Have you ever seen what happens if you try to run straight gasoline in a two-cycle engine?  It will burn it up and shut it down.

If you mix baking soda with white vinegar, it will react, bubble, and expand in a container.  But if you mix baking soda with water, it does nothing.

Some things just will not work properly without the right mixture. This is also true of the gospel. The Scriptures reveal that it requires being mixed with something in order to work.

Hebrews 4:2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

According to the word of God, a person can hear the gospel, but if it is not mixed with faith, nothing will come of it.

What is the evidence of the gospel being mixed with faith?  We know that if we mix oil and gas in a two-cycle engine, it will run well.  Likewise, we know that if we mix baking soda with white vinegar, it will react.

What happens when faith is mixed with the gospel?

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.

Hebrews 4:10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

The evidence of faith in the gospel is the fruit of resting in Jesus’s finished work. It is the act of truly being confident and convinced that the righteousness of God is really my righteousness now that I am in Christ Jesus. I do not have to wring my hands in worry about my relationship with God.

When someone is frantically trying their hardest to “hang on to God” and impress others with their devotion to the law of Moses or an idea of a higher moral standard of morality that they can lord over others, that is not the fruit of a gospel mixed with faith.

Faith in the gospel will always produce a rest forged on the anvil of Jesus’s finished work. It will always deliver a person from dead works rooted in their best effort to obtain or maintain their right standing with God.  A gospel mixed with faith bears the fruit of security in Christ as opposed to oneself.  That is why faith and the gospel together are a proper mixture indeed.  If you wrestle with insecurity, ask the Holy Spirit for a fresh gospel revelation and for His help in removing any doubt out of the way.  Get a proper mixture of gospel and faith working in your soul, and you will find rest for your soul!