Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the importance of faith through the example of Abraham, illustrating how God reveals Himself to those who seek Him. He compares humanity's spiritual hunger to people digging in dirt for food, while God offers the true sustenance found in Jesus Christ. The sermon highlights that true faith begins with a divine revelation of God, leading to a separation from worldly entanglements and an awakening to our heavenly citizenship. Beach encourages believers to seek a personal revelation of Christ and to live out their faith by embodying the characteristics of their heavenly identity.

that you individually were brought to a land where you saw a large number of people. And these people were digging in the dirt, looking for food, you knew they were hungry. And you had with you enough food to adequately provide for all the needs of this people. And you saw that they were digging in holes and they were looking for food and some of them were so hungry they even took some dirt and began to eat it. What would be your greatest desire at that moment when you saw people digging in the dirt who were starving and you had an adequate amount of food to provide it for them? Would it not be your greatest desire to get their attention? Hey, hey you, hey everybody, hey listen, listen. I've got food for you. You don't need to dig in the dirt. You don't need to eat dirt. I've got food for you. That illustration adequately teaches us exactly how God in heaven is feeling toward you and I today. He knows that we have a desperate need in our life. He knows this because He created us. And God created us in such a way where He sort of made a hole inside of us, if I can use figurative language. And this hole cannot be filled by any other person or any other thing other than God Himself. And so therefore, we are keenly aware on the inside that there is a need that we have. Money cannot provide the fulfillment of that need. Material things cannot provide the fulfillment of that need. Simply being a religious person and going to church can't provide the answer to that need. Pleasure, any kind of pleasure that you can think of cannot provide the answer to that need. Only Jesus Christ, a living revelation of Him can provide the answer to the need that we have on the inside. We only can come to Jesus through faith. It's not something we can earn. It's not something that we can obtain because we deserve it. We simply come to Christ by faith. And suddenly, as we come to Him by faith, He becomes that food for our soul. We're going to look for a few moments this morning at the beginning of, God willing, a series of messages that I'm entitling Learning About Faith Through Abraham. Learning About Faith Through Abraham. In Genesis chapter 12, we read that God revealed Himself to Abraham in a most remarkable way. But there is a reason why God revealed Himself to Abraham in a remarkable way. We want to look at that. First of all, it is imperative that we understand that the setting in the world at the time when the Bible speaks about God revealing Himself to Abraham was a state where men in general were not trusting in God. They were not looking to God. They were not depending upon God. They were not loving God, but they were seeking to fulfill the pleasures of their own heart. Sort of like a picture of today. Every man is doing what's right in his own eyes. We're throwing out law, we're throwing out respect, we're throwing out morals. Every man is doing what's right in his own eyes, and we can see the effects of this on the world. We can see the effects of this on our children. We can see the effects of this in our schools. Well, that's the same kind of setting that we find in Genesis chapter 12. Matter of fact, in Genesis chapter 11 is the story of the Tower of Babel, which is a story where all the peoples of the earth gathered together, and they tried to reach heaven by building a great tower. And they were trying to combine all of their power and all of their effort to reach God. But they were doing it their way, not God's way. They were doing it their way. They weren't seeking God in order to say, God, what is your will for my life? They were seeking God so that they might say, God, give me the power to do what I want. There's a great difference. So the setting is basically like the illustration I gave at the beginning. Here, a whole bunch of people, the whole world is desperately hungry. They're desperately starving on the inside, but they're digging in dirt and eating dirt. And God's the one who says, hey, I have food for you. That brings us to the setting where God reveals himself to Abraham. There are seven different aspects of the revelation that God brought to Abraham, seven different aspects. Each one of those aspects are principles that God wants us to understand because if we follow the faith of Abraham, and the Bible says in Romans chapter four that he is the father of faith, God uses Abraham to set an example of what it's like to walk with God. So if we're going to follow the steps of Abraham, we will experience in our own way differently, but we will experience these seven different steps or principles in the life of faith. There is a lot being taught today about faith in the church world, but the only reliable source to understand what true faith is and where it comes from and how it affects us is the Word of God. So we're simply gonna go back to the Word today and discover what it teaches about true faith. God used Abraham as a type, as a picture of how God would work in the lives of all those who come to know him, as a picture. So if you have an earnest desire to know the Lord Jesus this morning, you say, well, I already know him. Well, if you have an earnest desire to continue to know him in a deeper way, this message is for you this morning. Acts chapter seven, verse number two. We're going to look at the first and most important step in the life of faith. Acts chapter seven, verse number two. This is Stephen speaking. He said, then said the high priest, are these things so? And he said, men, brethren, and fathers, hearken, the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran. Now that coincides with Genesis chapter 12. We see in Genesis chapter 12, the Bible, now the Lord had said unto Abram, the first and most important step in coming to know God and partaking of the food that he has available for us, which is his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is there must be a divine revelation of God. There must be a divine revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Acts chapter seven that God appeared unto our father Abraham. The first thing that God did when he wanted to give bread to those who were digging in the dirt, eating dirt, trying to satisfy the need of their heart, was he gave a revelation of himself to somebody. The beginning of the life of a Christian is not being born into a Christian home. You can be born into a Christian home and never become a true Christian. The beginning of becoming a Christian is not joining a church or being part of a certain church. It is not paying tithes. It has nothing to do with what you do outwardly. You can engage in singing. You can go to Bible studies. You can be a part of a church. You could pay your tithes, but that in and of itself doesn't mean that you know God. The Bible says that we must have a revelation of God. The word revelation there means an unveiling, to take the lid off. We must have the eyes of our heart opened up by the power of the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to see who Jesus Christ really is. You'll remember in Matthew chapter 16, the apostle Peter had a very wonderful encounter with Jesus. Matthew chapter 16, verse number 13. This story in the life of Peter perfectly illustrates the first point, a need for a heavenly vision in order to know God or in order to get on the journey of coming to know God. Matthew chapter 16, beginning in verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples saying, whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, some say that they are John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And Jesus said to them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven. The very confession that came from the mouth of Peter, acknowledging that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Savior of the world, was because God revealed it to Him. And may I ask you a question this morning? Listen carefully. Do you profess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? Do you say, yes, Jesus is Christ, He is my Lord and Savior? If you do, why do you say it? Are you saying it because you were simply taught to say it as a child? Are you saying it because everyone else is saying it that calls themselves a Christian? So I guess I should say it if I want to be a Christian. Or are you saying Jesus Christ is the Son of God and my personal Savior because God has revealed it to me by the power of the Holy Spirit? Why do you profess Christ as your Savior? According to the Bible, the only valid confession that God accepts is the confession that springs out of a revelation given by God. You ask, well, how do I get a revelation from God? Ask and you shall receive, Jesus said. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Everybody who seeks and asks God for a revelation to understand who Jesus really is so that it becomes a life-transforming thing will receive. Jesus said He will not cast aside anybody who comes to Him in sincerity and in true, desperate hunger for truth. Don't trust in your religious tradition today. Don't trust in the fact that you might be a church member somewhere. Don't trust in the fact that you might have paid your tithes and you might faithfully go to church on Sunday. You can't trust in any of that. The only thing that you can trust in is the fact that Jesus Christ died for your sins and that He has revealed this to you in a personal, living way that has resulted in a life-transforming revelation. Peter said, thou art the Christ. I know who you are because God, your Father, has revealed this to me. The great need in Christianity today is an awakening back to a revelation of who God is that is being wrought through the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God must become a living book, one that speaks to us the very words of God in the shrine of our spirit. Have you had a heavenly vision of who Jesus Christ really is? Oh, may God help us to see this morning. May God help us to see. May God open up our hearts and our eyes. I believe God is present this morning to give this very revelation of Himself to all of us who ask. I believe God would speak to us through His Word this morning and say, what are you trusting in today? Who are you trusting in? Why do you profess Jesus Christ as your Savior? Church tradition, you've been told to do it. You've just done it as a child. Or is it because you know that you know that you know that you know that you are a wretched sinner deserving of hell, but Jesus Christ died for you and that His blood has forgiven you of your sins and that He lives on the inside of your heart today by faith, the faith that came from Him. Where do you stand today? Once the issue of who Jesus Christ is is settled in our hearts and once we know that we know that we know that God has revealed to us personally that Christ is our Savior and Lord, we go to the next step of the life of faith. In Genesis chapter 12, the Bible says, now the Lord had said unto Abraham, first there was the revelation of Himself. Then, number two, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show you. The true life of faith will always result in not only coming to know who God is through Jesus Christ by revelation, but secondly, it will be a call from God to separate yourself from the entanglement of this world. We will be called on the life of faith to walk in obedience to the word of God and in walking in obedience to the word of God, it will require a separation on our part from the things in this world that are not pleasing in God's eyes. The Bible says in 1 John chapter two, 1 John chapter two, listen closely. Verse number 15, do not love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any men love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. God spoke to Abraham, get thee out. Whenever we come into a living faith with the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ, we must hear the spirit of God and the word of God begin to say to us the same thing, get thee out. God calls us out in order to bring us in. He calls us out of our sinful habits to bring us into godly habits. He calls us out of our sinful thinking to bring us into godly thinking. He calls us out of flirting with the world and finding satisfaction in it so that we can come into fellowshipping with him and finding satisfaction in him. God calls us out of love of money so that we can be brought into the love of himself. You see, a living faith never allows you to lie dormant. A living faith doesn't permit you to profess Christ but continue to live like the devil. A living faith will always challenge you to come out of something so that God can bring you into something far better. God had to call Abraham out of all the traditions that he was steeply involved in before God revealed himself to him. You see, Abraham came from a family that worshiped idols. They were involved in idolatry. They didn't worship the true and living God. Listen, so Abraham was taught a lot of ungodly traditions. So God said, get thee out. Come out from among your ungodly traditions. Come out from among your ungodly practices. Come out from among your ungodly habits. Stop doing those things that you were doing when you didn't know me. Come out, come out. God said to Abraham, get thee out. Let go of your old life. Let go of your old ways. Let go of your sinful behavior and I will bring you into something that's beautiful. Whenever God tells you to let go of something, it's because he has something better for you. Don't hold on to something when God says let it go. Don't hold on. Let go. Because God will bring you into something far greater. When God called Abraham and revealed himself, Abraham had to leave his natural life, his old ways. He had to leave his old relationships and acquaintances because those old relationships and acquaintances were not based on love for God. Abraham had to leave behind his taste for worldly things. Let me tell you, if you get a hold of living faith, or rather, if living faith gets a hold of you, beloved, God will deal with you. God will deal with you about those things in your life that you need to come out of, that you need to leave, that you need to let go of. God will deal with greed in your life. He'll deal with covetousness, the lusts of the flesh, the desires of the flesh, the inordinate. You know, the flesh always desires that which is excessive. You know, the Bible says that God put it within our heart to desire the basic needs of life. It's not wrong to desire a home, shelter, clothes, but it's wrong when we start lusting the lusts of the flesh. You see, it's the inordinate, perverted desires of that which is normal. God will deal with you about your lust and greed. The same desire that basically turns into greed and covetousness. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes. We're living in a day when the lusts of the eyes are going wild. You buy magazines, and what do magazines promote? The lusts of the eyes. Oh, I want that. I want that. I want that. Oh, I want that. Oh, how Solomon was true when he said, the eye of man is never satisfied. The eye of man is never satisfied. The grass always seems greener on the other side, doesn't it? No matter what you desire, you end up wanting more, more, more, more. And the secret to being free from the lusts of the eyes and the lusts of the flesh is finding contentment in God. When you are content with God, then you become content with God's provision. Hallelujah. This is living faith. Living faith transforms you. The Bible says God is light, and in Him is no darkness. Excuse me. God is light, and in Him is no darkness. So the next step of the walk of faith, as it was patterned by Father Abraham, is coming out of darkness into the light of God's way. The light of God's countenance. Do you find the Lord working in your life along these lines? 1 John 1, my God, my God. 1 John 1, beginning in verse 5. This then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you. God is light, and in Him is no darkness. When the Bible says God is light, and in Him is no darkness, what it means is that God is the perfection of what could be considered perfect. He is moral perfection. God is light. There is no duplicity, no darkness in God, no deception in God. There is no works of darkness in God. God is the source of, the author of, and the expression of perfect light, perfect purity, perfect holiness, perfect righteousness. Verse number 6, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. So you see, the Bible says that if we say we have fellowship with Jesus Christ, then there must be working in our life this principle of point number two. There must be a constant coming out of darkness, coming out of the old ways into the fellowship of the new way with God. May God perform this word in us today. My last point this morning, my last point, and we'll continue this message, God willing, next week. First of all, the life of faith begins with a personal revelation from the Holy Spirit as to who Jesus Christ is. That's what makes us a Christian. Not our religious tradition, not a church we go to, not the prayers we pray, but a revelation from God and His Holy Spirit that we are in need of a Savior and we cry out to God and God transforms us and saves us and gives us the gift of forgiveness. Secondly, we must experience in the life of faith a separation from that which is earthly, that which is dark, that which is indicative of the old life so that we can be brought into a more and more and more fuller participation in the new life who is Christ. What a message from God's word. What a heart-changing message. And thirdly, my last point today is the life of faith must result in an awakening in our hearts that our true citizenship is in heaven, not earth, that we have a heavenly citizenship. The Bible says, and you may turn there, Philippians chapter three, Philippians chapter three, beginning in verse number 18. For many walk, this is the Apostle Paul, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping, they are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. But our conversation, another translation says, our citizenship, our roots. But our citizenship is in heaven. The third step that occurs in our life when we live the life of faith, sometime in a believer's life, there's gotta come an awakening to the fact that now as a Christian, our roots are not on earth, but they're rooted in God. They're in God. When we become a Christian, we receive the very life of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, the very life of God, so we can trace our roots back to God. Just like in the natural, our genealogy can be traced back to certain people, to certain generations. My genealogy can be traced back to Europe, Italy and the Netherlands and Germany, but that's earthly. But my spiritual roots, my spiritual citizenship is traced back to God because the life that I have as a born again Christian didn't come from Germany, didn't come from Italy, didn't come from the Netherlands, didn't come from the United States of America, but it came from God. It came from Jesus Christ. So the roots now that really identify who I really am come from God. My citizenship is in heaven. Hallelujah to God. My citizenship is in heaven. I am essentially now a heavenly person, and so are all who know Jesus Christ. And therefore, if I'm a heavenly person, then people should be seeing more and more and more the heavenliness of Jesus Christ in my life and in your life. If a person's from Russia, what will you most likely see in their characteristics? Russian. You will see the cultural idiosyncrasies and characteristics that typify Russians. If a person was born and raised in New York, what are you going to see? You're going to see the New Yorker in them. Hey, that's my car over there. You know, you're going to see, you're going to see their roots. You're going to see the environment that they were born in. It affects you, doesn't it? Down south, now as some of you probably gather, David's not from New Jersey. New Jersey. He's from Galport, Mississippi. Galport, Mississippi. And so therefore, David has cultural distinctions that are different from people who were born and raised in New Jersey. One of those distinctions is that he was taught from a young child to say, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, yes, sir, no, sir, thank you, ma'am. Very polite. That is a cultural thing in Mississippi. Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, yes, sir, no, sir. So as you get to know David, you'll find that it's impossible for him to separate that which he was taught as a child. It's part of him now, isn't it? It's part of his very nature. Well, likewise, hallelujah, when Jesus Christ saves you and when you, by revelation, know that God lives on the inside of you through Jesus Christ because you've invited Him to come, you've got something in you that comes from heaven and ultimately it's going to begin to affect you so that people start seeing heavenliness in you. You've got Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit living on the inside of you. What do you think people are going to see? They're going to see love. They're going to see patience. They're going to see kindness. They're going to see gentleness. They're going to see long-suffering. It's impossible for Jesus to live on the inside and not have Him somehow affect you, just like it's impossible to live and be born and grow up in New York and not have it affect you. So the third point and closing point, a sense of heavenly citizenship. Have you gotten to the place yet with your walk with God when you've seen the reality that your citizenship is in heaven, your true life comes from heaven, and you need to be preoccupied with the heavenly man, Jesus Christ, so that the heaviness of who He is is manifested in all that you say and do? Oh, I pray God will give you a revelation from His Word this morning on these wonderful, marvelous steps of the life of faith. Now, here's a taste of what we're going to be looking at. We're going to be looking at, not only does the Lord want us to have a sense of heavenly citizenship, but we must come to realize we're a pilgrim and a stranger down here on earth. That means that we've got nothing down here that we're putting our hope in, that we're putting our trust in, that we consider to be important to us, because everything that we are now is wrapped around God in heaven and Jesus in His will. Next, we have no interest in earthly rewards. Our reward is God. We don't look for earthly rewards like people do. And lastly, we have no attachments, nothing has possessed us, even the very promises of God. The Lord must require us to lay down so that nothing but Jesus Christ is our heart's desire and passion. Where are you on this journey today? Has God spoken to your heart through the preaching of the Word? Have you discovered your need today? We're going to have a word of prayer now, and then we're going to sing. It's twelve, ten, if you have to go, listen carefully, it's fine, you can leave. If you have to go somewhere, we're going to probably stay for another 15 minutes to 30 minutes and worship the Lord and sing, because we like to do that. But, for this one moment, I want to pray, and I want to again give you the invitation. If you want special prayer, if God spoke to you about something that you have need of today, we want to pray for you and believe that Jesus Christ will meet that need. Father, we thank You for the Word of God. We thank You for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our midst today. We ask, Lord, that You'll take Your Word, and all those who hear it, Lord, would be challenged and changed and transformed so that a true, genuine walk by faith can be experienced by every hearer of this message, Lord. And that we can know the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom He sent. Father, I commit this Word into Your hands. Use it to build us up and lead us into a greater knowledge of who You are, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Praise the Lord. If you want special prayer, let us know. If you have to go, please go. If you have any questions, ask us. We're just a group of believers that want to worship Jesus.