Living By Faith

Maybe we could all stand, we'll pray together. Lord, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We've already been touched this morning with the words from Hebrews and the warnings.

We've also been touched with this song that we just sang, we want to love you more. We realize, Lord, we're gonna go in one direction or the other toward you or away from you, and we want to come toward you this morning. Pray that you would help us in this.

We pray for those that can't be with us. We pray for Catherine. We pray for the Page family.

We pray, God, that you would undertake for them, Lord. We just ask you to grant healing, if it be your will. Grant comfort, grant direction regarding care.

We just pray you pour out your blessing upon them, and Lord, we ask also, I just ask right now, you pour out your blessing on our brother Jeremy as he preaches for us, shares what's on his heart. May it affect us in the way that you want us to be affected. We just commit ourselves to you in Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated. Good morning. Years ago, about our five-year anniversary, we went to, my wife and I, we went to Hawaii, which was quite interesting, and we decided to book ourselves on a tour out to the Keys area where we could go scuba diving.

And has anybody ever scuba dived before? No, okay. Well, we thought this would be really interesting to go scuba diving, so my wife and I went out on this boat. They took us way out on a boat to where the water was just clear, beautiful, and we got all the scuba diving gear on.

We had the instructor with us, and we jumped out into the water, and the instructor was telling us what to do, and so we began to go under the water. Well, about the second we went under the water, your body doesn't know what to do with itself. You know, all these years, I was probably 24 years old, all these years you've been instructing your body when you go under the water, you don't breathe.

And all of a sudden, you're under the water, and you're supposed to be taking a gasp of breath out of this thing, and as we would do it, you're trying to breathe, and trying to gain control over this odd experience. And I remember my wife, she just could not get over it. It was so strange, and she'd go under and come back up, and I don't think I can do this.

She'd go under the water, come back up, I don't know that I can do this. And I was kind of sad because, you know, I don't know what I would have done if I would have gone down there without, or we would have just missed, or what. But I kept trying to convince her, and she told me this morning that she finally thought, I've seen this before, people do this, I know it can work, and people don't die, they can do it.

So she finally pushed herself, and she went down under. And we got down there, and boy, was it a different world. Being under the water, breathing, you know, I don't know, 30, 40 feet down, all the fish, and color, animals down there, and swimming around.

And I'm traditionally afraid of sharks. I don't, you know, ever since a little child, somehow I got shown a really scary movie, and I was never changed ever again. I mean, I was always changed from therefore.

And so normally, when I would swim in the ocean, I was always thinking about what kind of sharks were lurking down there. But this was so beautiful. It was so beautiful to be under there.

I remember having the thought, this is so amazing, let the sharks come. At this point, it's just amazing. And it was.

It was quite a life-changing experience to go under the water and swim around like that. And I want to liken that story this morning to the title of my sermon, which is Living by Faith. It was interesting, some of the thoughts and concepts we had this morning.

I appreciated the lesson we had in Hebrews. Jesus said that when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the earth? Think about that a little bit. He asked the question, when he comes back, is he going to find faith on the earth? And I think sometimes when we read that, we think, of course he is.

Look around. There's lots of people that profess to be Christians. But I wonder what he meant by that.

I wonder if there's something deeper we're missing. You know, it talks about the last days. I think it's in Timothy or Titus.

I'm not sure where. But it says they have a form of godliness, but they're denying the power. They look righteous.

They look good on the outside, but it's not happening here in the heart. And so I want to talk about faith. What is faith? The Bible describes faith in Hebrews 11, verse 1. It says, faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.

Now the word substance, other translations use the word assurance. They use the word confidence. So faith is the assurance of things hoped for, or faith is the confidence of things hoped for.

And then for evidence, I was looking at that word a little bit. It's a conviction in sight. It's a proof.

It's a proof of things not seen. Another way to think of it is that by which invisible things are proved, and we are convinced of their reality. We just recently were on a plane, and I tried to give a guy a track next to me.

He's a real loud outspoken man. And he began to go into a whole sermon, it felt like. Very loud.

The whole plane was listening. In fact, people two euros up were coming back, asking him to quiet down. But he was trying to convince me he didn't believe in anything.

And he tried to convince the guy next to us, and the guy next to us joined in the conversation. The guy next to us was trying to tell him, surely you thought this plane was going to get you safely. He said, no, I don't believe that it would get me here safely.

Then why did you get on the plane? Well, I didn't believe I was going to crash either. I don't believe in anything. It takes a lot of work to believe in nothing.

I don't think that's possible, but he evidently was raised some form of Christianity, or at least he found himself, he said, going to a church because of a cute girl. And pretty soon he got disenchanted, and now he's very bitter towards Christianity. The Oxford Dictionary defines faith as complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Complete trust or confidence in someone or something. I want to ask this question this morning to each one of us, including myself. Does your life reflect daily trust and confidence in God? Does your life reflect, just think of this last week, the last two weeks of your life, does it reflect daily confidence and trust in God? Think of that air tank as we went down.

We had to decide to put our life's trust into that air, into that valve, into that respirator, they call it. And we had to go down and to experience this different world, we had to put our trust into it. We had to trust the instructor that was teaching us.

We had to trust the tank that was on our back. We can do all kinds of things. We can come here, look like Christians.

We can read our Bibles in the morning, do good devotional times. We can have nice prayer times in the morning. We can try to obey verses in the Bible.

We can try to look like Christians. But at the end of the day, how is your faith? How is your confidence? How is your trust in God and in his promises? Hebrews 11, verse 6, let's all turn there. Hebrews 11, 6, it says this, without faith, it is impossible to please God.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. You know, as we think about Jesus and what he taught and the things and the people he interacted, sometimes he would meet people and he would say things like, how is it that you have no faith? Other people he met, he said, you have little faith. And then other people he met, he said, you have great faith.

So if we can imagine a scale this morning, you know, I don't know that faith is an on and off switch. You know, you have all this faith or you don't have it. It's a degree.

It's where are you on this variant, this scale? I'll put on one end of the scale, no faith. And then I'll put somewhere up a little bit, little faith. And then I'll put way down here at the end, great faith.

So somewhere on the scale, the Bible says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Are you, where are you this morning on the scale? Now we just read a verse in Ephesians, sorry, in Hebrews. It said that without faith, it's impossible to please God.

So down here, if we're here, no matter what we look like, no matter what we say, no matter what we do, no matter we act to others, we are not pleasing God. And obviously it seems only logical the further that line goes down, the more we're pleasing God. Now, what are some of the opposites of faith? I'm going to write some of them down here.

Well, maybe you can help me out. What are some of the opposites of faith? What comes to your mind? Fear. Thank you.

Unbelief, doubts, worry. How about we put anger? Why don't we put frustration? You know, sometimes we think these are like, just normal. We all get frustrated.

Think about when we get frustrated. And it said, the Bible says that he works everything according to the counsel of his will, and that he works everything according to our good. If we love him, why would we get frustrated? It's a symptom of a problem.

Okay. So what are some of the opposites on the other side? I also have unrest. I'll just put that here too.

What are some of the opposites? Some of you youth, young men, what are some of the opposites of those? What's this? Okay. Trust. Assurance.

Okay. I don't know if I know how to spell that well, but go ahead. Obedience.

Okay. How about peace and joy? Rest? I'm going to put kindness. Now, the Bible says in Romans that to be carnally minded, that's when these kinds of things are happening in your life, it says it equals death.

But to be spiritually minded is life and peace, eternal life and peace. To be spiritually minded is to be somebody who has faith. Now, interesting in Romans, it says this, this is a really wake up call passage.

So the first passage I read you is a wake up call passage. It's impossible to please God if you don't have faith. Impossible.

Number two, whatever that is not of faith, can anybody complete it? Is, so you're telling me whatever is on this end is sin. If it's not of faith, it's sin. Wow.

That's a pretty tough verse. Whatever that's not of faith is sin. In the New Testament, we read that Abraham was strong in faith.

We read that Stephen was a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost. We reread that Barnabas was full of the Holy Ghost and faith. Jesus said the centurion, he said this, I have not seen such great faith, no, not in Israel.

And then he said of the Syrophoenician woman, he said, lady or woman, great is thy faith. But then later, Jesus said to some of his own disciples, he said, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? He said to them, how did, sorry, it's in Matthew 13, it said he did not do many works. He did not do many mighty works because of their unbelief.

You know, he comes into a town and because the faith was so on this end of the scale, he wasn't able to do many works. He wasn't able to do many miracles. And Mark, it says he marveled.

He just sat there and marveled at their unbelief. If you're here this morning and you claim to be a Christian, the definition to be a Christian is to be one who pleases God, we must be one who operates in faith. Faith has always been the essential ingredient of a true follower of God.

Think of all of the stories of the Old Testament, all of the great men of God. I have some quotes later I want to read you of some of them that just came to my mind. But think of situation after situation after situation in the Bible and see men who trusted God and how God came out and saved them.

God came out and delivered them. Let's turn back to Hebrews chapter 10. So I think I had you in 11.

Go back one chapter there to verse 22. It says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promise.

Jump down to verse 32. But call their amendments the former days, that's back when they first became Christians, in which after you are illuminated, after you became a Christian, after the Holy Spirit came into you, the lights turned on, you're born again. You endured a great fight of affliction.

You know, you went through a lot of bad persecution. He says, remember those early days, you were made a gazing stock. People looked on at you.

They looked at on at you and they could in unbelief at how you were acting. You were in peace while you were going through your afflictions. It says, verse 34, for you had compassion in me and my bonds.

And you took joyfully the spoiling of your goods. People come to their property, take things away. And they, they said, it's okay.

God's in control. God knew when that guy stole that thing from me, when they took this house, when they took my animals, my oxen, God understood God is in control. They took it joyfully.

Then he says this, because you knew in yourselves that you have in heaven, a better and enduring substance. Verse 35, cast not away there for your confidence. Don't cast away your faith.

Don't, don't give up. Now you've come this far. Don't cast away that faith.

It has great recompensive reward. God is ready to reward you. Hold out for you have need of patience that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.

He's telling me to endure, hold out, be patient. God's going to bring his promise for yet a little while, and he shall come. He that shall come will come and will not tarry.

Now this verse, now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back to perdition or destruction.

We are them that believe to the saving of the soul. So he's saying, don't draw back. Don't, don't shrink back.

Don't give up on that original promise you made to God, that original commitment. Keep pushing forward. You have need of patience.

And he says this, the just shall live by faith. That's the title of my sermon, living by faith. Now this verse or this saying, the just shall live by faith, is it three times in the New Testament, one time in the Old Testament.

In fact, the word faith in English is only two times in the Old Testament, one time in Habakkuk and one time in sometime earlier. But the three times is in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. And each one of these is different context.

But Paul, if Paul wrote Hebrews, is trying to, is trying to persuade them that it's the just, it's the righteous ones. If you're here and you're considered a Christian, then this is saying, if you want to be considered righteous in God's eyes, you have to live by faith. If you want to be considered holy in God's eyes, we have to live by faith.

Listen to this. This is an interesting story. Now I don't say I agree with all of Martin Luther's theology, but it's interesting how this came to light.

Martin Luther was one of the Protestant reformers. The Lutheran church now is in his wake. But before the bold declaration of the truth of the gospel, Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk.

As a monk, he went on a pilgrimage to Rome. As he crossed the Alps, he fell deathly ill. He lay sick and he felt great turmoil, both physical and spiritual.

And a verse that had previously touched him came to mind, the just shall live by his faith, Habakkuk 2.4. When Luther recovered, he went on to Rome and did the tourist thing that all pilgrims do. One day he came to the church of St. John's Lateran, where there is a staircase said to be from Pilate's judgment hall. It was the custom of pilgrims to climb their staircase, but never on your feet.

They painfully climbed up step at a time on their knees, saying prayers and kissing the steps where it was thought the blood of Jesus fell. Luther came to this place and started doing just as all the pilgrims do, because the Pope promised an indulgence, an indulgence was you would get a forgiveness for some sin you've done in the past, to all who climbed the steps on their knees and said the prayers. As he did this, Luther remembered the words from Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith.

It is said that when he remembered this, he stopped, stood up, walked down and went straight home to Germany. Some say the reformation began on those stairs. Before those words broke upon my mind, this is from Luther, him quoting, I hated God and I was very angry with him because not content with frightening us sinners by the law and by the miseries of life, he still further increased our torture by the gospel.

But when by the Spirit of God, I understood those words, the just shall live by faith, the just shall live by faith, then I felt born again like a new man and I entered through the open doors into the very paradise of God. For him, this was a life-changing revolutionary moment when he realized that he should live by faith and not by the works of the law or by the works of the Roman Catholic Church. Some Christians live by devotions in their life.

Some Christians live by works. Some Christians live by their feelings. Some Christians live by their circumstances.

But what God wants from us is that we would live by faith. Now, what is the opposite? The just shall live by faith. The righteous shall live by trust in God.

What's the opposite? What's an opposite word for just or righteous? Unrighteousness. So, is it fair to say the unrighteous shall live by doubts? Is it fair to say that? Is it fair to say the evil in God's eyes shall live by worries? Kind of puts it in a little bit perspective. Is it fair to say those who get frustrated anger are not considered righteous? See, these are warning signs in our life.

When you get hungry, you're out in the field, you're working in your tractor, you get hungry, you know what? I need to go and get some, I don't know what you eat, but something to eat, right? Or when you get thirsty. In your physical life, you live by food. You live by water.

You live by air. We have to have these things in our spiritual lives. If we do not live by faith, we're starving.

We're starving our bodies, our spiritual bodies. Galatians 2, if you could turn there, please. Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.

I'm sure we all know this verse very well. I remember memorizing it as a child. Well, let's just stop and think about it this morning, what it means.

Paul's saying, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So Paul's saying, when I became a Christian, I put my life, I put my will on the altar, and I decided every day to take up the cross.

I decided every day to deny myself. I decided every day to reckon myself dead to sin, and I no longer live. When I wake up in the morning, I have to reckon.

I have to remind myself I am no longer alive. It's Christ now who lives in me, and I live by his faith that he lives in me with. I live by faith in him.

That's the life I'm now living. This is a very monumental thought, and I guess the question is, is it a reality in our lives? Do we live by faith each day? Can we say this? I'm crucified with Christ. Could we say this last Friday, Thursday? I'm crucified with Christ.

I'm living by faith today. The life I'm living today is by faith. Turn to Ephesians, please.

Chapter 3, verse 17. Let's go back a little bit. He's in the middle of a prayer for the Ephesians.

Verse 14. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that he may be filled, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God. Did you catch that part? That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

My wife and I have been just thinking about this verse for the last couple of weeks, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Now, he's writing to Ephesians. I thought they were all Christians.

I thought Jesus was already living in them, right? So why would he ask that Christ could dwell in their hearts? He's already living in them. I don't know exactly what he meant, but I do know that there is such a thing as being full of the Spirit. There is such a thing as being full of faith.

When the apostles asked to look out among you and find these men, to serve as deacons, he said, look for men that are full of wisdom in the Spirit. And they found Stephen, and it said he was full of faith. And in this passage, it says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

It seems to me, if I were just to take it as a child-level understanding, the more faith we have, the further we're down this continuum, the more room we're making for Christ to dwell in our hearts. Think of your heart. Your heart is a place where your will and your emotions and your mind, your thoughts are.

The more we operate in faith, the more room he has in our souls, the more rooms he has possessed in our souls, the more lights that are on, the more we're down this way, the more rooms that are closed off. No, Lord, you can't come in this room. This one I'm not letting in yet.

It's still dark. The more faith we operated, the more room Christ has in our heart. Notice what it says, that Christ, his prayer for them is that Christ may dwell in your hearts, but then he puts the words by faith.

We have to learn how to walk in faith if we want Christ to dwell in our hearts. You know, sometimes we say prayers and we want to just say this magical prayer, Lord, just do this. Help me to do this.

Help me do that. But sometimes we have to do something too. We have to enact faith.

We have to deny ourselves when the fears and the doubts come because it's not all on God. He wants us to operate in faith. He wants us to deny ourselves.

He's willing to give the grace. He's willing to help, but our requirements are to deny ourselves and to have faith in him. So what do we need to have faith for? I'm sure there's more than I wrote, but I wrote four.

I wrote four things. Number one, we need to have faith for our eternal destiny, where we're headed, heaven versus hell, judgment versus eternal life, eternal death versus eternal life. Jesus said that all the ones God gave him, he would lose none of them, but he would raise them up at the last day and he would give them eternal life.

You know, it takes faith to believe that. It takes faith to believe some guy that said this 2,000 years ago can do that, can raise us up at the last day and not lose any of us. It takes faith when we start to doubt, is that even true? We have to believe in faith that he will not lose us, that he will raise us up.

Romans 5 says this, therefore being justified by faith. Justified. Justified means, I remember years ago, my father-in-law said you could say it like this.

It means justify, never did it. You're justified. God has forgiven you of those past sins.

Being justified by faith, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into grace. So here's a door and this wonderful thing called grace, but it's in this closed facility and the only way into it, what is the door? Did you hear it in the verse? Romans 5, we have access by faith into what? The door in to get all the grace and help you need in that time of trouble is going to take you doing something, having faith. And it says we shall be saved from wrath to come right in that same passage.

Listen to this verse. I love this verse. It's Psalm 147.

It says, the Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him to those that trust in his mercy. Think about that dichotomy. He takes pleasure in ones that fear him, but also hope in his mercy.

As we sit here and we mull over Hebrews and we all talk about what does it mean? Are we fearing God? Are we just trying to come up with ways to get around the scripture? Or do we say, this sounds like a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God. We ought to tremble at the Lord. Paul said, because of the terror of the Lord, he persuades men.

We fear him, but then on the other flip side, we hope in his mercy. Some people just get camped out in the fear of the Lord, right? They walk around like, oh, I just, I don't know how I'm going to stand before the Lord one day. And yet John says, we're going to stand confidently before him.

I don't, I'll be honest. I don't know. I need the Lord to help me in that.

How am I going to stand confidently before him and know there's no fear in love, it says in 1 John. But we fear him, but we also hope in his mercy. We have faith.

Hope is a concept of faith. We have faith in his mercy. We know he's a good God.

We know that he won't cast us away. And it's the proper balance when we can get both those in the right place. Some people camp way out too much over here on the hope and his mercy and all that.

You know, let's try to make that verse not say what that says. That sounds scary. We need the right balance, right? We need fear and hope in his mercy.

And, and some, I'll be honest. I, for years, and I still, this is my natural. I always go to the fear.

And I feel like if I go over here to the hope, I might forget the fear. And then I might end up finding out I was all wrong in the end. So I got, I feel safer over here with fear.

Right? But that's not right. The right balance is both. Truth is always on.

I heard somebody once say like a bird with two wings. You need, you need to have, have multiple sources to tell you God's character and what it means. I remember Satan himself.

Remember he said, is it is written to Jesus? He used scripture. And Jesus said, it is also written. He corrected him.

He gave that second, second balance. So our eternal destiny. We, we fear the Lord.

We hope in his mercy. If we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus, it says shall cleanse us from all, A L L capital, make it big in your Bible, all sin. Think about that.

It shall cleanse me. If you say, I'm just struggling with, I just am always a fearful person. Well, that's sin, actually call it what it is.

And then say, if we walk in the light, it will cleanse me from that. So my job is to walk in the light. When the Lord says, die there, stop thinking about those thoughts, die, trust me, put confidence in me, do what he says, walk in the light.

And it says, we will have confidence and we will have the blood, um, cleansing us. Sorry. Okay.

So the first thing is that he saves faith in what in that God is out for our eternal destiny. His promises are sure. What he said is real.

Number two, faith in righteousness, true, real righteousness. Now this is a real hard one for us. Anabaptists real hard.

Somehow we say all the right things up here, but then we somehow, and I'm to be the first to admit it too. We somehow go back out those doors and start pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Right.

Glenn, I'm sure I'm just barking up the right tree right now. Right. And so we need to bark on this tree a little bit.

Romans says, therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith and not by the deeds of the law. So does that mean we don't need to do anything? Like, how does this work? We're justified by faith. Romans 8 13 says, if you through the spirit do put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live.

So there's this concept. I know I've said it here before, but I'll say it again. Over on one side of the ditch is God just imputes all of our righteous.

He just thinks of us all as righteous because all we have to do is put faith in him. And then we're considered righteous. The other side of the ditch says, I've got to do something and I've got to really work and I've got to figure this out.

And we're almost in this fearful side. And it's kind of the whole thing with the two ditches again, hope and fear. God wants us to give a real righteousness.

He wants to help us in every moment walk like Jesus did. But to do that, we have to be in a place of faith. We have to be living by faith.

We have to be dead to self, but alive to God. Dead to self is denying self. Alive to God is faith, believing in his promises.

So listen to this verse. Everybody turn there. Romans chapter 10, please.

And we're going to look in verse three. Now just imagine, so we don't think immediately Jew. Let's think Anabaptist for a little bit.

Let's just think he's writing to Anabaptist. Okay. What is he saying? For they, those Anabaptists being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.

So there's a way there is possibility for us to go about trying to establish our own righteousness and not submit to the righteousness of God. Turn to Philippians. Let's get Paul's thought in another book here.

Same concept. Philippians chapter three, verse nine. I don't know if I have this right.

Maybe this is, let's see. Oh, I'm in Ephesians. Nevermind.

I'll just read it off my notes here. And being found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is by the law or by works of the law, but that which is through faith, the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of God by faith. You see that there is a true righteousness that God will give you.

If you are doing this thing right here, the righteousness, which is of God by faith. But we have to first stop going about to establish our own righteousness. That was the whole point of the new Testament.

It said for what the law could not do in that it was weak. God sent his son. His son was the answer to us trying to establish our own righteousness.

And now by the power of the spirit, we can live and fulfill the righteous requirements of the law. If we live by faith, if we depend on him, if we die to self, that's why Galatians says, if there had been a law given, which could have given life, verily righteousness would have been by the law. But it says the scripture of concluded all understand that the promise by faith might be given to them that believe.

So we have to, we have to work in our lives, grow in this area to trust God for righteousness, real righteousness in a daily experiential way. We have to trust God in our eternal salvation, in our eternal security. Like you said the other day, being saved, right? We're to trust God that he is saving us.

And then lastly, we need to trust God in our circumstances. And this one gets us pretty close to home. Jesus said that the trials of life, the deceitfulness of money, the wanting other things and pleasures of life choke the word.

Somehow I just came off of this last month, June, and you know, lots of good activities, doing lots of good things. But somehow in my life, I just noticed my faith, my, the word was being choked, too much busyness. It was coming down.

I wasn't living by faith like I should be. And we've got to guard that the most important thing. Young men, I encourage you with harvest, guard what's the most important thing.

Faith is the most important thing. What does the scripture says? It says, our faith is that which overcomes the world. So trials, we were never promised an easy path.

So many people, they get down, they start running into trials and they say, what is this all about? And they throw out the towel. You know, God is, God is cruel. He hates me.

We were never promised that as Christians. We were never promised an easy life. In fact, we were promised the opposite.

It says, all those who are godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Persecution has been promised to you as a Christian who live in faith. Psalm says, many are the afflictions of the righteous.

Acts says, we must through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God. So you better buckle down and realize right now that it's not going to be easy. My wife has been saying the last couple of weeks, we're still making straw.

And what she means by that is you remember the children of Israel, Moses came along and he's like, Oh God wants to lead you all out of here. It's going to be great. And they're like, yes.

Okay. We're going to do this thing. And then Pharaoh heard of it.

And he said, up the straw levels and their life got a whole lot harder. Can you imagine now your normal daily amount of work? Now you've got to go out. Not only that and go find the straw yourself and bring it back and still meet the same quota.

Would you not be a little bit thinking maybe this whole idea of trusting God is not the right idea. So my wife's been saying, we're still making straw. The idea is sometimes it gets harder before it gets better.

Are you going to trust God? Are you going to, you're going to live by faith still? That's why Romans says we glory in tribulation because it strengthens our faith. When trials come in, it does this. It brings us up here.

If we have the right heart. And, and, uh, I think that was James. No, James has rejoice when, when, when tribulations come a different concept, we are promised through the straw making days piece.

We are promised joy. If we're walking in faith while you're making straw, we are promised rest and assurance. So how do we live by faith? Those are the three things I wrote down for what are we having faith for? How do we live by faith? What do you do when you find yourself, your scales coming down, you find yourself doubting, you find yourself fearful, you find, find yourself worrying.

Well, let's think about this. You can't have both your way and God's way, right? You can't have both. You can't, no man can serve two masters.

So the first thing you're going to have to do is die. First thing you're going to have to do is deny yourself. Like Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ.

Like that other passage says dead to sin, but alive to God. Secondly, remember the promises of God. This is big.

And one of the things I like to do is I like to have Bible verses memorized. What is a promise of God when a bad circumstance comes? Somebody just give me one that, that, that you would go to if something bad's happening in your life right now, what would you say in your heart? Thank you. All things work together for good.

God has a reason for this and he's working it for my good. Somebody else. What's that? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. I think about that. All your, some of you, sorry, I'm going to pick on you today.

You said the other day, we don't always get what we want, but we, that God gives us what we need. You know, he shall supply all your needs according to, he's got abundant riches, but he only supplies our needs. Not necessarily our wants.

Somebody else. What's a verse you go to? Yes, he will not suffer the temptation above that you were able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape. I love that verse.

Were you going to say something Greta? That's good. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. The Lord delivers them out of them all.

Someone else. And it goes on and says, the peace of God will guard your heart. So when we're in that mode of rejoicing and not being anxious and, but instead of being anxious, the remedy is to take our request to God and be thankful that says the peace of God will guard your heart.

So that's what she just quoted is walking in faith, right? I'm not going to be anxious. I'm dying to self on that. I'm going to be moderate, not going to be swinging back and forth.

I'm going to rejoice. That's all faith. That's all dying to self and walking in faith.

And then the promise is the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus. Anyone else? Amen. Thank you.

Yes. So faith involves believing that God knows best. When that circumstance comes and you're thinking, this is not what I would choose for my life.

It believes God knows best. God. I think my wife and I were talking about this morning.

She said, faith is the idea that if I were in his shoes, I would have chosen the same thing. Here's a quote. I read somewhere.

God does not just give us what we want. He gives us everything we would want. If we knew everything he knows another way of saying the same thing.

Someday we'll look back when we're with him and we'll say, yes, Lord, you did all things. Well, you did it right. And right now we have to trust that that's we know God.

We know his character. We know he would do it that way. And that's what true faith is.

Paul said in first Corinthians, my strength is made perfect in weakness. Listen to some of these saints of old job. I just maybe you can remember some, but just some quotes of men of old who had faith job, though you slay me yet.

Well, I trust in you. I know that's a favorite of Randy's. I mean, think about that.

Just think about that. God, if even if you kill me, I'm still going to trust you. I mean, this was before the guy ever had the Bible.

He was one of the first guys who wrote. I don't know who wrote it, but they say it was way before Moses's time of writing things. And so.

One of the first things written, though, you slay me. He didn't have all these other things to read and know the goodness of God. He just had this faith in God.

And we have we have so many books. And yet we still struggle with doubts and fears. And what about Moses? Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, the faith he had in that moment, Joseph.

But as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. All those hard years looking at your brothers and thinking, I really want to blame you right now. Abraham, as he's sitting there with his son, ready to sacrifice him, he says, God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering.

David, as he stands there with Goliath, this little ruddy kid. And all the other grown men are scared and the king's scared. And he says, Thou comest to me with the sword and with the spirit and with the shield.

But I come to you in the name of the Lord. Gideon, he said, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Jonathan, I love this one, as he's sitting there with his armor bearer and they're deciding if they're going to go up and take on that garrison, he said, For there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few.

He knew it. God can help us even if it's just a couple of us. Elisha.

He said this, Fear not, for they that be with us are more than that be with them. He could see all the hosts of all the angels out there and and his servants over there shuddering. And he says, Fear not for there be more with us than there be with them.

What's one you can think of? Tell me one that comes to your mind, great men of God and the quotes of faith they had. Maybe I gave them all. The God we serve what? Will deliver us.

Amen. That's a good one. The faith these men had.

And and yet we sometimes are on this end of the scale, which where do we want to be? Do we want to be down here near the line edging it or do we want to grow? You know, listen to this verse in in Thessalonians as we are bound to thank God because your faith groweth exceedingly. Is our faith growing when you when you analyze your life from last year? I feel like I don't know that I could say for sure that my faith has grown a whole lot more this year. It's been a tough year.

I'll be honest, but I'm challenged that we need to be growing. We need to be, you know, when you're in a river and the water's coming down, if you stop, what happens? You start going backwards. You know, when all those Israelites were standing there and Moses said they'd been all bitten by snakes and they poisoned going through their veins and Moses said, look up here at this pool.

What did you have to do? You had to look up. What did it take? What did it take to do? What did you not? How do I say this? You didn't have to do anything to stay in the position of having poison in your blood, right? You had to do something. You had to activate faith to remove the poison for us Christians to walk by faith, to live by faith, to walk in the spirit, to walk in the light.

That's the only way we're going to have the poison being removed from our blood. Will Christ find faith here in this church when he comes back? Will Christ find faith in your heart when he comes back? Will you be on your deathbed grasping, I wish I would have, you know, been a man that was growing in faith or will you be right down here still and now trying to get down to there but you haven't been using your time to grow in faith? Hebrews 6 says, we read it this morning, through faith and patience they inherit the promises. If we want the promises of God, we need to inherit them through faith and patience.

Take your hymn books. I want to read this hymn and then I will be done. 162, God moves in a mysterious way.

It says, God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. He fearful saints, fresh courage take.

The clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, you know, feeble as we try to judge from our feeble man, our feeble way of thinking, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face.

What looks sometimes like God is angry at you, God is just throwing you out, he has a purpose for it. Verse 4, his purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.

You know, bud is tiny and little, but then when it gets big, it's beautiful. Blind unbelief, as we just walk down and we stay on this side of unbelief, it's sure to err. It's going to lead you into error and scan his work in vain.

You'll look around and say, where's God? I don't see him. God is his own interpreter. Let him be the one to decide in our life what we need and what we don't need, and he will make it plain.

Let's pray.