we did our shopping, everything was written down to the very penny.

So off we go to do our shop. When we get home, we lived upstairs in a flat. We climbed up the stairs. The baby was crying, so I put her down and we put the shopping in the kitchen. As I was settling her down, we heard the dustman coming.

I remembered I hadn't put our rubbish out. So I said to Graham, "The rubbish isn't out." And he, as a good husband said to me, "Don't worry, I'll take it down for you. Where is it?" And I said, "It's in the carrier bags in the kitchen."

So you know what's gonna come, don't you? He bounded down the stairs - he was young then. When he came up, I thought, "Oh, the baby was settled, I'll go and put the shopping away." And as I went into the kitchen, I looked, and you know what happened? No shopping.

So I just looked at Graham and said, "Where's the food? Where's the shopping?" And he looked at me and it hit him full on in his face. There was nothing. It was just like, and I could read, "What have I done? What have I done?"

And he went, "Don't worry, I'll go and get it. Maybe I can get it back." And he ran down the stairs and I'm like, "Well, if he does get it back, I can't eat it. It's been in the rubbish bin."

When he came back upstairs all despondent, he just looked at me and said, "It was all chomped up, threw it in the van, it's gone." And I just looked at him and being quite emotional because the baby wasn't very old, I just started crying.

So I did a very British thing. I said, "Let's put the kettle on, we'll have a cup of tea." We sat down drinking this tea and I opened my purse and said, "Graham, I've only got two pence in my purse. What are we gonna do for the rest of the week?" And he just looked at me - he was just shocked.

We decided we'd have another cup of tea, but we needed to get the milk. It was in the days when the milkman used to leave milk bottles outside. So we went down the stairs - he didn't bound that time. The door out into the hallway was glass so he could see something there and he couldn't open the door.

He pushed and pushed, and in the end managed to squeeze out. There was a huge cardboard box, the type the old fashioned TVs came in - the big square ones, those really old fashioned heavy ones. And it was full of food.

But on the top was a note that said: "I went out to do my shopping early this morning, and God impressed on me that I had to buy you this food because you were going to need it."

See, God knows, doesn't he? We know in whom we have believed.

So Graham came up the stairs often, "Look at this food, look what's happened!" We unpacked it all - it took stages to unpack. We had more food that lasted us longer than that week. When we were opening it, there were top quality tea bags, coffee, a large tin of red salmon. And at the bottom of this box was a big packet of top quality toilet rolls. You couldn't get better than that, could you?

We just unpacked and it was testimony to know that our God knew what my husband did that morning. He was a champion of a husband that morning, but God's good, and he met our need even before we ever knew we needed it. It's the God whom we know.

The text that comes to mind every time we think about it: "Before you call, I will answer."

The Power of God's Plans and Purposes

There's an underlying truth we should never underestimate: the power of the plans of God and the purposes of God in our life. Even when you can't see the end of the story, the story is still unfolding, and it hasn't finished yet.

The world wishes to sift us like wheat, but we must pray without ceasing. The only thing I can share with you from this personal testimony is that God is faithful and cannot be unfaithful. If there's a blip in it, the blip is mine. I'm the one that throws the good food away, and God is the one that gives us better food back.

Never underestimate the power and plans of God. Grace flows through generations.

A Legacy That Speaks Beyond the Grave

My mother's sister eventually got saved - that's my aunt - and then my uncle that she married became an elder in their church. They had two children, Sarah and Michelle. Michelle was born with a life threatening and life limiting condition. She exceeded all medical prognosis, lived longer than the doctors ever said she could, and became a very powerful believing Christian.

In her last moments of life, literally her last moments in the hospital, with the family around and the doctor there who had watched over her through years of struggle, she turned to the doctor and said, "Do you know Jesus?"

He put his head down and said, "I don't think I know him like you." She never got to hear that because she went home - her last words on earth: "Do you know Jesus?"

She had written while going through her schooling days many little stories, which eventually got put into a booklet. Let me read one called "Only a Prayer Away":

"Why does God seem so far away? I hear so many people say, 'Why doesn't he always come to our aid?' The answer is they haven't prayed. You see, prayer is like a telephone call, and the Lord assures us he'll answer the call. You can't expect him to answer unless you pray. So get in touch with God and don't delay.

Prayer should say more than just 'I want' though, and be prepared for him to say no. God cares so much, and for your own sake, try to give him back a little instead of just take, take, take. In heaven, God patiently waits for you. The words do not matter, his spirit will do. All he asks is you come before him each day, and with a willing loving heart to simply pray.

So open up your feelings to the Lord right now, whether it's for forgiveness or a solemn vow, whether you're scared, worried or thinking of the newest day. The Lord's glad to hear. Remember, he's only a prayer away."

She was under 15, and she knew him in such a way that she shook doctors and anyone she spoke to. But that's the magnitude of a personal relationship with Jesus.

Hold Fast to What You Have

Paul encourages his protégé Timothy to hang on and be faithful in everything. If you're the first believer in your family to know Jesus, you carry the opportunity of creating a legacy of bringing others through prayer into a knowledge of Christ.

There's Paul chained in prison, soon to face his death, and he says to Timothy: "Hold fast." I pass those ancient words onto you: Hold fast. You have no idea of all the plans God has for you.

And then comes the verse that reminded me and stayed with me all through the years: "I know in whom I have believed and have decided in my heart to trust." All important personal encounter with Christ Jesus.

Faith and Works: Companions, Not Competitors

I'm not talking about an intellectual ideology, I'm not talking about theology alone. Study theology - it's important, it's a necessity to be able to unravel and unpack and understand what's said in ancient languages. But that never saved anybody. Having a qualification in theology doesn't save anyone.

What brings people to Christ is that you show him in your life, and he shines through you, and he keeps encouraging you to keep going, to hang in there.

James chapter 2, verses 14-17 says: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

Faith without works is dead. In all the faith you can say you possess, but if you do nothing with it, it's withering on the vine. These two things, faith and works, they're not in conflict. They work together. They're complementary.

Meeting the Author of Truth

The impact of the whom before the what is all important to me. I could study all the Bible, I could study all the books about the Bible, I could study all the theology of the Bible, I could study how that is interpreted by other people who wrote about the Bible, but until I meet the author of truth, it's just words.

The impact of the whom qualifies the what. Paul's confidence was always in the one he met on the road to Damascus. He was furious with this new breed of people called Christians, people of the way as they were known. He thought this was anathema to the faith of Judaism.

So he went to the synagogue and to the temple, got letters of authority to hunt them out and hunt them down and bring them back to justice in Jerusalem. There was a thriving group in Damascus, so off he sets with his entourage along the road to Damascus.

The story is well known how Jesus appears to him, and he falls from his steed, and he's on the ground in the dust. "Why do you persecute me?"

If you stop for a moment to realize what Jesus said, he made it personal - the church was under attack, because that's his bride. We are his bride, and he says, "You are torturing my bride, how dare you?"

That was the pivotal point of Paul's conversion. He said, "Who are you?" Jesus said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." Jesus takes the persecution of the church personally.

What Really Matters

So what do I know about Jesus after studying the Bible for so many years, preaching from so many pulpits, counselling so many people, dedicating so many children, baptizing more than I can remember, marrying people? Does that qualify me as someone special?

No, the only thing that I have that I can hold on to is when I meet Jesus, I don't come up with a list: "I dedicated so-and-so, I baptized such-and-such, I preached the gospel, I led somebody to you, I did this, I did that." All he's gonna say to me is: "What did you do with me?"

Because it matters what we do with him. He is important to us as the groom, and we are his bride. "Paul, why do you persecute me? You're hurting my bride."

How treasured are you? How blessed are you?

The Light in the Darkness

It's a fundamental truth that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Hell cannot perceive the joy of heaven. Hell is promising people in the world all the fun of the fair, but there is no fair. It doesn't exist, while God whispers through his spirit, "The joy of the Lord is your strength."

Learning to Listen

Sometimes we go around saying, "Jesus, I need, Jesus, I want." If anything I was taught by my life walking with the Lord, it was to listen.

For almost 50 years, I say this in the lightest possible way, I preached for a living. When we didn't have anything coming in, we had miracles. As soon as church grew and started paying me, the miracles weren't as frequent. They took a different route, but God cares about us.

I learned that he really does care, and I learned to listen. Though I spoke for a living, I learned to listen: "What now, Lord?"

"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." And Mark 4:9 says, "He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church."

So we're called to listen, we're called to know the voice of the Spirit among the clamor of an ungodly world. It's full of ideologies, and there's no faith, there's only fear.

But somewhere in the clamor of life, and if your life is very busy and full of clamor, let me reassure you: somewhere in the noise is a still small voice of the Spirit of God. He's not booming at you, he's not shouting at you, he's whispering to you. Learn how to hear the whispers of God.

Psalm 46 says: "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

The Narrow Road

I understand that God says you were called to a narrow road, and that narrow road is not popular with the world. That narrow road is not walked by the world. The world walks on a wide road, and it leads to destruction, but the narrow road leads to life.

You're not narrow-minded. Christians are not narrow-minded, even if you're accused of it. You're not narrow-minded, you're focused. This is the way - walk in it.

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

Standing in the Fire

Many of us today can recall the words of God through the scriptures that have impacted us greatly, but the one I'm gonna finish with has always amazed me and mystified me. It's from Daniel, Chapter 3.

Daniel had three friends: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They would not bend the knee to a pagan god. They disobeyed a king in favor of doing the right thing before the Lord, and he was angered and threatened them.

This king said, "Bind them up, put all their clothes on, bind them hand and foot, stoke the fire of the furnace seven times hotter than it's ever been stoked before."

You get a picture somewhere in there of what hell is trying to say: "I'll stoke those flames, and you will burn if you keep following Jesus."

And they threw these three men into the fire. Someone said, "I thought we threw three in, there's four in there, and they're standing up untethered, fully clothed, talking to each other, and the flames have not touched them." The king looked in and was fearful.

The fourth one never came out, only the three originals came out, and they never even smelt of smoke because the Lord was the fourth one in there with them.

And whatever fire the world wants to put you in, Jesus will stand beside you, and you will not smell of the evil of the world's fire. You will still smell as sweet as the Spirit called you to be.

Final Words

So listen, learn, and live in the shadow of the Almighty.

The fundamental question isn't what you believe - it's whom you believe. When you know him personally, intimately, through relationship rather than religion, then everything else falls into place. Hold fast to this truth: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

God is faithful. He provides before you even know you need it. He stands with you in the fire. He whispers when the world shouts. And he calls you to walk the narrow road that leads to life.

Listen for his still small voice. Learn to trust his faithfulness. And live knowing that you are treasured as his bride.