======================================================================== YOU ARE WEAK IN FAITH! by Dan Young ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of relying on the Lord's help and being grateful for the people He brings into our lives. It highlights the need to trust in God's provision, even in challenging times, and to cleanse ourselves from defilement of flesh and spirit. The message encourages faithfulness, patience, and humility, reminding believers to lean on the Lord, seek His guidance, and trust in His timing for deliverance and growth. Topics: "Relying on God's Help", "Gratitude for Divine Relationships" Scripture References: 2 Corinthians 1:8, 2 Corinthians 7:1, Exodus 23:20, 1 Corinthians 10:12, James 4:7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of relying on the Lord's help and being grateful for the people He brings into our lives. It highlights the need to trust in God's provision, even in challenging times, and to cleanse ourselves from defilement of flesh and spirit. The message encourages faithfulness, patience, and humility, reminding believers to lean on the Lord, seek His guidance, and trust in His timing for deliverance and growth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm grateful for the people that I have, helping me do that, without them I... I mean, ultimately, without the Lord's help I couldn't do it, but without the people that the Lord has brought into my path, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I'm grateful for that. You know, there's things that we can't do of ourselves, it has to be of the Lord, and I'm thankful that the Lord has mercy on me, and He helps us daily. Every day He helps us, even though we don't see it. And we have much reason to be thankful, even in the little things. And I'm grateful for the help that the Lord has given me. And, you know, recently it's been a challenge, because in our city where we live, there's a shortage of labor. And so I've put out ads for Red Seal technicians, and technicians and the Lord for two months, and I've had not one resume come in. And that's the same for every other shop in the local lower mainland here. And it's very difficult, because you're trying to manage a business, but the Lord has always brought me exactly what I need. The right people, the right crew, I would say, the right team. And I've been so grateful. Recently, I was praying, I said, Lord, I need another guy, because we shifted some of my team to the other shop, and they're doing a great job running it. But I said, I need another guy to help me at this shop, Lord, send somebody. So I had two Red Seal guys apply, and they wanted a job, and they both said yes, they wanted, and then they disappeared. And then they're gone. And I'm like, okay, Lord. But then one day, MCC showed up. And MCC is a local charitable community, or charitable organization. And they had sponsored some immigrants from Ukraine. And they brought a guy, and he was tall like me, huge hands. And he says, are you looking for a mechanic? I said, I am. Does he speak English? He says, no, he does not speak English. I said, that's okay, we'll figure out a way. And so two weeks before that, I had hired another immigrant from Syria. And he had worked for three days, but he had had an injury in his hand. I don't know how he got the injury, but it was hurting him too much. So he couldn't keep going. So I sent him on his way. He gave me a hug, and he says, you're a good man to me. Thank you for giving me a chance. But he didn't speak English either. But only the wives speak English. Whenever he brought his wife there, she could speak English. The Ukrainian guy, only she could speak English. So I was like, okay. I said, you have to bring your wife to work with you. But no, they couldn't do that. So just me and the Ukrainian guy. But every day, we talk to each other through Google Translate. It's a pretty amazing app. It's pretty neat. But we can talk to each other about what to do. And he's worked for me. I just found out that he's been here with me for three weeks. And so some days he asked me, are you a Christian? And he talks about Jesus with me. And he has great faith, this man. At the end of the day, on Friday, he was telling me that, you know, I said, how did you come here? And he's only been here for three weeks. And he's already working for me. And I said, so how do you pay your bills? Like, because it's very expensive to live here. He says, well, MCC was helping me. But now that I have a job, they don't help me anymore. And I was like, well, hold on a sec. Like, I know how much he has three boys. And they're big boys. Like, I'm sure they eat probably more than Josh and Dave. But they eat a lot. You know, and I'm serious. They do. And he said, I asked him, he said, how are you going to pay for the rent and the food? He didn't even respond to me. He says, my God is big. He will help me. And I said, OK. So I said, so I said, how are you going to pay for that? And so then me and him were talking through the translate. So I speak English. And then it speaks Ukrainian to him. And then he comes back to me. And he said to me, he says, you have, he said to me, the last text he said to me was, you have weak faith. That's what he said to me. And I was so convicted. And I said, so like, I said, like, in his home country, he planted three churches in rural areas. He went to small churches. But I said, are you a preacher? He said, yes. My pastor just went away. I'm in charge of the church. I said, wow. And so he said to me, he says, you have weak faith. He says, my God does miracles for us. He has done miracles for me. And I was very convicted because he's right. I do have weak faith. You know, we have so many resources here. We have so many resources. We really have no need. So our faith is very weak when it comes to these things. The Bible is clear about this, that he's chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith. And when they don't have the resources, who do they rely upon? He says, many times I've had no bread on the table, nothing. And nowhere even to get it from. And my God has done miracles. My God, he says, I don't. On my accord, he says, all three of my babies had issues when they were born. And every single time we would pray and the Lord would do something in our child's life. And now there are three healthy boys. So, you know, he said, they're praying for our son, Cameron. But he says, my God is stronger than me. You know, and he said it with sincerity. And it was very convicting the way that he said it. He says, my God is bigger than me. He says, we pray to him. And I was thoroughly convicted by that because it's true. I am weak in faith. I am. I have so many resources, so many people that I can lean upon. But I need to lean upon the Lord. And we tend to forget that, you guys. We lean upon ourselves, our own wisdom, our own ability to get out of the situation. And many times we don't rely upon the Lord. And I'm thankful for this man because he's a tremendous encouragement to me. This is the technician that the Lord has brought to my life. He's the technician. And the team there really likes him. You know, he's a very nice guy. He speaks better Spanish than English. So he may end up going to the other shop. But, you know, he's a good guy. And I'm so grateful. I'm like, Lord, you could have brought me a Red Seal technician who's got 20 years of experience, who can do everything. And this is who you bring me. You bring me a guy who's an encouragement to me, who I'm convicted being around. Because it exposes that I'm weak in faith. You know, we have to be careful that we don't take for granted the things that we have, guys. But we need to learn to lean more on the Lord and not on ourselves. I want to read from 2 Corinthians 1 here. 2 Corinthians 1, it says this, verse 8, For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. You know, it seems that the Lord delivers us in a situation like these, where we have to be burdened excessively so that we even despair even of life. Indeed, we have the sentence of death within ourselves, in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. You know, this is a good reminder for us that we need to trust in the Lord and not in ourselves. And we need to trust in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and He will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, and He will yet deliver us. And you also, joining and helping us through your prayers, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed upon us through the prayers of many. This was my answer to prayer, that the Lord brought this man into my life. And I want to read another verse in 2 Corinthians 7, about the encouragement of brothers who the Lord brings, sometimes to encourage you, but at the same time to also to convict you. 2 Corinthians 7, it says this, Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. This is something that we have to do daily in our own lives. We need to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit. So we need to start with the outward things in our lives that are defiling our members. And this is how we get tempted in our area. We need to ask the Lord to help us to cleanse us, and we need to cleanse ourselves. The Bible doesn't say clearly that the Lord will cleanse us. No, it says here that you need to cleanse yourselves. And before that, it says in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, it says, Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness, or what harmony has Christ with Satan, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? We have to cleanse ourselves of the fellowship that comes from the world. So many times we want to be friends with people around us who don't have the same spirit that we have. And what happens is it ends up affecting us more than them. We want to have a conversation with them. We want to get along with them. Sometimes we even go and hang out with them and spend time with them. But what happens is that defilement ends up coming from them, and it gets in your spirit, and you end up losing the fear of God. You end up thinking those things that once you were convicted about, you no longer have conviction about them anymore. You now make room for them and provision for those things. And this is how we cleanse ourselves of defilement of the flesh and of the spirit. The spirit is what causes us to be defiled. So the things that we see, the things that we hear, the things that we open up our hearts to, these things get in our spirit. And I'll give an example. When you let your child watch a show, what happens to that child after they watch a show? Suddenly their attitude changes. Suddenly they start thinking things that you'd be like, where did this come from? It's because something inside of that has defiled their spirit. And so you have to be on guard about those things. And it's the same thing with us. We have to be on guard about the things that we allow into our life. What do we have in common with Satan? People around us. We have to be careful. That doesn't mean that we hate people and things like that. Not at all. It means that we still love. But we at the same time, we have to guard our own hearts that we don't allow those things into our own lives. And they become idols. It says of the Israelites that when they went into the promised land, that they didn't clear out all the nations around them. They didn't get rid of them. In fact, they allowed them to stay there. And so what happened over time is that the idols of those people in their land suddenly became attractive to the Israelites. And then they started opening themselves up to those things. And it defiled them. And it made God angry. It made God jealous. And because of it, God's judgment came upon the land. And it always had to do with the men turning away from the Lord and turning to the idols of the world. And so we have to be careful that we don't allow those defilements to come into our flesh and into our spirit. We have to be on guard against those things. So we need to be careful and watchful in our hearts. So he says right here, having these promises, brother, let's cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. There's nothing wrong with fear of God. There's nothing wrong with having that fear. You are perfecting holiness in that situation. And that's a good thing. I mean, some of us, we would be in a situation where if we had a, you know, changing a diaper and that dirty diaper gets on your skin, I mean, you quickly wash it off, right? You don't want it. It's gross. After you're done changing, you go wash your hands. I do the kitty litter at home, and I go and I wash my hands and I scrub it really good because I don't want their germs on. But in the same way, when we allow the world to get into our skin and into our thought life and into our hearts, we don't quickly wash it out. No, this is how we become lukewarm. When we become rich and increased in goods, and we become lukewarm towards the Lord. And I fear sometimes that that is the case in my life. And I hope that that's not the case in your life. We don't want to be a lukewarm church, you guys. We don't want to be a lukewarm where we have a love of the world and we have a love of God. Where we have one hand in our own life, our own business, our own success, our own career, our future. And we have one hand, I'm going to serve the Lord. No, my friends, we have to be all in for the Lord. We need to ask our hearts or ask the Lord to change our hearts so that we don't fall into this trap. And this is what can happen in the North American church where we become rich and increased in goods, and we have need of nothing. But we do not know that we're naked, wretched, miserable, poor, blind. That we're not walking with the Lord. And we need to search our hearts and examine ourselves and say, Lord, am I lukewarm? Have I been allowing these things into my life? Forgive me, Lord, for doing these things. I need to have conviction. I'll read here in 2 Corinthians 7. It says right here, Make room for us in your hearts. We wronged no one. We corrupted no one. We took advantage of no one. I do not speak to condemn you. For I've said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. Great is my confidence in you. Great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. I am overflowing with joy in all of our affliction. That's amazing. He had joy in all of his affliction. For even when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side. We had conflicts around us, but we had fears within. But God who comforts the depressed, or God who comforts, the humble is actually the word, comforted us by the coming of Titus. It's amazing that the Lord in a situation like that, when you're discouraged, you have conflicts without, and you have fears within, and you're struggling, that the Lord would send you a brother as an encouragement. Last night, I got a phone call from a brother, Franzi. You know, we need to remember Franzi in our prayers, because he remembered me, and he called me to tell me that he loved me. We had a good conversation. I was blessed by him, that he doesn't have much fellowship in the place that he's at. So we need to remember those brothers and sisters that are around us that we don't talk to very often. We need to pray for them. We need to remind ourselves of them. We have it pretty good here, guys. Some people don't have it as good in other places in the world. Maybe even in Canada, maybe even in Chilliwack or Abbotsford or Langley. We need to remember those around us who may be discouraged. And that one phone call can bring a sense of encouragement to them. Maybe in a family member, somebody that's on your heart. You need to be reminded of that, because this man, Titus, he was moved by the Holy Spirit to go find Paul, and Paul was discouraged. Paul had afflicted. He had conflicts without, and he had fears within, and they had no rest on any side. And what happened was Titus came, and he brought comfort and encouragement to them. I thought here, and I sat here, Lord, this Ukrainian man that you've brought into my life, this man has brought complete conviction to me. Conviction to me. Here's a man who has great faith, and I believe it's, you've sent this to humble me, to show me that it's not about what I can do. It's not of my own might or my own power, but it's by his Spirit. We need to remember that we need to keep moving forward, and we need to humble ourselves before the Lord when he brings those convictions in our life. I'm thankful that there's this example in the Bible of Titus coming and bringing comfort to him. You need to remember when your brothers and sisters are discouraged that you need to reach out to them. And when something comes into your heart to do something, it's not to go out and have a great opportunity to make a life for yourself. You need to remember somebody else's interests above your own. This is how you are not going to stay lukewarm. It's when somebody comes to your mind, and you say, you know what, I'm going to pray for that sister. I'm going to pray for that brother. I'm going to give them a call. I'm going to see how they're doing. When that comes in your mind, and the Holy Spirit prompts you, you need to respond to it. You need to respond to it. Because last night I was encouraged when Franzi called me. I was encouraged by him, and he's going through a terrible situation. I'm not going through a terrible situation. He is. And he's the one who brought encouragement to me. And he's going through a very rough patch. We need to remember those people who are around us, our brothers and sisters, lest we get so caught up with our own lives that we become so selfish. And we have no impact in the life around us of the brothers and sisters that we do nothing for the Lord. We can't be so focused on ourselves, you guys. We need to take our mind off of ourselves and put it on Jesus and say, Jesus, what do you have for us today? And you know what he says? He says this, that I want you to consider that other brother's interest more than your own. What about the angels? He says of the angels that they are ministering spirits sent out by God to bring what? To bring assistance to the seed of Abraham, to those who are of faith. That's their job. Angels are sent out to bring assistance to us. They're not sitting up there thinking about their own bidding. They're thinking about what is your bidding? And he says, I want you to go and help Dan today. I need you to bring a technician to him. And you're going to bring him not what he expects, but it's going to be an encouragement to him and the Lord. And that's what they did. They're not concerned about their own interests. They're concerned about God's interests. What is your interest today? My heart is divided. And this is why we're lukewarm. This is why we don't want to come to church. This is why we don't have love for the brethren or the sisters. This is why we're only wrapped up in our own things. And this is why we still are offended by people who have hurt us. This is why we're still offended. And that's why we won't reach out to them. We need to ask the Lord to soften our hearts, to cause them to be moldable and breakable. And we need to have hope in the Lord that he will help us. I want to finish in Exodus chapter 23, another thought that came to my mind today. Exodus 23, you know, I asked him, I said, do you guys have holidays in Ukraine? He says, well, not really. But today, I said, it's today. I said, Monday is a holiday. It's like a holiday? Like, well, maybe other places in the world won't have holidays. Praise God, we get paid holidays, right? Hallelujah, right? This is good. He gets a paid holiday. So thank you, Lord, for him. But he said in their country, they have a feast of thanksgiving to the Lord. That's what they have. It's like the feast of the harvest. It's very much similar to what they would have in the Israelite times. This is what they have. He says, but many people in Ukraine, he says he uses it for the wrong reasons. But many people there offer it up to the Lord and say thank you, Lord, for all that he's done for them. And I bet you that's what they're doing. It should convict us. It says right here in Exodus 23, 14, it says three times a year, you shall celebrate a feast to me. I mean, we don't observe feasts and these things as a righteousness thing under God. But we get reminded year after year of all the goodness that the Lord has shown us. And it's at this time of year that we offer thanks. But I offer thanks up to God because of what he's done. And that's what we can do. So three times a year, I'm not going to get into those feasts, but I'm going to skip down to verse 20. It says, behold, I'm going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be on your guard before him and obey his voice. Do not be rebellious towards him for he will not pardon your transgression since my name is in him. But if you will truly obey his voice and all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your adversaries and an adversary to your adversaries. For my angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites and Jebusites, and I will completely destroy them. So there was a condition that they had to keep his word. And as they kept his word, that the Lord would fight for them on his behalf. There was a condition. That's a condition. In order for those promises to be fulfilled in the same way, since therefore we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. We can't allow our hearts to be weighed down with the cares of the world and the love of other things. We can't. We have to pursue the Lord. It says verse 24, you shall not worship their gods nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break the sacred pillars in pieces. But you shall serve the Lord your God and he will bless your bread and your water and it will remove sickness from your midst. Very interesting there. Then there will be no miscarrying or barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send your terror ahead of you and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. If the Lord's given you a promise is as you walk with him, he will give you victory in areas of your life and specifically in a new covenant area, areas in our hearts. He will give us victory over sin as we keep his word. And I will send hornets ahead of you and they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites before you. But I will not drive them out before you in a single year that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. And I will drive them out before you little by little until you become fruitful and take possession of the land. Sometimes we want an answer overnight. We want, Lord, I need to know what to do. No, the Lord will reveal his path to us little by little. He will give us victory little by little. Some of us have experienced when you first get born again, you get great victories. You get great victories. You get victory over certain sins in your life and you can see that. But as you start to walk with the Lord, you start to see that, you don't see those mighty victories as you once did. You get to see small victories and the Lord starts to do it little by little in your life. I remember when I first got born again, set me free from drugs and alcohol and immorality, smoking, all these things that were defilements of the body. But now he's working on cleansing me of the defilements in the spirit, which is pride, self-righteousness, the love of money, judging others, spiritual pride, which is one of the hardest things to cleanse yourselves out. And sometimes we're wondering, when is my heart gonna change? When's this gonna happen? It's not gonna happen overnight. No, you have to be faithful with the one conviction that the Lord gives you and little by little, he will give you victory and lead you into the land. And this is where we have to have faith, guys. We don't see the change overnight. And this is how we know that the Lord is working is we have to remember and remind ourselves that he doesn't do it in one second, in one day, in one year. No, sometimes he takes a long time for him to bring deliverance in our life. But we have to remain faithful in that time. While we don't see that great and mighty deliverance that we've been asking the Lord to give us, while we don't see that great baptism of the Holy Spirit that we want to have, you know what we can do? We can be faithful to that little conviction the Lord has given us. Some of us, we wanna rush ahead of God's plan. We wanna go to a place that the Lord may not want us to go to. He may not want us to go to. And he wants us to learn to sit still and to wait on his voice. We need to learn to sit still and wait until his leading. We have to trust him that he's able to deliver us in the situation that we're in. Many times we wanna get ahead of God's plan. We need to learn to be still and to be patient. It doesn't have to happen overnight. It doesn't have to happen in one year. No, it can happen in 10 years. But what matters is that you're following the Lord and little by little, the Lord will deliver you. So if you don't see the deliverance overnight, if you don't see the change right away, that's okay. You need to keep trusting the Lord. You need to keep believing in him. And you need to keep moving forward. And you know what the Lord will do? He will send little bits of encouragement through brothers, through people that he brings into your life to convict you of areas in your life that are not pleasing to him. This one area that this man convicted me, he said to me, he says, you have weak faith. And he didn't say it out of a judging spirit. He didn't say it out of a strong spirit. He didn't. He basically said, you have weak faith. And you know what? The more I think about it, he is right. My faith is very weak. And praise the Lord that he would send a brother into my life to expose this. Here's a man who has very little, but he trusts the Lord. He did not waver in unbelief. He says, the Lord will help me. I said, so what about your family back home? He says, my mother wanted to stay. My mother did not want to leave. She likes our country. I said, so she's there by herself? Yes, she's afraid every day. There's explosions every day. And I said, well, how does she eat? He says, God provides for her. It's like, okay. He says, but she doesn't want to stay. And he says, she is a woman of faith. I said, amazing. You know what he said to me? He said this one thing. He said, you know, he's, I won't say it now, but I know that many times a wife can be bitter towards her husband. She can become bitter towards her husband. And she can vocalize that. And we have to be careful that we, wives don't get bitter towards their husbands because it brings division. You have to ask the Lord to help you in those situations. So he shared his heart with me. It was very encouraging. But he said, you know, I encourage, I encourage my mom in those areas. I know that it can happen to all of us. Husbands, we need to love our wives. As Christ loved the church and our relationship little by little will grow stronger in the Lord. Husbands need to focus on themselves. They need to look inward and see that their lives are right with the Lord. Little by little, they need to follow in wives. They need to see to it that they don't, that they respect their husbands and that husbands don't get bitter at their wives. And in the same way, wives don't get bitter at their husbands because the devil is coming to bring confusion and destruction in marriages. And we need to ask the Lord to help us to overcome in these areas. And little by little, he will make you one. Little by little, he will make you one in the Lord. He won't make you one in the flesh. Husbands many times want to please their wives in the flesh. And same way, wives do that for the husbands. But we need to ask the Lord to help us to stay on track with him personally. And it will unite us together as one in the Lord. And that's what will bring peace in the home. That's what will bring an inheritance for your children and your children's children. We can't try to please each other. That's not going to bring peace in the home. No, you have to follow the Lord and the Lord will cause you to bring peace in the home. And that usually comes through each person denying themselves, taking up the cross. And as they deny themselves and take up their own personal cross, they're going to find that their care for one another is going to grow. But I encourage the wives specifically to not be bitter at the husbands because it can ruin and hurt you spiritually. And may the Lord bless us today. Amen. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/6UZAdQGl6EA.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/dan-young/you-are-weak-in-faith/ ========================================================================