[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfredo, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word.
[0:15] I truly believe it is an honor and a privilege to have Philip, come on up Philip, to be here to preach at our church. I really believe that in the days that come, 25 years from now and 30 years from now, you will all be blessed that you had a part in seeing a young man get his ministry started and how God is using him.
[0:32] They're both speaking the language well. They're about to start a church. I've watched Philip. I've only known him a little over 10 years, but he has been faithful all of that time. You're going to enjoy this message. Well, take your Bibles, and we're going to be in Hebrews 11, which is, that song was pretty appropriate for the message tonight because we're talking about the Lord guiding us through this journey of life and us going through all the hardships and all, not always smoothing, sailing smoothly along the seas, but sometimes storms and all kinds of stuff happening.
[1:08] But tonight, I don't know about you, but I go through different stages. He said I've been faithful for 10 years. Yeah, but during those 10 years, some of those days I felt really good and excited about stuff, and other days I didn't feel so excited about stuff.
[1:24] Sometimes I felt like I had all the ideas and all the energy, and other days I was just completely fine with the status quo, how it was, and just getting by.
[1:35] Have you ever, can you all relate? Or do you all have all energy at all times? No, we go, we're kind of like this. We're on the seas.
[1:47] We create our own waves, and we like to go up and down. So usually when I hear, you know, a big exciting message or some big pep rally or something, you know, you get old enough.
[2:01] I'm not all that old, but I am going bald. You get old enough, you realize that pep rally, it will last for, you might get excited, and you might be excited until you get home even. But then you're going to go to bed, and then you're going to wake up the next morning, and you're probably going to be about back where you were.
[2:17] So we need something that's more stable and more sure than just an exciting talk and a big pep rally. And so tonight I want to talk about some guys in the Bible that probably understood a lot of this frustration.
[2:31] And we see their story written down in Scripture for us that is an example to us of somebody who lived by faith, and not just when it was exciting, but also in the down times and in the hard times, and the Lord calls them heroes of ours.
[2:50] The Bible says in this chapter, in Hebrews chapter 11, they pleased God. God calls them heroes. They were also weary sometimes.
[3:02] There were brief moments of excitement in their life. People, yeah, like that picture on the boat, like people coming over to see us on the mission field. It's like, hey, come and see how we don't live.
[3:13] You know, we take you to all these tourist spots and all these big temples and take you on boats and all that. We don't do that, you know. But there's these brief moments of excitement that happens.
[3:24] And when you read even Bible stories, how many times did David kill Goliath? Just once, and that was about 10 seconds or so, you know. But he had a whole life that God calls him a hero for, and he has a heart after God.
[3:41] And so there's these brief moments of excitement, yes, but they were sustained by God's promises, and they were noted here in this chapter for their risky steps of faith.
[3:54] Here in kind of the key verse of this chapter, Hebrews 11 is verse number 6. Let's read it together. It says, So if I could put this in regular terms.
[4:17] When we're talking about the Christian faith, when we're talking about their life, there's one thing that's essential. It's kind of like, if you're going to have a good day of parachuting, there's kind of one thing that is essential.
[4:29] I mean, you can have a good pilot, and you can get up there and get all your boots on and have your goggles so you can actually see where you're falling to, and take your GoPro camera and film it.
[4:43] Hope you don't drop it, I guess. You can get you a good instructor. But there's kind of one thing that if you don't have, it's kind of going to ruin your day. It's kind of essential to parachuting.
[4:55] And what is that? A parachute. And in the same way, there is one thing that's essential to the Christian life. We can have all the markings and all the trimmings of a Christian life.
[5:07] You can come to church and whatever. But if you don't have the faith that the Bible is talking about here, it says it is impossible to please God. So there's a lot of things that enhance the Christian experience, but there's one thing in a category all by itself.
[5:24] And that one thing in all the Bible that God says that without this, it's impossible to please Him. But this thing that is so essential may just be a little bit different than we might recognize at first glance.
[5:40] It might be a little bit different than we would assume at first glance. So I'm going to make a statement here and then I'm going to try to convince you it's right.
[5:51] But this Hebrews 11, the kind of faith that's talked about here in Hebrews 11 is more than believing in God, believing God, believing the Bible, and just knowing that it's true and believing it.
[6:10] It's more than that. I'm not saying it's less than that. Now that is foundational to what this faith is. After all, the text says that we must believe that He is.
[6:21] But then there is this very important conjunction in this verse. Look in verse number six again. It says, well, you must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
[6:33] So it's foundational to believe in God in the Bible and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But those things are passive and those things are things that you can do sitting in a chair.
[6:45] So I can sit over there and I can believe the Bibles, the Word of God. I can believe in the virgin birth. I can believe all the right things and I can check off all the boxes and know all the right things up here in my head.
[6:58] But I would say that in this chapter, that's not the kind of faith that pleases God. If we stay there in the chair, that's not what you see these guys doing here in this chapter.
[7:10] But the kind of faith that this is talking about is, first of all, an active faith. It's an active faith. The last part of verse number six says, and that He is a rewarder of them that do what?
[7:23] That diligently seek Him. They're always seeking Him and getting up and trying things and exercising their faith and putting their faith into practice.
[7:35] And that's the kind of faith that takes that foundation of knowing the right things and believing the right kind of things and believing that God is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him and then going out and seeking Him.
[7:47] It gets out of the chair and goes out and attempts something. And so this next, I mean, in the very next verse, verse number seven, it starts in. It says, by faith Noah believed all the right kind of things.
[8:02] Well, he believed some right things that caused him to get up and do some strange things. And so it says, by faith Noah being warned of God of things not as yet, how does it say?
[8:14] I'm messing up John 3.16 again. By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark. I mean, it goes right into something that Noah did.
[8:28] And the common denominator of all these stories of heroes of the faith, they went from a passive faith to an active faith. And they weren't going to be content just sitting around.
[8:41] And not one of these stories is a story of somebody who knew all the right kind of things. But somebody who took that faith and got up and did something with it. It's not only an active faith, but it's also a risky faith.
[8:54] It's the kind of faith that is willing to take risky steps to accomplish something for God's glory and in God's work. I mean, it's got to be risky if you're Noah and you invest 120 years of your life into building an ark in your backyard.
[9:12] And there's not even any water around. I mean, you're risking a lot of ridicule. He probably didn't, he got a lot of ridicule. I'm, I know, I don't have to guess. He got a lot of ridicule.
[9:24] And it's got to be risky to build this 450 foot boat in your backyard. It's got to be risky if you're Abraham, who's also mentioned in verse number eight. And you decide to leave your family and leave your country and get and head out into the unknown in search of a promised land.
[9:39] That all you know about is what God told you about. All you have is the knowledge in your hand. It's got to be risky to set off before you have Google Maps. We, I mean, I wanted you to see a street in Thailand.
[9:52] So this afternoon I went screenshot, click, here you go. You saw it. You know what it's like. I mean, you can pretty much get an idea of what it's like. Abraham did not have that. He just was, he just set out, had no idea what kind of terrain it was going to be, what kind of people was going to come across, any of that kind of thing.
[10:10] And it's, that's kind of a risky move. He didn't know how much support to raise. And he didn't call his director and say, okay, well, what should I, what do I need to bring? Do they have Walmart over there or not?
[10:21] You know, he didn't have any of that. He was just guessing. I wouldn't say guessing, but he wasn't guessing. He was trusting. He was just going out trusting with, with a risky faith.
[10:31] And it, it's got to be risky if you, to take a knife and, and fully intend on plunging it into your son. It's got to be risky to be Moses and take on the most powerful man in the world and just, and just walk up to him and say, let my people go.
[10:45] That's, I mean, you're taking a big risk to do that. You're having a lot of faith to stand up in front of somebody and say, let my people go. Who are you? Well, I got God telling me to do this.
[10:57] And so I'm, I'm, I'm taking this risk to come up here and tell you this. It's got to be risky to be Rahab, but that is exactly why they needed faith. You don't need faith to sit there.
[11:09] You need faith to step out and do something that's scary. When you are stepping out into something unknown, you, you need to know some things in order to be able to take that step with confidence.
[11:22] And if you don't ever do anything risky, why do you need faith? But in this chapter, we see that this is the risky, this risky kind of faith is the kind of faith that God likes to see us believe him for and attempt something for him.
[11:41] So, especially I like, if you look down in verse number 32, it says, And what shall I more say?
[11:53] For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, of Barak, and of Samson, and Jephthah, and of David also, and Samuel and of the prophets. David just gets a passing mention in here. But I especially like the mention of David here because there's all, David has no clear command.
[12:11] Like, if you think about the story of Abraham, God came to him and said, Get up out of your country and go over here, and I will show you where this country is. And so, Abraham just got up and did what he was told.
[12:23] But if you think of the story of David and Goliath, I mean, God did not whisper in his ear and say, David, get up and go and get five, he didn't tell him any of those instructions, those specific instructions.
[12:35] David just saw an opportunity and he counted it worthy to do something about it. And he got up and he attempted something. And so, there's no, he was operating under a overarching commission that they were to take on the evil inhabitants of the land.
[12:52] But David simply saw a cause that was worthy of the risk. And the whole rest of the army and the kings and, not all the kings, but the king Saul of Israel, they all had faith too.
[13:05] If you asked them, they would have said, I believe in God. God can win this battle. God can do this and this and this. He can do all of it. But they had this passive kind of faith that made them sit there that God was not exactly pleased with.
[13:17] But David had the kind of faith where he stood up and said, I believe in God. Is there not a cause that is worthy of taking a risk for? And that's the kind of faith that pleases God.
[13:30] And when we talk about world evangelism, we just talk about our Christian life. That's the kind, this cause of world evangelism calls us to take those kind of risks.
[13:41] It's not always, we don't always know what's coming. We don't know what it's going to be like. I had no idea what it was going to be like to learn a new language. I guessed and I guessed wrong, you know.
[13:53] But we just want to step out and attempt something for him. And God sees that and he helps us and he assists us and he works through our lives as we do simple, meaningless, seemingly meaningless things.
[14:06] And he turns them into something that is glorious. So, I don't know what the Lord may be working in your heart about.
[14:18] But also, if we look at David, he also not only didn't have a clear command, but he didn't have any promise of protection. We see all kinds of promises in the scripture throughout different stories where God says, I will protect you.
[14:35] Nothing, you don't have to worry about things. But David didn't have that. He didn't say, I promise nothing's going to happen to you, David. David had a lot of confidence, but he didn't have any promises. And not everyone who steps out for God is protected.
[14:49] If you see in this latter part of this chapter, we have a lot of people dying at the end of a sword. So, we can't always count on smooth sailing.
[15:01] Like, anything I attempt for God is all going to work out wonderfully. Not necessarily. Maybe. Hopefully. That'd be awesome. But also, we might get sawn in half.
[15:13] But God likes to see us take risks. It's a pleasing faith.
[15:24] It makes God happy when he sees people willing to take a risk for him. I think God was up in heaven saying, look at my boy David down there, willing to step out and take a risk for me. I think it makes, I don't think, it makes earthly daddies happy too.
[15:39] Just the other day, we were over at Chris Way's house. And Claire was standing up on the ottoman in front of me. And I was saying, hey, jump to daddy.
[15:51] And she was like, oh, you know, if you know her, she's a little shy. And so, she was like, I don't know, I don't know. And then eventually, hey, I'm talking about you.
[16:03] She was like, I don't know, I don't know. And then eventually, I'm like, come on, come on, come on. And I put my hands about, like, her body's here. And I put my hands, like, right here. I'm like, jump. And she's like, eh. You know, I'm like, and it just made me happy that she finally, that she trusted me.
[16:16] And then, not very long, like, she's standing up there and she just jumps like this. And just, I'm not even looking. But she just trusts that I'm going to catch her. Like, I'm literally, I'm looking over here and she just jumps.
[16:27] I'm like, ah, and I catch her. But she, she completely trusted me. And that makes me, that made me happy. She knows I'm going to catch her. She thinks daddy's strong. She thinks I'm just going to take care of her and she can just do whatever.
[16:40] But daddy's there to save her. And that's, that's the kind of faith that makes God happy too. In fact, it seems like you can't make God happy if you're not willing to do this, to have this kind of faith.
[16:52] So, it's necessary, I would say, to be, that we become people of risk taking for the glory of God and for a cause that fits his purpose. Attempting to do something great for God.
[17:06] Trusting him completely. That he is with us and he will guide us and he will lead us. And we're going to step out in risk to attempt something for him because we love him. And we want to see his name glorified throughout this earth.
[17:19] So, how is all of this possible? By, first of all, seeing things that are not. Look at verse number one. It says, Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
[17:38] Not that they cannot be seen. It says, but they are not seen yet. If, if that was your conclusion that they were things that you could not see, you'd probably miss the point.
[17:51] You'd miss the whole point of this whole chapter. Because the idea is, is these things aren't seen through normal eyes, but with the eyes of faith, we see these things quite clearly.
[18:02] And he's, he's asking us to, to trust him and see things with eyes of faith and attempt to do those things through faith for him.
[18:14] It's kind of ironic that a chapter that has the first verse ending with, um, not seen. The phrase not seen, it's full of people seeing stuff.
[18:26] Um, you see, look, saws all throughout the chapter. It says, because the eyes of faith see things clearly that others don't see yet.
[18:37] Verse number seven, Noah sees a flood coming. Verse number ten, Abraham sees a future city coming that God had promised. Um, we, Moses sees the promises.
[18:49] Moses saw the exodus coming. Verse 27, we see the invisible God. Because with eyes of faith, we see things that are not normally seen without trusting.
[19:01] It's kind of like a missionary going to the field. When we, it seems a little strange. It feels a little strange because we get there and we are just Philip and Lori.
[19:12] And we go to language school and everybody's asking us, what are you doing? Do you get lost or something? Like, what are you doing over here? And we say, we're here, we're Christians. And we're going to start a church.
[19:23] We're, we're missionaries over here. We want to see this happen. And they're like, okay, well, you can't even talk yet. Like, you can't even say anything yet.
[19:34] You can't say hi. So, what are you doing? It's because when you, you, you, when you're a missionary, like, you know what you want to see. You want to see a church planted?
[19:45] Do you want to see people saved? Do you want to see people discipled? Do you want to see them come together as this church is right now? Just hearing the word of God and coming together and worshiping and singing. We, we have all that in our mind and we, we see it in our, in our heads.
[19:58] We sure don't see it in Thailand. And it is just, it is just nothing. I mean, nobody sees it. Except for somebody who's coming there with that idea already in their head and saying, I'm going to step out and try to do something.
[20:13] And I'm going to try to see this come to pass. I'm going to try to see this thing that is not seen become a reality. And that's what we do by faith. We see something in our, we see something we want to see happen for the Lord.
[20:25] And we, and we work toward that because it is a long process. And we need a lot of faith to keep seeing that in our minds and see it into the future and say, I'm working toward this.
[20:36] And I believe God is going to use me. And I believe God is going to save people. I believe God is going to build his church. And we keep working that. And because we trust in God. And I think that kind of faith, trusting in him and working to see him do something with us is the kind of faith that pleases him.
[20:53] And so my question for us tonight is what are we going to see? What vision inside of world evangelism did God give you to inspire you to take a risky step of faith for service to him?
[21:13] I would challenge you to seek God for a vision of your role in this thing called world evangelism, in this role of serving the Lord. What will the Lord allow you to do for him?
[21:24] We should not just hope something happens, maybe Abraham style. Maybe God will stop you in your tracks. And kind of like I expected God to call me to a specific country.
[21:38] I expect God to, like, you're supposed to go to whatever country. Well, that didn't really happen. I thought it was supposed to happen. So I waited around. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. So eventually I was like, I'm just going to, if it's okay, I'm going to try to learn about a country on my own.
[21:53] Is that all right? Can I just read about this? And I'll begin to read about countries. And it's, and God uses those kind of things. He wants us to, to attempt things and be active for him in his service.
[22:04] And to dream, dream a little bit because God's never going to do the impossible until you see this, like envision the invisible through eyes of faith. And then we start to work toward it.
[22:16] And we keep that faith. And we, we endure the hard times. And we endure the difficulties because we know that God is in this thing. And we are pleasing him. So the greatest example of this kind of faith is Jesus himself.
[22:31] Look at chapter 12, verse number one. It says, When Jesus saw the cross, that is not what, that was not like joy.
[23:18] It was what was beyond the cross. When we were all going to be redeemed by him. When he has purchased us with his blood. And we, and now he sits on the throne at the right hand of God.
[23:29] And he sees all his redeemed. Standing there before him. Our great example of faith is the one that we trust in, love, and serve until death one day brings us into his presence.
[23:43] So I would challenge us to step out and do something for him by faith. Because he's pleased with that. When you step out and by faith you risk embarrassment and ridicule and persecution and even death.
[23:58] But you can imagine even these guys at the end of this chapter who died and didn't receive the promise. And maybe were sawn asunder. Didn't quite work out as they planned.
[24:11] Unless they planned to get sawn in half. I'm not sure. Probably not. So we'll say it did not work out as they planned. But they, as they died in faith, they left in great anguish.
[24:25] But awoke a minute later and saw him face to face. And I'm sure he was smiling. Because they were attempting something great for him.
[24:37] And that was just temporary, but this is now going to be eternal. And so, it's worth it. Whatever you want to risk for him, it is worth it.
[24:49] So what would the Lord call you to step out and risk for him? Let's pray. Lord, we love you. And we want to please you with our lives. We want to trust you.
[25:02] No matter what may come. No matter what obstacles we may come about. And we want to start to think and to dream and to see what you would have us to do with our lives.
[25:13] So we would ask you to give us grace. Give us help. Increase our faith as we step out and trust you. We ask this in Christ's name.
[25:24] With your heads bowed and eyes bowed. This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia.
[25:34] For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recordings.
[25:46] Thanks.