Properties of Faith

[0:00] The faith of certain persons of the past in the Old Testament, from Genesis through Malachi,! There's certain persons that get highlighted because they did something.

[0:10] ! And this chapter shows them and highlights them and just mentions them as faithful or men or women full of faith. So they call it the Hall of Faith, just like baseball has a Hall of Fame or basketball and so forth.

[0:21] But this chapter is preceded by a few mentions of faith. Would you notice just verse 1 of 11, it says, Now faith. It's kind of an odd way to start a chapter saying now faith is this and that.

[0:36] The now is there because there was a reference to faith just a little bit ago, which would be the previous chapter in verse 38 where it says, Now the just shall live by faith. And it finishes the thought and then starts in the next chapter.

[0:49] Now faith is and gives a little bit of a description or a definition, maybe you want to call it, of faith. Verse 1 says, It's the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

[1:03] And I don't have, I'm not going to spend the time on it tonight, but I feel like just that description begs some commentary and some study because it's such an odd, to me it's just an odd wording that you have to consider and think about to say faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

[1:22] But in this chapter of the 11th chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews, it's a summary of many persons from the past that have demonstrated faith in a variety of ways.

[1:37] It begins with a few quick thoughts and then dives right into certain names. What you'll see in verse 4, Abel. And then in verse 5, a man named Enoch.

[1:49] In verse 7, Noah. In verse 8, Abraham. And then his wife Sarah and their boys are mentioned and it goes on from there. And so different men and women acted in faith.

[2:00] What's interesting, one interesting fact or feature about your Bible is that the word faith, while you might assume it's just cover to cover, loaded with faith, the reality is about three quarters of this book barely, doesn't mention it, but barely at all.

[2:21] And that is, I think if the numbers I found are accurate, the word faith shows up 247 times in this Bible. And 245 of those 247 are in the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation.

[2:38] Meaning the majority of this book, what we call the Old Testament, it only mentions the word two times. That's kind of remarkable. It shows you that it's not a theme of the Old Testament, it's not faith.

[2:51] The first time it's mentioned in the Old Testament, it's in Deuteronomy. What that tells me is when God created the worlds, and when he created, or when he, Adam and Eve and their sons, and going forward from there, and gets into Noah, and building the ark, and all that he did.

[3:07] And while he's mentioned here, it never mentions his faith back there. When you get with Abraham, who Paul calls Abraham the father of faith, not even a word about faith. At least the term itself is not shown in his lifetime ever.

[3:20] And his sons, Isaac, Jacob, going all the way to Joseph through the close of the book of Genesis. How many times do you think the word faith shows up in Exodus? With Moses leading them out, and them trusting God, and following him with the pillar of cloud?

[3:34] Zero. So the first time it shows up is in Deuteronomy 32, and it's not a pretty thing. It says they are a very forward generation, children in whom is no faith.

[3:45] And then the judges, and the kings that ruled over Israel, some of them very good men, and good lifetimes, good reigns, and it never mentions the word faith associated with them one time.

[3:59] Going through the writings of these kings, of David and Solomon, and getting through the major prophets, not a mention of faith. Until you get to Habakkuk, chapter number two, and who knows where Habakkuk is, a tiny little book in the minor prophets, then you find this phrase, that the just shall live by his faith.

[4:20] The first time in all of that Old Testament, is like two-thirds of the way through almost, you hear a mention of a man living by his faith. It's such a rarity back in that Old Testament.

[4:32] It's not popular at all back then. And then Christ arrives on the scene, and he starts rebuking people for their lack of faith, because he expected to see it in him. And God expects faith out of man, and yet there wasn't any.

[4:44] And then Paul, in the book of Romans, he writes the book of Romans to the church, and some things are changing drastically now in that Bible, because when Paul writes Romans, he uses the word faith more than any other book in that Bible.

[4:57] And he is expounding upon the necessity of faith, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, and he even quotes that Habakkuk reference, saying that the just shall live by faith. So the Apostle Paul mentions it soundly and strongly in his epistles, and then we get to the book of Hebrews.

[5:15] Now the writer is aiming at Hebrews again, those same people that were of the Old Testament, of children of Abraham, those same people with their judges, and with their kings, and with their prophets.

[5:28] And now God's going back and having a message for them, and he starts to sprinkle the word faith into this epistle. And it's mentioned a few times in chapter 10. For instance, since we're so close, look at verse 22 of chapter 10.

[5:43] Let us draw near with a true heart of, in full assurance of faith. And in verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. And I already read to you verse number 38.

[5:56] Now the just shall live by his faith. So by the time we get to chapter 11, there was nothing, and then there was a little bit, and then it's building through the Apostle Paul's ministry to the church, and then to the Hebrews, there's some sprinkled in comments about faith, and then chapter 11, just boom, an explosion of faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, all over the place, you'll see the word.

[6:20] And if you skim through it, you're seeing it's the second word in verse 1, in verse 3, in verse 4, in verse 5, third word in verse 6, it's just faith, faith, faith, all the way through it. And so this chapter is going to reveal that faith was alive back in the Old Testament, and with those men and women and the things that they did in following the Lord and obeying His word, faith was very alive, it just wasn't mentioned, and it definitely was not the theme of that time.

[6:47] Now in this book, in this chapter, it is by far the theme. And the first, from verse 4 to verse 22, you've got different individuals that were lived back in what the book of Genesis would be, from 4 to 22.

[7:02] And then you got Moses in verse 23, on to verse 29, which would be the book of Exodus, and carry out the other books that he wrote. And from verse 30 and 31, you have references to the book of Joshua, and verse 32, the book of Judges, as well as the books of Samuel, mentioning Samuel by name, and David, and then just mentions at the end of verse 32, the prophets.

[7:28] And that's quite a vast amount of time covered. And so to close out this chapter 11, there's just a variety of examples that aren't named specifically.

[7:39] Some of them you could maybe deduce who they are by the wording and by the comments there. But these are examples of faith in the Old Testament, though the words are rarely used.

[7:52] So now that we've kind of mentioned a few things there, notice now verse number 2. Let's look at Hebrews 11, verse 2. It says, For by it, that is by faith, the elders obtained a good report.

[8:06] And now look at verse 39, almost the end of this chapter. It says, And these all, after giving all of these names, and what they did, these all having obtained a good report, through faith.

[8:20] So verse 2, verse 39, very similar kind of bookends to the chapter, saying, These elders, the elders obtained a good report. What does a good report mean?

[8:32] It means that what's reported of them, here in this chapter, they obtained by acting in faith. This good report, what was reported of them, something good was said about them by God, because they obeyed and acted in faith.

[8:48] So, what we're going to see tonight, in this chapter, is that these earned a good report, or a good testimony, by believing God, and then acting, or rather obeying God.

[9:03] It was an action that they did, and faith then, is the source of that action. And I want to discuss with you, a few simple, simple things, that I think are necessary, for us to understand about faith.

[9:16] And it's not going to sound, as complicated as the first verse, as much as that's just an amazing, scriptural wording. I'll be a lot simpler than that. The things that I cover, I think are going to be very helpful to know, because God expects us, to live by faith.

[9:32] Like us, if you're a believer in Jesus, He expects us, matter of fact, He expects all men, to exercise faith in His Son. Because He doesn't want anybody, to try to come to Him, without faith in His Son.

[9:44] You can't get to Him, without faith in His Son. So He's expecting, all men everywhere, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then after that, He's expecting you, to walk by faith, and to trust Him, in this life, and to trust His word, what He said, will come to pass.

[10:02] He expects us, to live a life of faith, so it would help us, to know some things about faith. And the Bible says, in verse number six, without faith, it's impossible, to please Him.

[10:14] So I think then, faith is so, foundational to what the Christian life is, and therefore, very necessary, and important, that we understand some things about it, that we realize what it is.

[10:26] Now I'm going to tell you, this is going to be some simple thoughts, and it's going to help you though, if you'll get it, that's the goal tonight, is to help you with something, that you can take with you. First thing here, this evening, is that I want to say, this is my wording here, is that faith, is fuel.

[10:44] It's fuel. It's energy. It's something to it. It says it's substance, in verse one. And the thought is that, faith is not abstract.

[10:57] Faith is not, some ubiquitous concept. It's not just some sacred term, found in the Holy Bible. That's not, that's nothing.

[11:08] It's not that at all. What faith is, is substance. It is fuel, for the believer to act upon. Let me give you an illustration, see if this makes sense to you, and then we'll go from there.

[11:20] Let's imagine, that you, are going to order, a brand new electric car. I say order, like, because maybe one of the manufacturers, you can order from, and get it.

[11:32] Am I allowed to say Tesla anymore? Am I going to get stoned for it? So let's just imagine, you order yourself, a brand new, top of the line Tesla. And you pay for that thing, and it shows up, and it's delivered on a flatbed, roll back, back in your driveway, and put that thing, and park it, just set her down, right there in your driveway.

[11:51] You're good to go. You've got it. It's beautiful. Paint jobs, spotless, just everything's phenomenal. You're so excited. It's a great day. Your Tesla finally arrived.

[12:03] And so you go, and you get the key, or the code for your phone, or however those things work, and you get in, and sit down in that thing, and it's just like, amazing.

[12:14] I smell so good. All just, you're taking it all in, and you start to, start to try to, like, look at this big screen, and you touch it, and it doesn't come on, and you're like, okay, but, so you try to push the button to start, it doesn't, nothing's happening, so okay, what do I do?

[12:26] What do I do? Am I doing something wrong? Well, after all the troubleshooting, and off the mess, all the messing around, you realize, the thing is dead. Like, they gave me a car, just imagine with me, with no energy in it, no life in the battery, everything's here, everything's built perfectly, but it's dead right now.

[12:45] I thought when I opened the door, I'd hear a chime, or a light would come on somewhere, but there's nothing. The thing's completely dead. And there you are, sitting in it.

[12:55] What are you going to do with a dead electric car? You're going to get your family to push it out of the driveway, and push you down the street, so you can sit in it, well, you can't do that.

[13:06] You've got to get something in it. So, you plug in to power. You plug a little bit of power, and as soon as you plug that in, within seconds, there's a light that comes on.

[13:17] It's a light that says it's charging. Maybe another light comes on over here, and over here, and you've got all kinds of gadgets now, starting to sparkle at you, and you're thinking, oh yeah, now something's happening.

[13:29] You know, when a little faith gets in, a light comes on. It wasn't there before. There was no light on, and this dead vehicle, this one, this dead vehicle, had nothing going on in it, until a little faith came in, and a light came on, and it wasn't ready to be out on the highway yet, but something's happening.

[13:56] There's something starting to go on, and maybe if you leave that plugged in for a little while, you can start to work the radio, and you can start to work the wipers, and maybe you could turn the heater on, and it's not quite ready to be flying around at 80 miles an hour, or to be taking somebody on off the line at some intersection, but something's happening, and it's starting to grow.

[14:18] The longer you leave it plugged in, the more that charge goes, the power grows, the potential grows for what this thing can do, and so let's consider tonight that faith is that energy.

[14:31] Faith is that fuel for the believer to act upon. It's not just to fill you up and charge your battery so that you can sit in the driveway and show everybody how full you are of faith, but no, faith is given to you as fuel to enable you to act, to enable you to obey God.

[14:51] Without faith, it's impossible to please Him, and you're powerless. Without faith, you're just idle, and you'll do nothing for God without faith.

[15:04] So let's consider then in this chapter, in verse number four, it says, by faith Abel offered unto God a more... You know what he did? He did something.

[15:16] In verse five, we read about Enoch being translated that he should not see death, and it says that he pleased God at the end of verse five because it was his faith.

[15:27] In verse seven, by faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark. So they did something. In verse eight, Abraham obeyed, and Abraham went, and he left his father's home and the country that he was born and raised in, and he sojourned in another land.

[15:49] He dwelt in tents. Abraham, and without faith, none of these would have done anything. They'd have sat idle in their sin, unable to accomplish anything, and you'd probably never know one of their names.

[16:04] So let's consider, first of all, that faith is that fuel. It's that energy that allows the believer to do something for God. And there's a second thing I want to point out that I think is going to go hand in hand is that faith must be exercised.

[16:20] It must be acted upon. It was gifted to the child of God to be used and to be exerted, to do something. You'd plug the car in so that you can drive the thing, not sit in the driveway and look at the gauges saying, fool.

[16:37] Faith must be exercised. Dormant faith is of no value, and it's pointless. And faith is given for the use of fulfilling the will of God.

[16:49] I believe faith produces a performance. James said that faith without works is dead. And so faith must be exercised, meaning it must be put to work, and something must be accomplished by using that fuel.

[17:03] Also, faith is displayed by action. It's displayed by action. You don't talk about it. You do it. It's not something that's placed on a mantle in your living room for display.

[17:16] It's not a trophy. It's not a resource that you can just hoard up and then store somewhere. But faith is given to be exercised to some work.

[17:27] God imparts faith to do something with it. And that's how he operates. God operates in faith. He doesn't operate in sight. He doesn't operate in explanations.

[17:40] He expects you to trust him. He expects man to come to his word and believe what's written, the scripture. And when man exercised faith in this book and he sees Jesus Christ and he exercises faith in Christ and he's born again and he's alive in Christ and then he's coming to the word of God, it's starting to show him things.

[18:01] Faith is starting to grow. It's starting to come to life. And now it needs to be exercised. It's just like a muscle. A muscle grows stronger when it's used and when it's worked and when it's tried, when it's put to its extreme, to its limits.

[18:18] Faith is just like that. When it's pushed to its limits, it grows stronger. If it doesn't get used, just like that muscle, it just turns to mush. It turns to flab and that strength that could have been there, the potential that was there, is gone.

[18:36] If you fill your car with gas and then go sit that car in the backyard for years and never use that fuel, that stuff breaks down and then it's no good and then it becomes actually a contaminant in that car and it goes bad.

[18:52] That has no power and no work can be accomplished or fulfilled because faith must be exercised. Faith must be used, must be put to work.

[19:03] Now let me take you on a little turn here of Scripture. Go back to your left, just a few books to 1 Thessalonians chapter number 3.

[19:14] 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. I'm going to give you a little, just a brief little example here about how faith needs to be exercised and acted upon.

[19:29] In 1 Thessalonians 3, Paul is concerned about this church and he sends Timothy, perhaps with a letter, and Timothy spends time with them and then returns report to Paul and it rejoices him to hear how they're doing because Paul's worried about this church.

[19:50] He labored on this church and then he's away and now he's wondering, I wonder if they're still standing. I wonder if they're still meeting. I wonder if Satan hasn't gotten in there and just blown the whole thing up.

[20:01] He's praying for them. He's worried about them. So listen in verse 1. He says, Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone and sent Timotheus, our brother and minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith that no man should be moved by these afflictions.

[20:20] So there's some things going wrong in this area. For yourselves know that we were appointed thereunto. For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation even as it came to pass and ye know.

[20:34] For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you and our labor be in vain. But now when Timotheus came from you unto us and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity that ye have good remembrance of us always desiring greatly to see us as we ought to you.

[20:52] And he says, we're comforted over you in all of this. And so just know that Paul was concerned about them. He was worried that something might have blown up. They were having a hard time. Affliction was present and he was worried that Satan would be messing with them.

[21:05] But he rejoiced to hear that their faith was still strong. Now flip over to the next book, 2 Thessalonians, as he writes back to this same church.

[21:18] And listen now what he says. Verse number, I'll start in verse 2, 2 through 4. Grace unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

[21:31] We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth, so that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure.

[21:53] So while he feared at the first that afflictions may have damaged their faith, he's pleased to hear that they're standing by faith and they haven't been shaken. While he was worried that something might mess him up, now he's saying that your faith is exceedingly growing.

[22:11] Why? Those persecutions, those afflictions, because they're holding on to faith, because they're exercising their faith that God gave them. They're not falling aside and giving up. They're staying in the fight.

[22:21] That faith is just growing and growing. They're exercising it. It's getting stronger. And it's what God gave it to them for. You need to realize this, that you, God gives you faith.

[22:34] I'm going to prove this to you from the Bible in a second, but he gives you faith and expects you to act upon it, to do something about that. And as you do, it begins to grow.

[22:46] And this is God's way. He doesn't just, He doesn't save you and say, all right, now I want you to go to the remote jungles of somewhere. And He doesn't put that on you. But He gives you a little bit of faith to do something small here.

[23:00] He says, why don't you witness to your family? Why don't you tell your mom? Why don't you tell your friend or your sister or brother? Why don't you tell your co-worker about what happened to you?

[23:10] Tell them about Christ. He gives you that much so that you could do it. Now turn back to Hebrews 11. Actually, we're going to go to Romans 12 here in just a minute.

[23:22] Romans 12, if you want to get that one loaded. And back in Hebrews chapter 11, the third thing I want us to learn about faith is that faith is measurable.

[23:38] It's quantifiable, meaning it can differ in size. Faith is not just all one lump.

[23:48] All looks the same. It can differ. It can grow. As we've already seen, their faith is growing. So it was smaller and then it gets bigger. It can grow or it can be overthrown and destroyed.

[24:02] Remember when Christ prayed for Peter, He said that, thy faith fail not. It could fail or it could be strengthened. And so in that sense, faith is measurable. Let me just point out a thought from the chapter and then we'll go to Romans 12.

[24:16] In Hebrews 11, with all these names and this list and this good report of these men and women, it seems to me like there's different quantities of faith on display. For instance, in verse 4, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.

[24:31] What do we know about that sacrifice? It was an animal, a blood sacrifice, whereas Cain brought of the fruit of the ground his own good works and God said, that doesn't satisfy me and I have no pleasure in it.

[24:44] And so Abel offered a sacrifice, an animal sacrifice. It was not his works. It was not his strength. It was blood.

[24:55] He did that by faith. That was the sacrifice acceptable to God. But now contrast that with the next man, verse 7, with Noah. Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house.

[25:10] Do you realize that what Abel did probably took him a few hours at the most? Maybe a day? Half a day? Can we contrast that to what Noah did?

[25:23] For decades, he's building a massive ark to house his family, two of every animal, seven of the clean beasts, and take them on a journey for I forget how many days?

[25:40] And that's compared to Abel offering a sacrifice? Now I'm not saying one's better than the other. I'm not trying to paint that picture. I'm showing you that I think there's different quantities here.

[25:51] One could be over in half a day, the other one ten years in, and he's got to still be as strong in faith as he was ten years back, and he's got another ten years of building, and another ten, and another ten, and some suggest it's 120 years that he was building that ark.

[26:07] Some knock it down to 75, but you be the judge, that's a lifetime of doing the work. So Abel offers a sacrifice, Noah builds an ark.

[26:21] Not exactly on the same level of exertion or obedience. Abraham moved away from his home to a strange land. He lived in tents. He sojourned in a land that was promised to him and to his seed after him.

[26:34] He never built a permanent home there, and he became a pilgrim. That's what God called him to be, a pilgrim. You're just going to travel around and dwell in tents, Abraham, and I'm going to give you this land, and I'm going to give you a son, a seed, that's going to be a great nation.

[26:49] And Abraham obeyed. And then a little bit later in the chapter, there's Rahab. In verse 31, that receives some spies into her home and protects them from the authorities that would have killed them, and she sends them on their way.

[27:04] I mean, that was something, and that spared her life, and she did that by faith. But does that compare to Abraham leaving his home and leaving everything and then just never putting roots down the rest of his life?

[27:18] An old man? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, those are two separate quantities, if we could call it that, of faith. And the rest, there's differing examples, different situations, and I believe that faith is proportional to the ask of God.

[27:34] That should make sense to you. What God asks you to do, the faith he gives to do that is proportional. Now, come back to Romans 12, and let's watch how this plays out.

[27:45] Romans 12, and verse 3. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

[28:08] Some men would be tempted to think, well, he's doing it, so he's not better than me. Actually, I think I'm better than him. I'm smarter than him. I'm this or that. I have more degrees or I'm better trained, so I should be doing that too.

[28:24] And it could be, no, God didn't give you the faith or the calling for that. And so don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Think soberly, according to the measure of faith God gave to you individually.

[28:37] I want you to see God gives faith in measure. Look at verse number, I'll keep reading, verse 4 says, for as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith.

[29:06] One has the faith to do this, one has been given something to do that, and it differs within the body of Christ. But I believe the proportion of faith is according to the ask of God.

[29:19] Now flip back to Matthew. Let me just run a few verses in Matthew with you. Look at Matthew 14. This is real simple here. Look at Matthew 14. First book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 14.

[29:47] And we're almost finished. Matthew 14 and verse 31. It says, And Jesus, immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him.

[30:02] That's Peter walking on the water and he begins to sink. Stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? That's what Christ calls it, little faith.

[30:17] But I kind of feel like early on, it might have been a little, you might have qualified it or quantified it as a bigger faith in verse 28 when Peter answered and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

[30:31] I don't know anybody else in the existence of the world that said, Lord, if that's you out there, then bid me to get out of this boat and walk on the water to you. Believing that if he says, yes, come, then I can do what he's doing.

[30:46] And that's wild. So Peter does. He steps out and then he sinks when he gets scared. And Christ rebukes him, O thou of little faith.

[30:57] Now, table that, little faith, Peter. Look at chapter 15 and verse 28. This is a Gentile woman that Christ, the disciples ignored and Christ ignored, but she was persistent.

[31:14] And then the Lord said in verse 28, Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. Great is thy faith. From Peter having little faith to this woman having great faith.

[31:27] Real, real closely, look at chapter 16 and verse 8. The disciples are reasoning among themselves and then in verse 8 when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves because ye have brought no bread, rebuking them again for their little faith.

[31:51] And now, one more in chapter 17 and verse 20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, and there's the quantity, a small, a small thing, but it says they didn't have it in verse 20.

[32:16] Your unbelief. And back up to verse 17. 17, 17. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation.

[32:29] If ye had a little faith, you could do something. And so, in this, in this little just section of scripture, faith has quantity. It could be absent, or there could be little, or there could be great, and probably everything in between.

[32:48] Now, I want to put all this together in summary of what we looked at because I think when we put it all together, a point becomes clear. That because faith is that fuel, is that energy for the new man to act and to obey God because that's what we need, because faith then must be exercised.

[33:08] It must be acted upon. It can't just be idle and sit still. It has to do something. It has to act. So, where there is no faith, there'll be no action.

[33:23] And where there's little faith, there'll be little action. And probably, where there's great faith, there'll be great obedience to the word of God.

[33:38] And so now, we started in Hebrews 11 where some elders obtained a good report because of their faith, because of what they did.

[33:50] And so now, I want to put it in your plate and say, what action has your faith produced in your life? Has it caused you to believe on Jesus Christ?

[34:04] Have you exercised your faith that God, I believe God has given every single human being the amount, the measure of faith to trust His Son for their salvation? There'll be nobody that can say, God, I just couldn't believe that story.

[34:19] I just couldn't believe what the Bible said about it. I didn't, just no way. Because God will say, depart from me, ye cursed. And it'll be like a fire for somebody who doesn't exercise faith in His Son.

[34:33] So has faith caused you to believe on His Son? If so, then has it caused you to make any changes in your lifestyle? To conforming to the word of God?

[34:45] To believing that if I'm going to believe this stuff, and I'm going to call out to Jesus Christ to be my Savior, and this is real, then I probably should be checking out the rest of it and seeing what God would have me to do in this life.

[35:03] Has your faith caused you to go to the word of God and act in faith according to what's written? Has it caused you to sacrifice anything in this life? Your faith.

[35:15] Has it caused you to let go of something that you probably would love to have or be part of your life but realizing that it's not for the Lord and it's not going to bring Him glory?

[35:27] So I should probably separate myself from that thing or that person or that place or that desire and should by faith seek to please Him instead?

[35:40] Has your faith caused you to do anything outside of your comfort zone? I'm not talking about weird stuff. I'm talking about what God wants you to do.

[35:51] What's right to do. And you just say, I don't like to do that. God will give you the faith. He'll give it to you to trust Him, to obey Him.

[36:04] You have to exercise it. You have to submit to Him and say, Lord, I believe this is what you want me to do and I'm going to do it. I'm going to stop fighting it and I'm going to submit to faith.

[36:17] And if you'll just walk in faith as He calls you to do, you'll find out that He'll help you put one foot in front of the other and He'll help you get to places that you can't get to on your own.

[36:29] He'll help you to grow in ways you just, you would never saw it, you never thought it. And if you're like me, I, as a younger man, I was scared to death to get in front of five people and talk.

[36:43] I was so nervous. You could hear it in my voice, just get all broken up and scared to death. And I'm not any different, to tell you the truth. But I exercised faith.

[36:57] I submitted to it, said, Lord, what you want me to do, I'll do for you because I believe it's the right thing to do. He gave me a proportion, a specific proportion of faith, a measure for me to minister.

[37:11] So, what report then have you obtained because of the existence of faith that dwells inside of you? It could be that you've just got a little and you're not exercising it and it's not growing.

[37:24] It could be that you've done some things in the past and you've done some great things in faith but you stopped exercising it, you stopped working it and it's just shrinking and you're losing it.

[37:37] It could be that you've never exercised faith in the Lord Jesus Christ tonight. I don't know who's in here and where you're at with your walk with the Lord but this thing about faith is something that God put in that book and He expects it of every one of us.

[37:51] He expects to see it. He operates in faith. He doesn't want to see you tell Him things. He doesn't want to see you just work, work, work, work, work. I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do this, I'll do that. If there's no faith coming out, Paul said, what did he say, if I could have all faith so that I could move mountains but if I don't have charity, I'm nothing?

[38:11] There's an operation to it and it's a way that God desires to see you submit to His operation before it brings glory to Him. Now, that's the few simple thoughts on faith.

[38:22] Next week, I want to analyze some of these reports in that chapter. I want to analyze and consider the different actions that their faith produced and I believe there's some, they're in there for a reason because there's more things God could have drawn from but those are the ones He put there and I think there's a reason for it and there's some things that we can learn from their reports, things that would challenge us to live our lives with greater faith and that's what I want to see us, just up and then when God moves, just up and boy, that'll be good.

[38:57] You'll enjoy it if you'll exercise that faith and it grows. So that's where we'll stop tonight and Lord, really, next week we'll take a look at some of those individuals. Father, as we dismiss this evening, thank you for the Word of God and for the challenge to live by faith.

[39:13] Lord, may you reveal to us where we're carnal and where we're afraid and where we allow fear to overrule inside of us and not allow faith to live and to be exercised and to work.

[39:23] God, help us to be people of faith that walk by faith, that stand by faith and God, give us grace to know what you have us to do.

[39:37] I want to thank you for a holy Bible that we can trust, one that can change our lives and one that can point us to a relationship with you and to a fulfilled life here on this earth.

[39:47] Help us, God, to exercise our faith tonight, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. We'll see you men on Saturday, 5 o'clock. Let's pray.

[40:00] Thank you.