[0:00] There's a story behind that song. Wednesday night after our activities after dinner, I saw Eric and Emily sitting by themselves and I went up to them and I said, hey, there's this really cool song.
[0:20] I don't remember who sung it, but it's something about I want my life to preach. So Eric pulls up his phone, finds a song, and he looks through it and he goes, I think we can do that. I go, what? He goes, I think we can do that for Sunday.
[0:34] And he looks at Emily and he goes, I think Jason can do this. She goes, you can't give that to Jason with only a few days notice. And God is good. Thank you guys so much. That's such a great song and it reminds me about the life calls us to. Our words mean a lot, but how we live our life speaks loudly. And hopefully we all want our life to preach.
[0:56] So Pastor Joe has been teaching on words of the Bible, defining words that define our faith. So over the last few weeks, he's taught on words like righteousness, justification, sin, glory.
[1:14] Last week, he taught on servanthood and being a deacon. And the reason he's teaching on these words is because they help us build a foundation for our faith, which is what we're going to talk about today.
[1:30] And these are not words we're familiar with. So getting a deeper understanding of what God really means by these words helps us to walk this life of faith. If you haven't seen those, if you've missed a Sunday and you want to see those sermons, they're really good.
[1:46] You can jump on our website and you can see those sermons. So just pull them up on our church's website. So here's the thing. As I was starting to prepare this message on faith, I stumbled through it for quite a while.
[2:00] And what I've come to see in this is that this is a message that I needed to do a deep dive on because I often don't walk my life in faith.
[2:16] I run ahead a lot on my strength and I forget to go to the Lord to go on his strength. I did that on the sermon. I do it all the time. I'm not as bad as I used to be, but I still do it.
[2:28] And my life of faith often is filled with fear and fear holds me back and holds me back from being the man God calls me to be.
[2:39] So going through the scripture and thinking more clearly about what biblical faith really looks like has helped me bring more clarity for myself. And I've been convicted as I've gone through this, but I've also been very encouraged.
[2:55] So I'm hoping the same things will happen to you. I hope you might get convicted, but I also hope you will leave here with a lot of hope about how you walk your faith out in a dark and dying world.
[3:07] The word faith is kind of a simple word. We use it casually in our conversation sometimes, but we use it often when we describe our walk with the Lord.
[3:19] We say, I put my faith in Jesus Christ. That's true, but what does that really mean to put your faith in Christ? So that's what we're going to talk about here this morning.
[3:30] I want to look at what the true meaning of biblical faith is. We're going to look at a few examples in scripture of how faith walks itself out by looking at some of the people in the Bible who've done that.
[3:45] And then we're going to finish up by looking at a couple of applications that maybe you haven't considered that are tied directly to the faith that God calls us to. So that's our goal this morning.
[3:56] So I want to open in prayer again, if I may, and then we're going to read our scripture, and we're going to kind of jump into the study. So if you would, one more time, just bow your head with me.
[4:08] Heavenly Father, Lord, as we prepare to go to your word, as we prepare to have our hearts be ready to hear what you have for us, Lord, we're all in different places in our walk, we're all in different places in our challenges and our faith.
[4:26] I pray that you will speak to each and every one of us today, Lord, through your word and through your spirit. I pray for your blessing over this worship service this morning. I pray for your protection over this worship service.
[4:38] And I just pray for your continued love and mercy and grace in our lives, Lord. You are so good to us. We love you, Lord, and we pray all this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.
[4:49] Amen. Amen. Amen. We've been reading these verses for the last few weeks, so I'm going to read them one more time.
[5:00] And Pastor Joe has broken out a lot of what Paul is saying here in Romans. But we're going to talk about one particular aspect of what he's saying here. So watch for the word faith as I read through this scripture.
[5:14] Romans 3.21 through 3.26. And the scenario here is that Paul is, he's in a conversation with a Jewish, the Bible calls him a Jewish objector.
[5:30] It's kind of a Q&A. Paul's getting asked questions about the law. And he's trying to talk about how, well, you'll see what he's trying to talk about. But he's addressing these questions about the law.
[5:41] He says, God presented him as a mercy seat by his blood through faith.
[6:09] to demonstrate his righteousness because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
[6:28] quick review. Pastor Joe's already taught on this, but essentially what Paul is saying is that no one is good enough on their own to meet God's perfect standard.
[6:45] And because we can't save ourselves, God provides a solution for us by his grace. And we receive that gift through faith in Jesus Christ.
[6:59] If you've ever done a word search in the Bible, in the Bible, the word faith shows up about 247 times, depending on the translation.
[7:12] But what's interesting, I found, was that twice in the Old Testament, faith is used. And 245 times it's used in the New Testament. And the reason for that is because there's a change of focus as we go into the New Testament.
[7:27] And the focus goes on to Jesus Christ's life, his death, and his resurrection. And really importantly, it goes on our response to that. We're going to define faith in a moment.
[7:42] But what struck me as I was preparing this was the bigness of God's love for us. How much he truly loves us. Because, and this is kind of twisty in a way, but because God, by his grace, gives an unbeliever the faith he needs to receive that gift.
[8:05] There's nothing we do that brings us to salvation. We're lawless, we're sinners, yet Christ, by his grace, says, here, here's the gift of faith.
[8:21] Receive it. That's how much God loves us. I mean, it just kind of hits you right between the eyes. Ephesians 2, 8, 9 says this. It says, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith.
[8:34] And this is not from yourselves. It is a gift from God. Not by work so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
[8:49] God wants everyone on the planet to be restored back to him. And God wants that to be our heart, too. He doesn't want us looking past people and not realizing that God wants me.
[9:05] He wants them as much as, I should want them as much as he wants them. There's always work to do as followers of Christ. So I'm going to begin by looking at biblical faith.
[9:15] I'm going to break it down just a bit. So, question for you. So you're a Christian living in your neighborhood. Your next door neighbor is not a Christian. You guys are friends. You talk. You have a barbecue every once in a while.
[9:26] So your friend comes up to you and he says, I'm confused. I don't really understand what you mean when you say you put your faith in Jesus Christ. I don't know what that means.
[9:37] Could you tell me what you mean by that? Let's take just two seconds and think about what would you say in response to that. How would you answer that question in a way that your neighbor might understand what you're saying based on having no knowledge about Christianity, really.
[9:54] So this person, you, you're kind of familiar with scripture. So you tell them Hebrews 11.1 because that's what comes to your head first. And you say, now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
[10:07] And you look at your neighbor and he looks like the deer you saw in the headlights last night. He has no idea what you just said. So you get nervous. He gets nervous. You regroup.
[10:19] And then you think, well, how can I say this in a way that makes some sense to him? So you say something like, faith is my confidence that the God of the Bible is true.
[10:32] And all of his promises are true. I believe that to be true. So he relaxes, you relax, and you begin to have a conversation about God. And you may not have that full conversation that day because he's your neighbor.
[10:43] You'll see him again. But it begins to build a bridge with someone who doesn't really understand what we mean when we say, I put my faith in Jesus Christ. Why do I have to do that? I want to share.
[10:59] So I want to talk about faith, and it's more than just believing. So I'm going to share you a story real quick. And it's a true story. And it's a story that stuck with me. Maybe it'll stick with you. But it's about this fellow named Charles Blondin.
[11:12] They called him the Great Blondin. Has anybody ever heard of this guy? Oh, good. So if I do the story wrong, you won't know it. So it was in the late middle 1800s that Charles Blondin was a tightrope worker from France.
[11:29] So he comes to America, and he strings a tightrope across Niagara Falls. So it goes from the Canadian border to the U.S. border. And he starts to walk across Niagara Falls, the big gap there.
[11:41] If you've ever been there, it's huge. And people are amazed, and crowds build up, and they're all around everywhere. So one day, he shows up with a wheelbarrow. So he brings this wheelbarrow, and he sets it up on the tightrope, the U.S. over here, and he puts it on, and he walks this thing across this tightrope all the way to the United States.
[12:00] And the crowds over there are going crazy. And so he calms them down, and he says, Do you guys believe that I can walk this wheelbarrow back across to the other side? And everybody's like, Absolutely.
[12:11] We've seen you do it. We know you can do this. So he quiets the crowd down again. He goes, Which of you would like to get in the wheelbarrow? I'm going to push you right across. True story.
[12:24] You could hear a pin drop. Nobody responds. They believed he could do it, but they weren't going to get in that wheelbarrow. So out of the back, and the stories are mixed. It's either his mother or his manager come to the crowd kind of meekly and goes, Okay, I'll do it.
[12:39] So they get in the wheelbarrow, and he pushes them across to the other side. So biblical faith is not just believing, but very much about doing.
[12:51] In our case, obediently doing. There's an action tied to our faith. There has to be. Hebrews 11.
[13:03] I'm sure you're familiar with Hebrews 11. It's called the Heroes of Faith chapter. Let me read you a couple of these. Because I want you to see the action behind the commitment of faith.
[13:16] By faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham believed God, and he went and did what God obediently called him to do.
[13:27] By faith, Moses left Egypt. By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea. So can you imagine being on the border of the Red Sea, and the walls of water come up on either side, and there's a walkway between them?
[13:41] It would take faith for me to step out and walk that walk. But there's an action tied to the faith. By faith, last one. And the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed.
[13:54] If you know the story of Rahab at all, she put her family and herself at risk to hide the spies. And God blessed that so amazingly.
[14:05] If you know the story of Rahab, she's actually in the line of Jesus Christ. I mean, and she's not even Jewish. So amazing, faith leads to obedience. And the thing is, when faith leads to obedience, we need to take that step first.
[14:22] And then God shows up and gives us the power and the strength to accomplish it. Think about it like when Peter saw Jesus out on the water, and he goes, Lord, can I come out to you?
[14:34] And Jesus says, come on. So Peter had to take that first step of faith onto the water, and then Jesus gave him the strength and the ability to do it, even though he didn't get very far, if you know the story.
[14:46] So the saints of old, in the Old Testament, were saved by their faith in God. But it's the exact same way that we're saved by the death, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the exact same way.
[15:00] And what's interesting, and it's good for us to recognize this, is that all these saints, these heroes in the verses of chapter 11, and almost everyone you see in the Bible who faithfully follows the Lord, they struggle.
[15:15] It's not an easy road. There are times that we can get off track a bit, but all of them, their faith was strong. They never left the Lord. They kept coming back. They kept coming back.
[15:27] And that's what faith is. It's trusting the Lord so much that you're willing to get in the wheelbarrow, no matter what God's calling you to do, because you believe in him and you trust him.
[15:46] So how do you get to a point in your walk as a Christian where you can take those tough steps of faith, those hard ones? But even more than that, how can you get to a point as a Christian, a follower of Christ, where you can take those not such tough steps of faith?
[16:08] Because God calls us every day to walk a walk of faith. So how do we be Christ-like when we're in the grocery store?
[16:18] How do we be Christ-like when our family's blowing up and kids are crazy and really upset? How do we be Christ-like when we're going through an illness and it's scary and it's hard? Every day, God wants us to keep our eyes and our ears open for how he wants to use us in the circumstances of our day and their opportunity every single day.
[16:37] And sometimes it's not even in front of another person. It could be somebody cut in front of you in a car, and it's how your heart reacts to that. God's watching. He's paying attention. And you begin to see the changes within yourself would begin to strengthen your own faith.
[16:53] So how do we do it? I mean, how do we do it? Okay, I'm going to use another example because I like this one. And this is a good metaphor for faith, for our faith.
[17:09] And it's a true story. Again, I like true stories. Some of the best movies are based on true stories. They just inspire me more. But this was the 1936 Olympics. And the rowing team from Washington State, by a miracle, made it to the Olympics in Berlin to compete for the gold medal in front of Adolf Hitler.
[17:31] It was at that Olympics. These guys had no chance to ever get to compete for a gold medal, but here they were. So if you know how rowing works, and they made a movie and a book about this called The Boys in the Boat.
[17:43] But if you know how rowers work, they're in a long, sleek boat. In this boat that they were in, there were eight men, side by side, four, with an oar.
[17:53] And the finish line is behind them. They don't get to look at the finish line. They look at the guy in the boat, the ninth guy in the boat, who's called the cockswain. It's a word I never heard before I read this book.
[18:06] The cockswain is the one who they have built a relationship with. They trust him. They've been out with him many times before. And these guys have been out in snowstorms training. They've been out in hot days training.
[18:18] They've been through it all with this fellow and with each other. So the race to the gold medal, the finish line, is there. And they start the race. And they do not turn their head and look at their competition.
[18:32] They don't look at what their fellow is doing next to them. They don't try to look at the finish line. They watch the cockswain only. He tells them to go left, they go left. He tells them to go right, they go right. He tells them to speed up, they speed up.
[18:44] He tells them to give it everything you've got to get to the finish line. And that's what they do. They give it their all. The cockswain is an example of what Jesus Christ should be to us.
[18:57] And we're those people in the boat. We can get lost by looking at what the world's telling us. We can get lost by looking at where we think we need to go and how we need to get here.
[19:08] Somebody once told me that God's got a straight stick to get us where we want to go, but we're going to walk a crooked line to get there because of our nature, right? What do we all fight?
[19:19] There are two things we fight all the time. So when we are saved, we're filled with the Holy Spirit, right? So we have the Holy Spirit working inside us. But there is this thing that we inherited called a sin nature that is always battling our Holy Spirit within us.
[19:39] So there's God over here and our sin nature is over here. So what do we give the most attention to? And what do we put our focus on? And who do we come to trust the most? And the second thing we fight all the time is the world.
[19:55] We're all exposed to the world. I mean, you can't get around it. You see TV. You see commercials. You see the way people behave. You see the news. It's Satan's playground. And the more we're on fire for the Lord, the more we're living out this faith God calls us to, the more the enemy is going to come after us.
[20:17] So I remember in the beginning when I said that the neighbor said that my faith is grounded in my confidence in who God is. We need to just do a little aside for just a second because it's really important.
[20:36] How do we know what we believe? I mean, how do we know what we believe? What do we anchor our beliefs on? Well, it's God's word, right?
[20:48] God's word tells us who he is, who we are, and how we want to live this life out. Sunday is not enough time in God's word to navigate this life that God's given us.
[21:10] The old saints, the Puritans, and a lot of the old saints, they talked a lot about spiritual disciplines to help us stay on track with the Lord, to get the most out of our relationship with the Lord.
[21:21] And then people more lately say, nobody likes the word discipline, so they use a different word, spiritual habits, I think. But we need to be in the word.
[21:32] We need to be growing in our faith. We need to understand who God is and understand who our enemy is so that we can live the life that God's called us to live. But God provides for us in his word the ability to put on the armor of God every single day.
[21:49] And we need to because we really step onto a battlefield. If you're going to live your life in a way that honors God, if you're going to live a big life for God. And a big life doesn't mean you're in front of people doing anything.
[22:00] It's just living a faithful life in the moments of your day. And when we live this kind of life and we begin to see God's hand in our life and God showing up in the circumstances of our life, our faith becomes this catalyst or this engine, if you will, that moves us through this life in a way that is not on our strength but on his strength.
[22:25] So we talked about hard times, how the old saints went through hard times.
[22:37] You probably notice for yourself, and you see it in the Bible all the time, how people in the Bible grew the most, it seems.
[22:49] And I know this has been true for me when I'm struggling with stuff. And I can't figure it out, or I can't seem to do it in a way that I feel like God wants me to do it.
[23:00] God gives us the opportunity to step out of the boat every time on those and to trust him. But when we go through those hard things, we have to find a way to do that and to follow him faithfully through it.
[23:12] It's his timing on how all that plays out. But all those things are faith builders. And when I was a young Christian, I'm not old yet, just by the way, but when I was a younger Christian, I was trying to memorize scripture.
[23:28] And the book of James kind of stopped me on this one particular verse that said, Consider all joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials. And I thought, you've got to be kidding me.
[23:39] How do you find joy in your suffering? I mean, how is that even possible? But as we come to know the Lord better through his word and through our own sanctification, Joe, I think, talked about our own growth in our faith from baby believers to more mature believers, you begin to see how God works in our life.
[24:02] And you look at the apostle Paul, for instance. And he was in prison, and a lot of the letters he wrote were from prison. Hard, hard time, but look at him, what he's doing in prison.
[24:15] He's honoring the Lord in prison. And then if you've ever read the book, I like this book, Pilgrim's Progress. It's probably the second most read book after the Bible by John Bunyan. He went to prison unjustifiably.
[24:30] He was a pastor. And he wrote that entire book when he was in prison. And it has been a blessing to generations ever since then. So when we can find joy in our suffering, two things happen, I think.
[24:52] One, we become a witness to others around us who are walking with us through our suffering. I mean, you just become a witness to them because you're not walking through it like the world walks through suffering.
[25:09] And the other thing is that God gets the glory in that. And that's what God created us for, to bring him the glory, to give him the glory.
[25:19] And one of the reasons God gets the glory as we go through that is because we can't be joyful in tough times on our strength.
[25:30] We have to be joyful in his strength. And that is a spiritual muscle that needs to be developed over time. Spiritual discipline.
[25:40] Our confidence grows as we see the evidence of God in our lives. And the evidence I see of God in your life.
[25:51] And you see it in my life. Those are the things that are an encouragement to us. So the Christian faith, let's kind of shape the design of it, what the definition is again.
[26:04] So it's the trusting commitment to the God revealed in the Bible. So I'm all in, Lord. I'm learning who you are.
[26:14] I'm learning who I am. And I'm learning to be committed to what you call me to. And what I was called to 20 years ago may be very different than what I'm called to now. It may be harder.
[26:25] But I don't... God gives us more than we can handle. And... Because that's how we grow. I mean, so that isn't true. That God never gives you more than you can handle. But God doesn't give us too much to handle.
[26:37] He lets us grow in our walk. And faithfully brings us along to a point where... We just continue... That growth never ends. It goes all the way to the day the Lord brings us home.
[26:47] So it's a trusting commitment to the God revealed in the Bible. That results in a reliance on Jesus Christ. For our salvation. All the way to the day the Lord brings us home.
[27:00] We depend on Jesus Christ through all of that. And the way we live this out is by a life of obedience and faithfulness. We good so far?
[27:17] Apparently not. So I want to talk on two applications, if you will, about biblical faith that maybe you don't think about in this way.
[27:28] I mean, there are lots of ways we could say this is how you do it and this is how you do it. But let me give you a couple. So what do we do every Sunday at the very end of service? It's up here on the screen.
[27:39] We do the Great Commission, right? So before we leave here, we want to have our goal in mind for what God calls us to do. He says, go and make disciples.
[27:52] In order for a disciple to be made, what do they have to do before they can become a disciple? They have to come to faith in Jesus Christ. They have to be saved and then they start to become a disciple.
[28:04] So part of what God is calling us to do is he's calling us to make sure that people, all the people he loves, people, hear the gospel message.
[28:20] Right? Because when they hear the message, the spirit of God takes over. None of us are going to take the responsibility for bringing someone to faith.
[28:33] Because we don't do it anyway. But God calls us to share the gospel message and then just let it go and let him take care of it. And for me, and I think maybe for you too, that should relieve some of the pressure that we might put on ourselves about going out and talking about our faith with people.
[28:57] I don't want to sit on the bench in my life and go, I really should get out there and do that. But I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to do it well and all this stuff. God does call us to prepare ourselves to share our faith.
[29:09] He calls us to that. We have to do the homework to prepare ourselves. We have to know how to articulate what our faith is. But it's not a complicated faith. And when we do it with the power of God involved in that, then that person who God, by his mercy, has given them the faith to respond, they have free will.
[29:30] Like we all have free will. They can choose to or not to at that time. But that's not our responsibility. We care about them. We pray for them. But that's not our responsibility. So God wants us to open our mouth and talk about who we are as Christians and why we're a Christian.
[29:47] And I can tell you for myself, it's been a struggle over the years. And I can tell you from my conversations with people, I think we all, especially as an introvert, I think we all need to be encouraged and be convicted about that, but be encouraged about it.
[30:02] We can help each other do that. There are lots of ways we can do that. But the more confident, again, the more confident we are in God's promises, the more faithful we're going to be to his command to share the gospel.
[30:16] The second way biblical faith impacts us, and I love this one, is that, again, it's the engine that drives the power and sense behind our obedience. So when we're fearful or we're uncertain or we don't understand what God's doing, it doesn't stop us.
[30:36] The stronger our faith is, the more we're willing to walk faithfully. And the example I love of this that speaks to me is in the book of Daniel when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are standing before King Nebuchadnezzar.
[30:54] And there's a fiery furnace right here. And they're standing here, and the king's standing up here. And he's like, if you don't bow down to my golden idol, you're going in the furnace.
[31:05] So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego look at him and go, we're never going to bow down to your idol. Our God is going to save us. But if not, we're not bowing down to the idol.
[31:19] Throw us in the fire. We trust our Lord completely. And that's, you know, we pray for things. But then we let go and let God, you know, if it's your will, Lord.
[31:31] You know, my heart is for this person to be healed, Lord. That's what my prayer is. But I trust you regardless of how this plays out because you know what's best for all of us.
[31:43] You have a plan and a purpose in all of it. That only comes from time and confidence building in our faith. And the thing is, it's not an easy walk, but this walk of faith, you have a purpose.
[31:56] God gives you a plan. And it's like the best story ever when you think about it. And you're a player in the story. It's a huge, huge, wonderful, adventurous, hard life that God calls us to.
[32:08] But one of the things that should keep us all going because God's word says it is that at the end of this life, God's bringing us home and it's going to be amazing. And we're going to go into eternity with him.
[32:18] And there's not going to be all this pain and suffering and fear and worry and all the things we struggle with now. Our hope is there all the time. Amen. We've got four minutes.
[32:33] Maybe five. So for me, talk about sharing our faith. You know, I think this is the most important part of this whole message for me.
[32:46] So I'm going to just share it with you because I don't know who's here who hasn't put their faith in Jesus Christ yet. Maybe all of you have. There may be some that have never.
[32:58] But I want to make an invitation. And I made some notes about it because I don't want to goof it up. But I want to. It's from my heart. But if you're here today and you've never put your faith in Jesus Christ or maybe you're on the fence and you're not sure if you really ever did or not.
[33:17] Remember, I said earlier that God loves everyone. He loves the world. He loves the world so much he sent his son Jesus Christ here to die for us and to die a terrible death for us.
[33:31] God made us in his image. Sin damaged our image. We're out of relationship with God. We don't get to be with God with a damaged image. Sin damaged our image.
[34:09] In coming to earth. And to resurrect from the grave after he died. As God's confirmation that what he did was acceptable to God. And most of us have heard our whole lives that God loves us and he wants to forgive us and bring us into a relationship with him.
[34:26] And that's true. But if we don't grasp the bigness of what God did by a brutal death on the cross.
[34:36] By leaving heaven to start with. And by a brutal death on the cross. Not physical death only. That Christ took on all the sins of humanity on him spiritually. We can't even fowl them what that looks like and what that means.
[34:49] But if we don't put a huge value on that. This gift that Christ offers. God offers us through Christ. Doesn't mean a lot. It's like why do I need it?
[35:00] You know. I'm fine. So we have to understand what God did. And we have to understand our predicament. And salvation is not just what we're being saved from.
[35:13] It's about what we're being saved to. So real quick. I'm going to wrap it up. If you've never put your faith in Christ. Or you're not sure.
[35:24] Do a quick heart check with me right now. Do you find that there is an emptiness somewhere inside you? Or something that's like a vacuum.
[35:36] A hole. That you try to fill up with things. Worldly things. And they might be good things. It might be a job or a family or a career or a hobby. Or they could be bad things like drugs, alcohol, cars.
[35:48] I mean, not the cars are bad. But is there some place inside you that there is a restlessness and not peace? Because if there is, I contend that that's God knocking on your door.
[36:01] Offering you this gift. That is the only thing that can fill this need and this desire inside you. And if that's you, we never know how many tomorrows we get, right?
[36:17] Today might be the day that you choose to put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And the Bible would call that a new birthday for you. Because the Bible talks about being born again.
[36:27] Amen. So if that's you and if that's on your heart, if your heart's pounding or just feeling like, oh, yeah, he's talking to me. You can put your faith in Christ.
[36:38] You can receive that gift from him by saying a prayer from your heart right there where you're sitting. And ask him to come and repent of your sins and ask him to come into your heart.
[36:52] Ask him to be the Lord and Shepherd of your life. You can do that while Eric's playing the music today at the end here and come up. And I'll help you through that. We can walk through that or after church.
[37:03] But I would encourage you. The biggest regret of my life is wait until I was in my 40s to come to faith. I heard about God my whole youth. Left that in my house after high school. And that was it.
[37:13] So if I could go back and change one thing, that's what I would go back and change in my life. I feel like I wasted so much time. So take the time while Eric plays this song.
[37:28] We'll just give you a minute. If you're considering this, think about this, pray about this, maybe do it. But if you're a follower of Christ already, just take a moment. Because we're going to rush off to Sunday school and go home.
[37:39] And take a moment to look, think, pray about where does God want you to take that next step of faith? What's the next tough thing for you that God's calling you to?
[37:53] Because we all have something. None of us are home with the Lord yet. We all have something that God's got for us. And maybe continue with that as you think about through your week.
[38:04] Like, where do you want me to grow, Lord? What do you have for me? Where do I struggle? Is it forgiveness? Is it being faithful to go share my faith? Whatever it is. The power of prayer. I see the power of prayer more and more and more as I grow in my faith.
[38:17] And I'm so thankful for that. And I still stumble at it. But anyway, that's my invitation to you. So let's close in prayer and then Eric will sing this song.
[38:28] And we'll go from there. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you, Lord, for this message on faith, Lord. Thank you for myself, Lord, for the conviction of how poorly I am at walking in faith sometimes.
[38:47] But I'm encouraged, Lord. I know that others have done the same. And I know that you are always there. You're always there to encourage us, to point us in the right direction. If I draw my oar on the boat, Lord, it's okay.
[38:59] I get my eyes back on you and you straighten me back out again. So I pray for all of us, Lord, that we will be confident that you love us, you care for us, you want the best for us, Lord.
[39:11] And you want us to follow you always in obedience. We love you, Lord, and we pray all this in your son's name. Amen.