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So we’re back and doing a different session. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and it is to go back to the basics. But before I do that, just a real quick message for my podcast listeners. Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already. And you can subscribe both to the channel that you’re listening on. Either get radical faith or get sellers calling you. And also our YouTube channel, which is get sellers calling you if you prefer YouTube. Please share this on social media. Let other people know about this if you like it, because that’s one of the best ways for it to grow. And the last thing is what I’m going to share first time through. You’re going to get a little bit of all the content, but if you come back and watch it again or listen to it again, or actually if you’re listening to this by audio, if you come back to the website and actually watch the video of it, you will get a lot more. So let me encourage you to do that. So with that, let’s get started. This is something, as I mentioned, I wanted to do for a while, and this is actually going back to the very beginning roots of the radical faith teaching that the Lord opened up to me about 20 years ago and maybe a little bit less than 20. And he he made it possible to restart it. So I’m going to take you from the basics and really start to go through what is the basics of walking in faith, walking by faith, and what is faith and how do you walk in it? It’s not what you think it is. Because there are four stages of learning. This isn’t the notes, but let me just walk the chute. The first stage is unconscious.

And.

Competence. You don’t know what you don’t know. You think you’re competent, but you’re unconsciously incompetent. Then you turn into consciously, consciously incompetent. This means that now you start learning enough to realize how little you really know. Then you turn into consciously competent. This is where you start to learn and you realize you are now becoming more competent in that manner. And then as you do that for a while, you become unconsciously competent. I misspelled that, but don’t worry about it. Unconsciously competent. And now you do it for so long, it just becomes second nature. So just a short story. I was talking to a friend just earlier today at 11:00, really good friend of my brother. And she had cancer. The Lord healed her of cancer. But if I have the story right, her son really encouraged her to go through chemotherapy and all the medical process to ensure it never came back. Well, as soon as she did, she starts having all of these elements and nerve problems and everything changed in her whole life just kind of fell apart. And she aches all the time in her legs and the doctors can’t figure out what it is as residue of chemotherapy. It’s actually residue of something more. She violated God’s word. God said by my stripes, You were healed. She was healed. But then she rejected it and went into a man’s process. So I got on the phone with her and I prayed with her and the Lord cleared it all up.

Everything, all the symptoms totally gone. And she said, you know, we pray like you do. We’ve been praying like this and praying for this just like you do. And she was unconsciously incompetent, not being critical, but she did not know what she doesn’t know. It’s not the words you say. It’s the faith in which you say them. Peter Walking on the water, he put one foot in front of the other, and as he was walking on the water, a miracle was occurring and he was walking on the water. And then something happened. And the next time he put his foot in front of the next foot, he sunk the same activity, two totally different outcomes. So it’s not what you pray, it’s not what you do. There’s something much deeper in that. And that’s the thing that we’re going to start talking about called radical faith. I want to share a short story because this goes back to where I see this whole session and walking in radical faith, early 1960s, there’s a guy named Vince Lombardi, football coach of the Green Bay Packers, and some of these older folks are nodding their heads and some of the younger folks going through and they lost the national championship, the NFL championship, and they lost it because they made some stupid blunders along the way. So spring training, 1961, Vince Lombardi in front of 38 professional football players, holds up a football and says, Gentlemen, this.

There’s a football and he starts to go back through the basics, the basics of football blocking and tackling. None of the fancy plays, but he started spring training with just covering the basics. They won the NFL championship that year, and I think in the next seven years they won five of the seven NFL championships because he always went back to the basics. And I was sharing with Jay Powell earlier today that, you know, our life as a Christian is all about faith. Faith is how you receive anything from the Lord. You have what you. What we have is we have spiritual blessings. Spiritual truths have I’ll call them heavenly truths. Right? Heavenly truths. Here’s one of the heavenly truths. Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved. The earthly reality is something different. This is earthly reality. I’m not saved. The only way you receive heavenly truths into your earthly reality is through faith. Faith is a thing, if you call it. It’s from the Lord, but it’s what connects the Lord into us. And it’s the way of transferring whatever those heavenly truths are into our earthly reality. And so this whole session is going to be talking about that. And can I share a couple other stories just to kind of share radical faith? So this is probably about six weeks ago. I’m on the phone with a friend of mine. His name is Gary. He’s a professional speaker.

He travels a lot. He’s probably late fifties, early sixties now. And he’s not married. He came out of Jehovah’s Witnesses and it was just a real bad experience because they taught from the Bible, but they twisted it right and really got it all screwed up. He became a Christian and left. And that’s where when I met him many years back. So we were on the phone and I was asking him, said, Hey, how’s your walk with the Lord going? And so I was going okay. And I said, And we got somewhere in this conversation, and I started to encourage him on walking more diligently with the Lord and putting the Lord first. And all you do seek first, His kingdom and His righteousness. And he politely shut me down and he said, Baity, you know, I came from Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t know what to believe. And you say one thing about the Bible. I have another Christian that’s real strong Christian. And he says something else. And and I really just because I don’t know what to believe, I don’t want to hear any of it, I said, okay, fair enough. During this time we were talking about one of his desires is he wants to have a wife, he wants to meet a godly woman, get married and have children. So I do this a lot because I know what the Lord wants. The Lord wants him to follow the Lord. Right? So I said, Gary, I’d like to pray something for you, but I like to be right up front.

What I want to pray and why and get your permission to pray this way. He said, Okay, what’s that? He said, I believe the Lord wants you to know that what I’m teaching you about His word is true, and He wants to demonstrate that it’s true. And so I would like to pray that the Lord would do something dramatic in your life, in some in some way in the next seven days that you will know it was the Lord and that you’ll track that back to my prayer and know then that what I’m telling you and talk to you about the Bible is true. He said, Well, I’ll accept that. I’ll never I’ll never turn down prayer. So I asked the Lord, Lord, would you do something in Garry’s life? Would you bring a godly woman into his life or something? Something different, but something that is dramatic, that he knows it’s you? And I said, Amen. Right. So and put it back in perspective. This guy used to live in hotels because of all of his travel. He doesn’t get around to meet people that much. And so I then get a text message four weeks later said, Hey, can you face time? I said, No, but I can zoom. So we get on a zoom call. And he said, You remember that prayer about a month ago that you prayed for me about meeting a godly woman or something? I said, Yeah, so I want to introduce you to someone.

And this beautiful woman walks into the screen. Her name is Steph, and he said, We met three weeks ago and we’ve been inseparable ever since. And so I’m sorry. I’m starting asking her some questions. And she’s a rock solid Christian. I mean, she’s a strong believer in all of the word of the Lord and and just really cool. So just really good stuff. So I said, Well, now, Gary, do you remember why I prayed for that godly woman to come into your life? He said no. And I started reminding him that you remember. You weren’t sure if what I was telling you about the Bible was true, and therefore I prayed and God is answer. So that means you need to listen to what I teach, right? And what I want encourage you on and, and Steph kind of elbowed him and said, Yeah, you’re going to have to pay attention now. So that’s one step of radical faith. You say what I what I’m what happened is I understood God’s desire and God says I was to take this man and move him one step closer towards really serving him. And I knew that if I asked the Lord to do something, to prompt him to at least pay attention to me, to help guide him, that the Lord would do that, because that’s how God works.

And so I could pray in faith knowing something was going to happen. I’ll tell you one more story before we get into the main teaching. And this was just a week ago. So I have a friend I hadn’t seen in years. His name is Bud. Hi, Bud. If you’re watching this, he likes to watch the. I’m going to talk about you now, but no one knows who you are. But Bud is about my age, and he had a football accident back in college and hurt his right hip. And the doctor said, you’re eventually going to need knee replacement surgery, but hold off as long as you can, because technology is constantly improving. So I’m on the phone with Bud, and it was a catch up call. We hadn’t spoken in years. You know, he’s texted me something. I texted him and I said, hey, let’s just talk. And it was a God set up. The Lord orchestrated it. And we started talking. And I asked Bud, you know, how is your spiritual life? How is your walk with the Lord coming? And I forget exactly what he said. And then he started talking about going to this evangelism class by guy that y’all would know if I mentioned the guy’s name. He does a lot of YouTube videos on the evangelism, and it’s an evangelism that’s born from what I call man’s wisdom. You know, let’s convict them of sin, right? Have you ever stolen something? So you’re your thief.

Have you ever said a white lies? So you’re a liar and these things to bring them to conviction and then to share the gospel. And I said, Bud, there’s really a better way because that’s not biblical. You never see Jesus or any of the apostles bringing someone to condemnation over their sin. They already know that they’ve sinned. They’re looking for a solution. And if what you see in the Gospel is the love of Christ, not the condemnation of law, we’re no longer under law. We’re under grace. And he kind of pushed back on this. I said, okay, why don’t we give it up to the Lord? And I said, Why don’t we just ask the Lord to confirm whether what I’m saying is right or not? And we were talking about his hip. He’s been on a crutch for the last year. Eight years ago, he was exercising. For the last several years, he hadn’t been able to do anything. And it’s gotten so bad he walks with a crutch, just totally destroyed his life. Constant pain. I said, Why don’t we ask the Lord just to give a sign? Why don’t we ask if what I’m saying is what the Lord wants you to do, to do evangelism from love and not from this other guy’s approach, then let’s ask that he would just reduce the pain in your hip. And he said, okay. So I said, Stand up and just kind of test out the pain level.

And on a scale of 1 to 7, I mean, 1 to 10, it was a seven. So he sat back down and said, Lord, we just asked that if you want him to follow what I’m suggesting, that reaching out and introducing people to you is all about love and not about the have you send have you send here and there, Would you just show us and would you reduce the pain in his hip? And I said, okay, now stand up. And he stood up and retested and he said, It’s gone down. I said, Really? How much? He said, It’s about a five now. Okay, perfect. So he’s kind of getting excited. I now know what the Lord’s going to do. So I said, sit back down. There’s some spiritual torment going on, basically. And so I let him through a short prayer and then I said, Lord, we ask that you just take all of this pain away and give him a brand new hip because it needed hip replacement. And so I said, Stand back up and 30 seconds maybe. So stand back up and test it out. And the phone goes dead. Bud. I don’t hear anything. But are you there? What’s going on? And then I hear this very soft. I almost call it a whimpering, soft crying. So then when I heard that, I started crying. I knew what was going on. I’ve seen this happen before.

So a couple of minutes, he comes back to the phone and he’s crying. He says, I’m completely out of pain. I can walk without any pain. I still have a limp. But, baby, the pain is gone. God has healed me. And I said, Praise the Lord. And then I said, You said you walk with a limp. What’s what’s up with that? He said, My right leg. It was his right hip. My right leg is shorter than my left leg. I said, By how much? He said, probably about an inch. So I said, Sit back down. So I said, Lord, we ask that you would grow his right leg out equal to his left leg, grow it out an inch. And then I said, Do you feel anything? He said, No. I said, Well, stand up and test it out. So he walks and said, Oh my gosh. And he said, I said, what? He said, I can stand with both my legs straight down. He said, normally my left leg is is cooked up because my right leg is short. But now they’re the same length. He’s able to go up and down the stairs without even holding on to the rails. Everything changes. And why did that happen? Because the Lord loved him. Because the Lord wanted to show his love. And because I had the faith in asking the Lord to do it, knowing that it would be done. But pray believe, believing that you have received it, past tense and then future tense, it will be granted.

It’s a heavenly truth through faith coming down into earthly reality. So this is the basics of faith. Have I caught your attention yet? Okay, so let me walk through and show a little bit about. I want to talk tonight about what is faith really just kind of put some definitions to it. And understanding this. But to do that, I want to do my best job at drawing a couple of boxes. Okay, I’ve got a little box, and then I’ve got a larger box. The little box. Think about for my audio listeners, Think about a jewelry size box that a piece of jewelry comes in. Then the bigger size box will just put a J for jewelry and a for Amazon. You’ve got an Amazon box coming through, and then you get a great big moving box, like you hang clothes in the moving box and you cut most of my podcast listeners to real estate agents. So you’ll recognize that. And then you’re going to cut the sides down that box and you’re now just going to have a great big. Flat, flat piece of cardboard sitting on the ground. And we’re going to call this a open box. So I’ve got the jewelry box, the Amazon box and the open box. This is what happens with most people’s faith. Most people have a jewelry box size of face. This is my level of faith.

And my level of faith is how big is my God? My God is big enough that if he says. Pray for safe travels and believe that I’ll give it to you. They say I can. I can do that. I can pray for a safe travel. Or maybe God says, you know, you just hurt that person’s feelings. You need to go apologize. And you go, Gosh, I really don’t know if I ought to if I apologize. And they’ll make it sound like they were right and I’m wrong. And but since you told me to. Okay, I’ll do that. And that’s a jewelry box. But then when God says, Hey, you just told a lie to your boss. That account that you said you lost for this reason was not the reason you lost it. You need to go back and tell him the truth that you dropped the ball. And now the jewelry box person starts to think through and say, you know, if I do that, I could be fired. I don’t think I must not be hearing the Lord, because that’s too big of a risk. That’s the jewelry box thinker, the Amazon box thinker. Go in and tell the boss that you said use. You told a lie. Yes, sir. I know I did. So I’ll go and fess up to it. Okay. He’s got a his God is bigger. He can handle bigger things. But then the Lord says. Hey, I know they’ve cut your pay because we’re in a recession or the times are bad.

And so everyone’s gone on reduced pay. And I know that you don’t have enough money to pay all the all your bills. And you’re only giving to me to the Lord. Only about 3% of your income. I want you to increase it five times. I want you to give me 15% and trust me. And the Amazon box sized believer says, God, I can’t make my I can’t make ends meet if I do that. I know you say you’ll take care of me, but I don’t see it. And you start to wrestle with whether or not you do that, because at some point God asks you to do something and what he’s asking you to do is bigger than the box you put God in. And so you’re not willing to do anything there. Then over at the open box, the open box guy guy says, Hey, I wanted you to triple or quintuple. You’re giving. He says, okay, I trust you. I want you to sell everything you have. Give it all away and go to another country and become a missionary. And trust me to support you over there. The open box person says, Okay, I’ll do that. The open box guy says, I really want to show this person my love, and I want you to proclaim that I’m going to heal them. And you’ve never healed anyone before. The open box person says, I don’t understand, but yes, sir, I will.

And then he goes over and proclaims, Hey, the Lord says He’s going to heal you. That’s the open box. The question is, which of these boxes do you fit in? Are you the jewelry box faith person or the Amazon box person? Or maybe the flat open? Lay down flat box person that there is no limit. We all have a box. Only Jesus, to my knowledge, probably had no box. We all have a box. The question is, how big is it and what can you do to make it bigger? So that’s where we’re going to go tonight. A few things about faith. Love is the foundation of faith. Okay. You remember First Corinthians 13 says, Faith, hope and love, abide, abide is eternal. What this is, is actually the foundation. Love is the foundation of faith. On top of love is the hope that it brings. And faith is rooted on top of that. Faith is the absolute certainty that something will happen. But not everything that you’re absolutely certain about is faith. Okay, I can go over and turn the light switches off and am absolutely certain all the lights will go off. And I can turn the light switch on. And I’m absolutely certain that all the lights will come on. That’s not faith. That’s just trained expectancy. Because faith is not simply expecting something to happen regardless. Faith is expecting. It’s believing God will do something.

And then stepping out to do it. Faith is the connection between you and what God will do. And that’s really the difference with faith. So as we get through this part, I want to make four statements about faith. Real simple statements. Sometimes we don’t always think about them. You can live a nice, clean, moral life without any faith. And Jesus rebuked all the leaders of his time. For a lack of faith. They had good morals. But now says the question is why? Why can you live a nice, clean moral life, life without any faith? Or maybe the second question apart from faith, we can receive nothing from God. James one six and seven says, but he must ask in faith without doubting. For the one who doubts ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord. Why can we receive nothing from the Lord? The third statement is Jesus primarily rebuked his disciples, for one thing. And what was that one thing? Do you all know? Oh, yeah. A little faith and think about that. Now, watch this. Think about the context in which that statement was always made. Context number one, casting out a very powerful demon of epilepsy. Why could we not do it? Because of your little faith. That was the least of the little of the rebukes then. Watch this. They’re going to cross the lake. Jesus is asleep in the back. Huge storm comes up and they’re about to sink.

And they cry out in fear and wake up. Jesus. He gets out and calms the storm and then he says, You have little faith. Why are you afraid? What he was doing is he’s rebuking them because he expected them to have calm the storm. Then with the 5000, it says, and one of the gospels, when it is talking about the 5000, it says he asked Philip and said, Philip, how are we going to feed all these people? And then the gospel message says, and Jesus said this to test Philip. Expecting to see if Philip would act by faith to feed the people. He didn’t. So Jesus did. And then right after that late night, Jesus comes walking on the water. All the disciples get scared. And then Peter says, Lord, if that’s you, command me to come out with you. So he says, Come on. Peter starts walking on the water, and then he sinks and screams out. Jesus picks him back up and watch this, it says. And then Jesus says, You have little faith. Why did you doubt? And then as soon as he gets back in the boat, it says that they were all amazed and then they tie back to this 5000 fish feeding 5000 people, for they did not understand about the loaves feeding the 5000. Then another time he rebukes his disciples for a lack of faith. Put yourself in this position. You’re one of these Hebrews.

Miracles don’t happen. Jesus has been saying, I’m going to be killed, buried in three days. I’m going to rise again. And then he gets crucified. They all run away, you know, at the moment when he’s taken and then he’s buried. And then all these people start saying, a couple of days later, Hey, Jesus is alive. No, he’s not. I saw Jesus. No, you didn’t. You must have seen a ghost. And then he appears to his 11 apostles, and he rebukes them again. Why did you not believe? Do you not believe what I said? I said I would be raised. Why do you doubt every person who’s told you? In other words, all of these things that Jesus rebukes his disciples for as a lack of faith. He expected them to believe, even though it was outside of their grid. Here’s the question. Why? Were they? Why was Jesus always rebuking? Why was it always outside of their grid? Why did Jesus take no accommodation to their weakness of flesh and expect them completely to act by faith? The fourth statement is faith, which is the act of believing God’s word and praying in faith, which is the act of submitting that faith before the Lord. Just like I did in the stories I shared. That’s what brings forth God’s promises in our lives. It’s the act of believing and then the act of acting on that belief through prayer that brings about those promises without faith. Almost all of God’s promises are unrealized.

Let me give you just an example. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. But I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. So what happens to a lot of Christians today? My life is rotten and well meaning Christian. People will say, Hey, it’s okay. Where to? You’re supposed is good to suffer. Suffer makes you strong, It’s sanctifies you and you’ll you’ll get all the abundance and all your blessings when you get to heaven. Or someone has a chronic sickness and they can’t get rid of it and someone says, Hey, just look forward to if it’s to death. Look forward to that, because when you get to heaven, you’ll be healed. Well, that’s not what Jesus said. I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. And he said that right after the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. He’s not talking about I’m going to give you abundant life in the heaven where everything is already abundant. Well, duh. Either. You know, we don’t have to die to get our healing. We don’t have to die to get our blessings, that our blessings come to us through faith. But just like salvation. When Jesus told Nicodemus, You must be born again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. You remember his issue? His grid was an earthly grid. Reasoning as you like to use Sarah. And he said, How in the world can you be born again? Can one crawl back into his mother’s womb? And everything Jesus teaches is heavenly truth, not earthly truths.

And heavenly truths can only be interpreted through childlike faith and applied by faith. And only by faith can you receive the promise of eternal life. Only by faith can you receive all the other promises the Lord has given. And this is where we see back in March 11, 24. Jesus is telling, talking to the Apostles disciples, he says, Therefore, I say to you all things for which you pray and ask. Believe that you have much less received them. Past tense. And then they shall be granted you future tense. We start to see this pattern with faith. Everything Jesus did was already done in heaven. First, it was an heavenly truth that then became an earthly reality. How do we know that? He says, I only do the things I see my father doing. Father had to do them first for him to do it. I only speak the words my father tells me to speak. The lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. And the lamb was lamb 2000 years ago. How do we reconcile these except things happen in the heavenly realm. Believe that you have received them, which is a past tense. And then because you believe them, you will receive them. They will be granted you. So a couple of the things as before, as we get into the main teaching, as I’m trying to build this for you.

Why are we to live by faith? Who knows why we’re to be? Why we were to live by faith. And he answers. Because we’re commanded to. Now I want you to start looking at the Scripture. So let me. Now let’s start going to the Bible. Romans 117. Romans 117. But the righteous man shall live by faith. It’s a command shall live. The righteous man shall live by faith. And notice is faith. Active or passive? Shall live by faith. Is that active or passive? Is active? Yeah. There’s something living, moving, active with faith. It’s not just being. And then look at I want to show you two other passages that kind of tie in some questions. Luke 18 eight. Luke 18 eight. The last part of the verse. Jesus is talking, he says. However, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Now watch this next passage. Luke 2232. Luke 2232 the first half Jesus talking. Says, But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. So we see two things about faith is the only thing in Scripture Jesus says he will be looking for when he returns. The only thing. And then the only thing he prays for his disciples that he verbalizes is that their faith will not fail. What is it about faith that is so important? That is the only thing Jesus says he’s going to be looking for, and it’s the only thing that he’s praying for.

At least within this context. So why is Faith so important that Jesus keeps making it a big deal? Well, first it’s all about, Do you trust me? Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him as righteousness. It is impossible to live as Christ lived. And it’s impossible to be conformed to the image of Christ without understanding what faith is. And without walking and living by faith as well. It is the key to everything. And that’s why, just as Vince Lombardi said, this is a football. This is God’s word. And if you believe and walk by it, you will walk by faith and you will have not only the blessings and promises that he gives, but you will walk in the fullness of the good works that have been prepared beforehand that you should walk in. As we talked in the last sessions on Zealous for Good Works. So let’s talk move into what is faith? Who knows? We got a lot of mature believers here. What does a Bible say? Faith is. It starts with. Now faith is. Yeah. That’s right. Substance. Let’s turn there. Hebrews 11 one. Hebrews 11 one. And it says Now faith is the assurance of things, hope for the conviction of things not seen. The Amplified Bible says it this way. Now faith is the assurance or the title deed of thanks we hope for. Let me ask you a question. What is a title deed? Let’s say you have a title to your car. What does that mean?

You got me.

Yeah, you’re on it. It’s your proof of ownership. Faith is your proof of ownership. That’s what faith is. The assurance of things hope for. Amplified Bible says it’s the title deed, right. Of things we hope for. Now we have to define what hope for is. And the colloquial term we use, hope is something we want. I hope it doesn’t rain today. That’s not the hope of biblical. Biblical hope, remember? It says faith, hope and love. Abide. Hope is the absolute assurance of what God has promised. And hope in the biblical terms is we are looking forward to the time that we receive it. That’s hope. That’s what this is. Faith is the title deed. Oh, the things that are absolutely assured to be received by us. And then continuing with the Amplified. It’s the proof. Faith is the proof of the things we do not see. And the conviction of reality. And then it kind of summarizes faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses. I’ve always loved that faith is perceiving as real fact what is not perceived by the senses. The living Bible has also a little bit watered down version, but it does a good job in a couple of parts, says Faith, is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is a certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. And again, that hope for is because it’s a biblical truth.

So. Question. This blue marker. Do you have faith that this exists? Raise your hand if you have faith at this marker. Exist. And keep them up. If your hand is raised, you are wrong. You do not have faith that this blue marker exists. And why not? Because you can see it. That’s it. Faith is the title Deed of those things that are guaranteed and assured that you cannot see. Once you can see it, there’s no faith. It’s only faith when you cannot see it like, Well, let’s just go back to Bud, for example, with the hip. God’s promise was he’d already been healed. Isaiah said by his stripes, You are here. Matthew says Jesus went around healing everyone to fulfill the prophecy from Isaiah. That by this stripes you are healed. And then Peter says by his stripes you were healed talking about past tense. So here we have a promise in Scripture. But it wasn’t understood to be his. By faith it manifested. Why did it manifest when I prayed, but not when he prayed and not when all kinds of other people prayed for him. Because for me it’s a title deed. I know God’s word and I knew what God was going to do because I knew God set it up. Okay. So a simple definition of faith is it’s the absolute certainty. That something is totally and completely true when you cannot see it, but because it is from God’s Word. Okay. That’s really what’s going on. It all ties back to God.

You said faith is the absolute certainty that something is totally and completely true. When. You cannot see it. But because it’s from God’s Word. Now, being from God’s Word does not mean it’s explicit in God’s Word. Meaning. Jesus says, if you have faith. All things are possible. That’s kind of a combination of things, right? That anything you pray and ask believing you received it will be granted you. So that means anything. What we do know is faith comes from God as part of God. So it has to be within God’s will. But if you have faith. Then you get it. I was talking to another lady and she said, You know, we pray for this situation just like you, but nothing ever happened. But we prayed in faith and said, No, you didn’t. Because they have not been critical. But the evidence of faith is the mountain moves. The evidence of faith is if you’re praying for healing, you get healed. If you pray for pray for healing, and healing does not occur. You cannot claim you have faith because faith is unequivocal. If you pray by faith, it will happen. That’s what Jesus says. What happens is we think we have faith because we think we believe, but we only believe in our mind because we it’s not even a belief. It’s a desperation. I want to believe so bad that I fooled myself that I believe. But faith takes no effort. This is what we talked about in our faith like Jesus series.

That faith, when it comes from God, you’re walking in rest. Because it’s faith that God is going to do that for which you believe. And therefore, it takes no effort. If I were to ask my wife, PA, I’m thirsty. Would you please go get me some water? She will do it. I don’t have to struggle with my belief whether or not she will. She will do it because she loves me. The foundation of faith is love. God’s love and understanding his love at a deepest level, that he will do whatever you ask and believe that he will do. We’ll get into that in later sessions. Let me show you how faith manifests in just a very basic level in scripture. Let’s turn to Exodus 14. Exodus 14, starting in verse 15, this is Moses parting the Red Sea. Just give you a little background of where we are. God has just pulled Israel out of Egypt. He sent them into the wilderness and he sent them one way. And then he tells Moses, Now go back and go back the other way and then take another turn and go to the Red Sea. And he says, I want you to do that, because then Pharaoh will look at this and they say, Oh, they’re wandering aimlessly. They don’t know where they are. Let’s go retrieve them. And so now Pharaoh is going to come out and bring his army against you. So that’s what God is doing. So now they are at the Red Sea.

Faced up against it. And behind them come all of the Egyptian army. Every single soldier horse chariot commander has had all of Pharaoh’s army and all manes, all the Israelites are now petrified and terrified because the most powerful army of the day is coming against them and they are, in their perception, powerless. That’s where we pick up. Starting versus we’re going to do 15, 16 and 21. Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? Tell the sun’s a visual to go forward. Now which direction is forward? Straight into what? Straight into the sea. Does that sound like a normal thing to say? Just tell the. Tell the children individual to go forward. God, there’s a Red Sea there. How can we go forward? Right. Can you just see what’s going on? And then God continues. As for you, Moses, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the Sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. Skip over to verse 21. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. And the Lord swept the sea back by a strong East win all night and turned the sea into dry land. So the waters were divided. Now I need a little bit of participation on these questions. So you all don’t be silent. Who acted? Moses acted good. Did he see before he acted? No, he didn’t see. Why did he act?

Baby.

Oh, because God said. And he obeyed God’s word. And who performed? God As we go through all of these aspects of walking by faith, you will see the same pattern. Let’s turn to Elijah and the widow. This is in First Kings 17. First. King 17. The back story here. King Ahab is the king of Israel. He’s a most wicked king up to that point. Elijah is frustrated with him. So he says there is going to be no reign in the land until I call it forth. So the land, there’s a famine, and then we pick up first King 17, and we’re going to read nine through 16. God is now speaking to Elijah. Arise. Go to Zara, Faith, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. Now who knows this story already? I’ve seen it. Right. Think about this. Did the widow know anything about that command? How could the Lord have commanded the widow if she knew nothing about it? This is a whole aspect of faith. God proclaims and decrees things in the heavenly realm, and we may never know about it, but we’re expected to live it out. On our last sessions. It was zealous for good works. Remember in Ephesians two, it says God prepared beforehand, good works that you should walk in them. We have no idea what those are, but it’s our job to figure it out and walk in those good works. That’s what’s happening here. We see the same thing that God says. I have commanded a widow there to provide for you. So he arose and went to Arafat. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.

And he called her and said, Please get me a little water in a jar that I may drink. As she was going to get it, he called her and said, Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, as the Lord, your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar. And behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. She’s looking in the earthly realm with her earthly eyes at the earthly circumstances, and that becomes her earthly reality. But now Elijah is going to give a heavenly truth. Then Elijah said to her. Do not fear. Go. Do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me. And after word, you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus, says the Lord God of Israel. The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth. So she went and did, according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted, nor did the jar of oil become empty. According to the word of the Lord, which he spoke through Elijah. Pretty powerful. Another miracle. Here’s the question Who acted? In this story.

She did.

She did. Right. She and he he acted and went there and then she acted and gave the. From the little that she had left. Who did she see before she acted?

No, but she kind of had a promise. I mean, because the Lord.

That’s right. Okay. So. So that then. So she did not see before she acted. But why did she act? She had a promise and a command from the Lord. And then who performed? God did. Same pattern man acts before he can see. But because of the promise and the command of the Lord. And then God performs. By the way. Here’s something else about faith and provision. The Lord? Almost never. I don’t know any time that the Lord does a miracle when it’s not needed. And especially when it comes to provision, he always takes the little that you have to produce the abundance that you need. But he always waits till you get down to just a little and you think it’s all gone. He’ll never abundantly bless you in provision miraculously, when you already have a lot. He doesn’t add to the abundance that you have. He takes a little that you have and gives you the abundance that you need. Let’s look at Peter walking on the water. This is real interesting. This is Matthew 1429 331. Matthew 1429 331 And it starts. And he said, this is Jesus. So the passage, the background on this, they just fed the 5000 people. Jesus sends the people across the lake in the boat. He goes up to pray. There’s a strong wind that prevents them from going very far. Jesus comes out walking on the water. Everyone’s afraid. Then Peter says, If it’s really you, Lord, command me to come with you. And now we pick up the story and Jesus said, Come. And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came towards Jesus. But Watch says once he takes his eyes off of God’s Word, the Word of God and places them on circumstances, something changes. But saying the wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me. Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, You have little faith. Why did you doubt? Who acted in this story. Peter Wright. Did he act getting out of the boat before he could see?

He got.

Out. He got out. But could he see? Could he see it? Could he see the miracle? No. But why did he act?

Obedient.

Obedient, the Lord said. And it was a promise. Inferred in the command is the promise of the provision. And then he performed. God did. Same pattern. Let’s look at one other. It’s not in your Bible. This is more current, even though it’s over 100 years old. He knows who George Mueller is. I’ll never recognize the name George Mueller. He was a man of God in the late 1800s or early 1900s over in England. And he started an orphanage at the Lord’s direction and over time grew to housing 20,000 orphans. He never once asked for any money or any donations because he says, Lord, if this is your ministry, you provide it. I’m not going to ask you give. And that was kind of the deal because he said later in life that the reason he did the orphanage was to show people how to walk by faith and trust the Lord implicitly. So this is a an account in the early days of that one morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the pantry and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal. When Mueller said, Children, you know, we must be in time for school. Then lifting up his hands, he prayed, Dear Father, we thank you for what you’re going to give us to eat.

Is that a bold prayer? Yeah. We thank you for what you’re going to give us. There was a knock at the door. The baker stood there and said, Mr. Mueller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and bake some fresh bread and have brought it. Mr. Mueller, thank the baker. And no sooner had he left when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it. That’s pretty radical faith. Here’s the question Who acted? Mueller. How did he act? By thanking the Lord publicly for what the Lord was going to give them to eat. Did he see before he acted? No. And who performed? God did. Now we might say, well, this wasn’t really a miracle. Well, yes, it was, because if you go back to my previous teaching on faith, like Jesus, you find that faith transcends time. And the act of faith today actually changed the trajectory of things that started long before that prayer of faith, because faith, hope and love abide.

That means they are eternal. They exist eternally exist in God and God exists outside of time. Not to get too deep. Okay. So what we’re what we’re dealing with is the heavenly truths versus the earthly reality. This is what I was drawing up earlier. But just to kind of reiterate it, we have heavenly truths. Heavenly truths are those things that the Lord says are true. And then we have earthly reality. And earthly reality are those things that our eyes tell us is true, which is truer, what God’s Word says or what our eyes say, but God’s Word says, right? And so by faith, believing God’s Word and acting on it, act by faith, then it transfers those heavenly truths that God is promised. Into our earthly reality. And that’s what we’re seeing with all of these stories. So where does this faith come from? Turn to Romans 1017. Let’s now look at it a little bit deeper. Romans 1017 says faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. So let’s dissect two of these things, the word hearing and the word word. This is Romans 1017. If you look at the Greek for hearing the Greek word for hearing means audible to me actually to score here with your ears. Now, keep in mind, God’s word is spiritual truths. So what you’re hearing is not necessarily audibly with your physical ears, but you’re hearing audibly with your spiritual ears.

I’ve only heard God speak audibly one time. Most people have in those people who have, it’s usually once or maybe twice. But all the time that he speaks, he’s speaking in your spirit that you’re picking up from your spiritual ears. The key is this is not. Faith comes from reading the Word of God. It comes from hearing the word of God. And so as you’re reading God’s Word, you will hear God’s Word when he highlights something off the page. You all have ever experienced where something kind of gets highlighted and it’s like, Oh God, speaking to me, that’s what we’re talking about. And then the other word is the word word hearing by the Word of Christ. In the Greek, there are two Greek words primarily used. That’s translated into the English word. One is logos, one is rhema. They are different Logos and Rama are both the word of God, but logos is God’s Word objectively recorded. The technical definition is this a statement that embodies an idea? But Ramo. Is the Word of God, spoken to us at a specific occasion. And the technical definition is, by implication, it’s a matter or a topic, especially like a command or something like that. So I want to show you just a couple of examples of logos and Rama so you can see that there’s.

See the difference in Scripture terms, We’re going to look first at logos. Turn to Matthew 532. Let me show you how these appear so you can start to see in Scripture the difference between logos and Rama, because faith comes from hearing the Rhema of Christ, not the logos of Christ. Matthew 532. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of an chastity, that’s logos, except for the logos of UN chastity, a statement that embodies an idea. Turn to mark two two. We’re just going to go through these fast, Mark. Two, two. And many were gathered together so that there is no longer room, not even near the door. And he was speaking the word to them, speaking the logos to them, the statement that he that embodies an idea. Luke One, two. Luke one, verse two. Just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Of the Gospel of the Logos. Okay, so that’s logos and scripture. Now notice how it changes when we talk about Rama. So Rama. We’re going to look at three verses. Let’s go first to Mark 1472. Mark 1472. My vernacular definition by definition of Rama is it’s a command or a promise. Okay.

Something that you can act on. Mark, 1472 says this and immediately a court crowed a second time and Peter remembered how Jesus had made the remark to him before a court cross twice. She will deny me three times and he began to weak the word remark, the Rhema. And Peter remembered how Jesus had made the Rhema to him and that Rhema was a statement of fact, a prophecy of what was going to happen. A promise. Turn over to Luke 138. Luke 138, says. And Mary said, Behold the bond slave of the Lord, be it done to me, according to your word. According to your Rima, according to what you have promised and said was going to happen. That’s a rama. Last one is Luke five five. Luke five five. And Simon answered and said, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But I will do as you say and let down the nets. I will do as you, Remo. As you command with that command is inferred a promise in this case. So what happens is, as you’re studying God’s Word, the Holy Spirit is going to take these words that are the logos of God, and He’s going to convert the logos to a rama. And that’s the highlight to you. And when he converts the logos to a rama, then you can take that to the bank as you act on it.

You have faith. Faith comes from hearing the Word of Christ. And that faith is the title deed. To what has been promised. You cannot see it, but you act on it. And that’s what happens. Last couple of things. Faith cannot exist by itself. It is always accompanied by works. Always. Never by itself. James 217 I’m going to show you two two verses and James on this. James 217. Says. Even so, faith, if it has no works as dead being by itself, everyone always confuses faith and works because they say, Well, look at James. It says that faith, faith comes from your works. You work out your faith. No, no, that’s not what he’s saying. He says that your works are emanating from your faith. It is the source of your works, not the result of your works. Even so, Faith, if it has no works, is dead being by itself, and then go a couple of verses over to verse 22, James 222 says, Faith was working with his talking about Abraham. Faith was working with Abraham’s works. And as a result of the works, faith was perfected. So let me give you an example. Sarah, I want to give you a party in your honor, and it’s going to be next Wednesday night over here. I’m going to invite all of our friends, all of your friends from church, and we’re just going to celebrate you 7:00 Wednesday night here at my house.

Will you come say I will be there. I’ll be there. Okay, great. So now she has just given me her rama her promise of what is going to happen. She will be at my party. So now let’s fast forward Wednesday night, next week, 7:00. And you drive up and you start looking around as you’re driving to go something strange. There are no cars. And then you look at the house and only a few lights on in the house and you’re pulling out your notes that I had the date and time, right? I mean, you’re not there’s no grid. You’re trying to figure out something’s wrong. So you come up to the front door and you knock on the door. And you look through the windows. There’s no one there and no one answers the door. You knock again. You ring the doorbell and then I come running up. You hear some steps, some pounding on the floor, and I come running, open up the door and I see you. And my eyes go. Just as startled expression, and my expression says it all. And I go, No. You say, You forgot. I said, No, Sarah. I didn’t think you were going to come. I never invited anyone. What does that do to you?

Oh, meant you didn’t trust me.

I didn’t trust you. Yeah. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. The other thing that it means is I do not receive the promised blessing of your presence in my house that night because you will turn away and drive back home. Because I hurt you so much. You intended to be at my house and to bless me with your presence. But because of my lack of faith, you turn around and you take your blessing away. This is what it is with God. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And without faith, we do not receive His blessings that He has for us, except maybe by a manifold grace of his. But specific and abundant blessings are not ours without faith.

It kind of reminds me of what John said to you when you said, you know, because I’ve made this profession of faith. And then he said, bring forth me worthy of repentance right there some action that based on your profession, God is expecting.

Actions. He is you know, he is expecting actions because your actions are born from your belief. Right. If I believe this is. We did a whole series, if you recall, on Identity. Draw out three circles from my audio listeners, three concentric circles like a target. And here’s what we talked about. That center circle is your belief what you believe determines the actions that you do and the actions that you do determines what you become or what you get. If you want to conform to the image of Christ, you conform first by belief. And if you have faith, your faith is your belief and it determines your actions, which determines what you get. I did not have faith that you would show up. So because I had no faith, I had no actions. That’s what we’re seeing. I remember a number of years back, almost 20 years ago now in my business, we were having a really tough time. We were six months without profit, losing money. We had batten down the hatches, had ten employees, I think at that time, maybe 12 somewhere in there. We all went on reduced pay. I went on the greatest reduced pay. And I was worn out and I was struggling with the Lord. And this was January. At the end of January, like maybe January 25, 26, somewhere in there.

And I was just asking the Lord and saying, Lord, when are you going to let up? You know what the Lord said? Do you really believe my promises to take care of you? And I said, Yes, I do. And then he asked one more question. If you really believe my promises to take care of you, how would you be acting differently than you’re acting right now? As a prop for a question. I said, Well, for one, I would be back at full pay because we’re not making our own bills paid. And number two, I would put all of my people back at full pay. So the Lord said, Well, why don’t you trust me and do it? It’s. It’s okay. So I called up my business manager, a guy named Walter at that time. And I said, Walter, put everyone back to full pay retroactive to the first of this month. So they got a short pay. So this next pay pay to pay periods, this next pay period is going to be a big pay period to get everyone to full pay on everything. And that month, we lost 10,000 small business 20 years ago. That was a lot of money for us. The next month, February, we made 10,000 profit.

So watch this. That’s a $20,000 swing in profit. Does that make sense? And one month when I looked at my pal, I could not figure out how it ever happened. It wasn’t that we had more sales revenue coming in. It was the same. Relatively speaking, it wasn’t that we had a lot less expenses. I really to this day, I’ve even looked at their back at my panel not too long ago in recent time, and I still can’t see where it happened. But the Lord brought a $20,000 profit swing by us doing one thing, acting by faith, and for the next period of time we were profitable. The only thing that changed. As I acted and he performed. The last couple of things. Faith is seen from God’s perspective. This is this is what we’re talking about, God’s perspective as the heavenly truth. What’s that perspective? Abundant life, all provision that you need. Healing, whatever it is. And when we act by faith, when we look at it from his perspective. Then we walk by his perspective and it becomes our earthly reality. Faith is seeing through the perspective of God, through God’s Word. Just like Peter walking on the water. As long as he kept his eyes on the Word of God, the miracle happened.

He actually showed it to me. I was just telling my friend about that, but he showed it to me like, you’ve got virtual reality and then you’ve got heavenly reality down here. And he was showing me you have to choose Jesus, which one you’re going to live in.

So we’re going to cover this a whole session on this one. But you hit on one thing. What you’re seeing with all this is faith as a choice. Most people say, I don’t know how to have faith. Well, you just choose to have faith. Watch this. I’ll prove it to you. Peter walks on the water. Then he takes his eyes off of Jesus and puts him on the wind. And the waves, as we know. And then he sinks. And what did Jesus say? You have little faith. Why did you doubt? Does that mean that he had the ability to the right? But does that mean that Peter had the ability to not doubt? Yes. When Jesus says, Why did you doubt that means he had the ability to not doubt, but he chose to doubt because he chose. To believe his eyes rather than believing the word of God. It’s a choice like.

A we’ve been used to going by circumstance.

That’s right.

And we got to retrain.

We’ve got to think through a different grid.

Yeah, we really have.

And that’s what this whole session is about. Last thing, three steps to living by faith. If you want some action items, how do you do it? These are the simple things, not the full things, but they’re the baby steps. We’ll get into other things later. Number one, you need to spend time in God’s Word daily, and you need to study it. Not just read one verse and just meditate on that one verse because you don’t know what that one verse means in context, because you don’t see a whole context. So read God’s Word. Give him the ability to speak to you through his whole word, because at some point you’re reading and he’s going to highlight something to you. But if you never spend time reading his word, you lose the opportunity for him to highlight it. So the first step is to read his word daily. Second step. This is real important. When God. Let me ask you this. Let me back into this statement. If God were to appear, if Jesus were to appear right now in this room and says, I’ve got something to share with you, would you all just kind of listen and go, Oh, that’s nice. Jesus. Or would you write down word for word what he’s saying? Would you write it down? Yeah, I would.

Why? Because it’s God’s word to me. That’s what happens here. When you’re reading God’s Word in highlights. He highlights it. Write it down. Every single thing he’s highlighted to me since 1998 or before. I have a record of every single one and the date he gave it to me. Because then you can go back and review it and see God’s promises and pull them out. And you start to see these patterns. And as you see these patterns, you can confidently walk by faith because these are God’s word to you. So number two, number one was to spend time in God’s Word daily. Number two is to write it down. And speak it out. Romans 1017. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, So speak it. So now it also becomes your audible ear and not just your spiritual ear. Joshua one eight, says this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night and be careful to do all that is written in it. It shall not depart from your mouth. So when God speaks something to you and highlights it to you, write it down and constantly speak it out because it reinforces his word to you.

Kind of like what Jesus did.

It’s exactly what Jesus did, isn’t it? And then the final step is just do it. Doing it as a choice. It’s choosing to obey God’s word. And that is. What faith is.

And found out, too. It doesn’t have anything to do with feelings.

Has nothing to do with feelings.

Because sometimes you feel like you know, because you’ve got this fear over here. It’s coming from your other realm and you think, Well, I’m just not being fake. So then it makes you afraid to obey because you think I’m not even fed. But the thing is, obedience is what he’s looking for. Your feelings will eventually line up.

That’s right.

But. But you find they get feelings at first.

Faith is. Obedience.

Faith is a choice, not an emotion. That’s really true. Gideon, we’ll talk about him next time or two, but. I guarantee you, when he and his 300 men were marching against 135,000 midnights, his feelings were, Oh, my gosh, I’m terrified. Yeah. But he was obedient. That was the key.

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