Certain of Things Unseen 1987

Now faith is being sure of things hoped for, certain of things not seen. Now really it was our Lord himself who pioneered the way of faith for us. Son of God, though he was, he divested himself of his divine rights and became a man, truly a human being.

He didn't just look like a man, he was in fact human, like we are. And he lived his life all the way to the cross by faith, by being sure of things hoped for, certain of things not seen, and certain really of nothing else. For instance, he was sure that he was bringing the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God was coming through him, but he was not sure as to how it would be received.

What knowledge supernatural he had now had to come to him through the Holy Spirit, just like it does to us, to us. He was certain that his Father's spirit was upon him, but he was not certain about what he was going to have for breakfast, where he was going to sleep tonight, how many disciples would be with him all the way to the end. And he taught and teaches us that to be sure of the kingdom of God and to be certain of the power of the Holy Spirit on our lives, to have the kind of faith which is able to deliver God's grace and God's glory to the world around us, we have to accustom ourselves to being sure of God and sure of nothing else.

Somehow we have to learn to do that. Certain of absolutely nothing else, everything else is in a state of flux, but God himself. To be able to live like that, to be certain only of the things that God shows us, it's necessary for us to begin to hold loosely to everything else.

That's how he lived and that's how we have to live. For instance, when he says you can't serve God and mammon, that's what he means. In other words, if you're going to be sure of God, you're not going to be sure of money.

And if you're going to be sure of money, you are not going to be sure of God. Luke chapter 9, verse 1, he called the 12 together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, take nothing for your journey, no staff, no bag, nor bread, nor money.

Do not have two tunics. Whatever house you enter, stay there and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.

And they departed and went throughout the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. Now, these disciples had been with Jesus for some time. They had listened to his preaching, soaked up the teaching about the kingdom of God, observed his healings, and now it was time for them to take some of the weight of this ministry.

Jesus starts with the 12 whom he calls apostles, sent ones, calls them together and gives them power and authority over all diseases and over all demons, and then he sends them out to preach the kingdom and heal the sick just as he does. In order to be sure that they are sure only of God and of nothing else, certain that God is with them, he strips them of all the other certainties which they, in the past, were accustomed to leaning on, depending on. Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not have two tunics.

No staff to lean on, no bag to put your treasures in, no bread to munch on, no money to depend on, not even a second set of clothes. What's going to happen if I spill soup on my tunic? But now, see, instead of a staff and a bag and bread and money and a couple sets of clothes and all kinds of shoes, instead of that, they are certain of things not seen. They are certain of three specific things not seen.

They are certain that God has called them. They are certain that God is with them, and they are certain that God is absolutely bearing fruit through them. And so it comes to pass.

They go out, open their mouths, and to their own amazement, power goes forth from them, authority, in their words, that they themselves are amazed at. They stretch forth their hands, and rivers of living water and life flow out of them. And everywhere they go, the sick are healed, the demon-possessed are healed, the blind and the lame and the deaf and the lepers are all healed.

And Israel is shaken by this. What's going on? What does this mean? All because these people are no longer certain of the things they can see and touch, but absolutely certain now of things not seen. A short time later, Jesus gathers 70 more disciples, gives them the same power and the same instructions, which we find one chapter later in Luke chapter 10, verse 1. After this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come.

And he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way.

Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, peace be to this house.

And if a son of peace is there, your peace shall rest upon him. But if not, it shall return to you and remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.

Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you, heal the sick in it and say, the kingdom of God has come near to you. Here again, awesome authority is given to these people, but it's given to them to carry in the midst of complete uncertainty about everything else. No money.

No credit cards, not even another set of sandals. No bag to put your things in and salute no one on the road so that you have nobody that you can depend on, no connections. Now they go out uncertain about the things visible and tangible and marvelously certain about things not seen, certain that God has called them, certain that God is with them and certain that God absolutely is bearing fruit through them.

And everywhere they go, the word that they speak is confirmed with signs following. So what does this have to do with us? Does this mean we can no longer drive our cars? We have to hitchhike from now on. Does this mean that we can, when we travel, are no longer allowed to take a suitcase or a purse or a wallet or a visa or a, you know, whatever, MasterCard? No.

I mean, we know for a fact, for instance, that Jesus and the disciples, the disciples, as they traveled around, had a money bag. I mean, they weren't very sure about this money bag because Judas was in charge of it. But they had money bag.

And when Paul and Silas and Peter and others traveled from church to church in later years, they were able to buy their fare on the boat, whatever, I don't know, they didn't have tickets, but they paid their way. They bought their food. When their sandals wore out, they could buy another pair.

And yet the lesson had been learned and was not forgotten that when you go out into the world to proclaim the kingdom and in some way to manifest that kingdom through some kind of healing, the confidence of your heart must be in God alone and in absolutely nothing else. That they were sure of. And that's where we have to be, you know, that you can we can no longer trust if we're going to if we're going to respond, our money, our house, our car, our waterbed, how many friends we think we have.

The only confidence we have now is in God. So now the time when God begins to teach us this lesson of radical faith is at that point where he now starts to send us out and says, Arise, shine, your light has come. Go fix the kingdom, heal the sick.

And then what does he do? He pulls the rug out from under us and yanks away all the other false props that we were trusting in secretly in our hearts. Take no purse, no bag, no extra sandals, salute no one on the road translates in our lives into Jesus saying to us, now I'm going to teach you that you have nothing you can trust and accept me, only me, nothing else. Everything else is changing.

Now, when you get to the point where you have been shaken away from and divested of all these other things, and you look to me alone as your Lord and as your friend. Then you will be certain of things not seen. You will be certain that I have called you, you will be certain that I am absolutely with you and you will be certain that you are bearing fruit by my presence in your life.

Because the time has indeed come for us to arise, shine, for our light has come to go out and proclaim the kingdom and heal the sick in whatever way God chooses. He is now beginning to teach us more dramatically, perhaps than ever in our lives, both through the word and through circumstances that we now have to live by radical faith and that the other things that we've trusted in are really not reliable at all. Now, some of us might be smart enough to learn strictly by the word, to be so responsive to the word that God speaks to us that we automatically just let go of all the stuff that we've been grabbing onto and holding onto and trusting in.

But in most of our lives, God has already been working and he will continue to be working to help us to see this. He shakes them and he sifts them, you know, and don't get upset and don't get nervous and don't get angry and don't become depressed. He is helping us to see that as his prophets, we have only one solid reality that we can trust in, and that is Jesus himself and nothing else.

Faith is being sure of things, hope for certain of things not seen as the visible, tangible things in our lives offer less and less and less assurance and security to us. The spirit of the Lord is leading us to the place where we enter into three unseen certainties. Certainty number one, the Lord is teaching us that he has called us.

You did not choose me, I chose you and I ordained that you should go and bring forth fruit. Follow me. Now, that's an unseen thing.

You can't show the world and say, see, I've been called by God. I'm God's prophet. Jesus called me.

You can say that, but they'll laugh because it's not a thing that they can see and they will only see that you're rather a little bit nutty. That's all they'll see. And yet we look back and we can say and we can see that the one who died on that cross and rose again in some way has in fact broken through our darkness with his light and has said to us in some way, follow me.

And from that point on, we know that nothing else in our lives makes any sense and we find fulfillment in nothing else. And everything that in any way compromises that call or does the edge of that call has to go, no matter how violently, has to go. To learn to trust in nothing else, you know, don't trust what you can see, don't trust what you can feel, you know, don't trust how much you, you know, how much is in your evangelism fund or whatever you think you got.

Trust only in him. And when he, as he does that, as we trust nothing else, then we see that there is a call that we have to answer and that the only reason we're still around here at this time and in this place is to respond to that call. You know, again, I mean, that doesn't mean everybody has to work the streets on Saturday afternoon and everybody has to spend at least 15 hours inside this building.

I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that the call of the Lord on each of our lives in exactly the places where we live and work, our neighborhoods, there where we are until he shows us to go to Hong Kong is where we fulfill that call. But what a difference it makes when we see that that's what we're here for.

Certainty number two, that Jesus is with us. Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age. All the days and yet, can we see him, can we feel him? No.

And yet the unseen presence of the Lord, his spirit resting upon us and burning like a flame inside us is the one rock bottom reality of our lives and the one reality that continues with us. What else are you going to take through the grave with you? You're not going to take your money. You're not going to take your car.

You're not going to even take your relatives. You're not even going to take your own body. And he is with us now.

Sticks with us through every trial, through every valley, including the valley of the shadow of death, down everything else, because everything else is going to decay. It's going to rot. It's going to fall away, including our bodies.

Everything is changing. One day this building won't be here. One day, not one of us will be.

If it's still here, we won't be here. You know, think about this thing has been here since 1897 and the people who were here in 1897. I don't believe there's too many left, you know, who were actually sitting here.

Now, Bill was around, but were you around though? Eighty three. No, no, you weren't. Excuse me.

Take that back. But, you know, it's all going away. It's all falling away.

And the only certainty there is, is the one who goes with us all the way. Constantly, he's with us now here in the body and he's with us as we go out from here and live our lives and exercise our ministries on Monday and Tuesday and so forth. Certainly, number three is that his presence in our lives absolutely causes us to bear fruit and to be certain of that.

Now, the farmer puts the corn in the ground and he doesn't see anything, but he knows it's going to grow. After a while, here comes this little shoot. Some weeks later, there's a stalk there.

Many weeks later, full ripe ears of corn. At no point does the farmer actually see it happening. He doesn't see this corn going up like it does on TV, but he knows it's growing.

And you and I, if we abide in the Lord, if his word abides in us, if we move in his will, if we speak what he gives us to speak, know, absolutely know that there will be fruit. You know, sometimes I say all the Lord wants us to do is be faithful, as though if I'm faithful, I'm going to be a failure. You know, you will not be a failure.

You may be a failure in the eyes of the world. Praise God for that. But there absolutely will be fruit.

People will be coming from darkness to light. Men and women will become sons and daughters of the kingdom of God through you. Know it, be sure of it, be sure of nothing else, doubt even the things that you can see and touch, doubt it all, doubt your own hands, but don't doubt that you will bear fruit.

When Moses left Egypt at the age of 40, he left as a man who was accustomed to having a fat bag and a fat purse, lots of sandals and plenty of friends. When Moses came back to Egypt 40 years later, at the age of 80, he came back destitute. All he had left was this strange looking rod he held in his hand.

That rod was a symbol of the power of God, and pretty soon the Israelites and the Egyptians began to realize when that rod moved, God moved, things happened. So the exchange of his fat purse and his fat bag and all his sandals and all his friends for this little old rod was worth it. Now, Moses, destitute of all other things, is certain that he was called by God at the burning bush, that God was with him as he now goes to Egypt and that God will absolutely bear fruit through him.

You and I have been wandering around through the wilderness of Midian long enough. We have been to the burning bush and we have come to the place, most of us, where we already have begun to see the futility of trusting in our own flesh, our brains, our money, our earthly connections or anything else. As we do that, we are drawn by the spirit of the Lord and we will respond to him into being absolutely certain of things unseen.

Three things that Jesus has called us, that Jesus is with us and that Jesus is burning inside us and causing us to bear fruit. With these three certainties, we will go out and shake the earth. Let's wait upon God in silence and let the spirit speak to us.

Amen.