Faith Through Life's Seasons | Greg Branch

Well, it is good to be worshipping again this

afternoon. It's good to see everyone that's

here. And as I announced this morning,

we're going to talk for a little while this afternoon on faith

through life seasons. And by this, I'm talking about

from all the way from the young ones who were just old enough to

understand a little bit of what I say today.

I'm going to put it in the front.

So if we lose their attention, that'll be all right, all right,

we'll deal with it all the way through the different seasons of

life. We're going to start with

Hebrews 11 and one where it says now faith is the substance of

things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

The outline we're going to cover is children.

When I say children in this first aspect, I'm talking about

those who you're under your parents authority, you're still

living at home, you know, mom and dad get to tell you what to

do. What does faith look like for

someone in that age group? It exists.

We know it exists. There's examples of it.

I won't spend time on that at this point.

But anybody that's of this age that they understand, they

understand they have faith on some level.

Our children at very young age 5-6 started talking about one to

be baptized very young. They they're getting this.

They have a level of faith. But I would say at those ages we

talked to them, they didn't understand sin.

They just knew they believed in this God and they knew they,

they trusted what was around them.

That grew until the point they were making decisions for

themself that they wanted to commit their life to God and

they knew they needed him. But these children we're talking

about, you're under your parents authority.

You live at home, you know, they get to tell you what to do.

Young men and women. Now, for this, I don't actually

have a parenthetical explanation, but this is

basically any number of young people up until you're married

and you have your own home. Sometimes these young people are

still living at home. And in a way, mom and dad get to

say what to do. After all, they got to pay the

bills. And so you can't tick them off

too much. But at the same time, you've got

freedoms. You can go out, you can go drive

somewhere, and they're not going to know what you're doing.

Faith is important in this season of life when mom and dad

maybe still have some pretty serious influence in your life,

but they can't really enforce it all the time.

Marriage. Now you've got your own home.

The perfect and the painful. Both seasons of perfect and

painful need faith. Without it, they can be very

disruptive. Raising children.

The perfect and the painful raising children can be great.

Raising children can seem like what in the world?

How are we going to get through this?

Faith is required in both those senses.

The empty nest when the kids are all gone, you know, many when I

was young, I thought, well, man, that's when faith is like

coasting. And I've come to find out not

only in my own life, but in the life of a lot of others, When

the fam, when the nest becomes empty, faith sometimes is you

face your greatest challenge when the load gets too heavy.

This applies to every one of these groups.

When you just don't think you can do it anymore.

What is faith? What's the rule for faith there?

And when the end is near, when I'm talking about the end, I'm

talking about death, that when we get to the point that we

realize it's happening, am I ready?

How are we going to deal with this?

Faith is important every one of these seasons of life.

And so for a few minutes you're like, how are we going to cover

all that territory in such a short amount of time?

We got to concentrate back on Hebrews 11 and one faith.

What is the word faith there? It comes from a Greek word,

literally means persuasion or conviction of the truth.

When I use this word faith, I'm saying it's something you are

persuaded about. You are convicted.

It's right. I told you this morning,

everybody that has ever lived on the face of this earth,

everybody that lives right now, has ever lived throughout time.

They lived by faith. Even the atheist, everybody

lives by faith. They are convicted, they are

persuaded by something that they can't prove.

Sometimes they'll say they're going to stand behind science,

but you keep chasing them down that rabbit hole of what they

call science and they get to something that depending on the

generation you're in. When I was at the peak of it, it

was dark matter and that was their word for saying they knew.

When they look at all the energy in the universe, they can still

only find 10% of the amount of energy needed to create what

exists in this universe. They need more energy and they

find it in dark matter. And you know what that is for

them? It's in a parallel dimension.

Now the Christian says, we've been telling you all along

there's a parallel dimension. There's a God there.

It's not dark matter, It's the light.

Light and darkness even in this realm is over it.

Faith, it's what you believe in. It's what you're persuaded

about, what you're convicted of. It's the substance comes from a

Greek word literally means to set under.

This is going to hold you up. This is something that's going

to support things. It's a foundation or a thing put

under things hoped for. Now this word hope here is not

like hope as in well, maybe I don't know, I hope it happens.

This is hope as in an earnest expectation literally means to

expect or to trust it's going to happen.

That's this hope. It's not Maybe I just kind of

hope. So this is, this is my hope.

This is where I am placing my trust.

Your faith, your conviction is the foundation that supports

your expectations. Whatever you expect out of life,

that's because of faith. Now, sometimes we learn it

through repetition. It's like I know that if I fill

my gas tank up or my diesel tank on my truck, I'm going to make

it about 300 miles. I have faith that's going to

happen. I have faith I can get back on

the highway and go again. It's I expect it.

It's happens over and over. People do it all the time.

That is this kind of hope. It's something you expect.

Your faith is the conviction or the foundation that supports

whatever you expect. Faith also is the evidence of

things not seen. Again, it's the exact same word,

faith, which means things you're persuaded about, things you're

convicted of. Evidence comes from a Greek

word, means proof. This word is only used one other

time in the New Testament. And so I'm going to take the

time real quick to point it out to you.

It's Second Timothy 316 or yeah. All Scripture is given by the

inspiration of God. It is profitable for doctrine,

for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.

This word reproof is the exact same Greek word that's used.

It's called proof in Hebrews 11 and one this, I don't know about

you. This resets my understanding of

what Scripture is good for. I kind of have set that as in

reproof as being something to fix.

It's a proof. Now when things get proven to

us, we do fix it when it says, look, I can prove to you that's

what we commune the way we did this morning.

It's because of the Bible and we see it and you say, OK, I'm

going to do it. Sometimes that means fix

something. Sometimes that just simply means

to prove it. Faith, this persuasion, there's

conviction, is the proof we have for things not seen literally,

things you can't look at to look at figuratively to understand

this is really important as we get into the seasons of life.

Our conviction, whatever we're persuaded out, will prove what

we cannot understand. We'll prove things we can't look

at. We just expect it's going to

happen, and it's an earnest expectation.

Your faith, your conviction is the proof for what you cannot

look at or understand yet. How does Hebrews at 11 O1 apply

to children? When you're at home, you're

still telling mom and dad tells you what to do.

I'm going to give you a hint as to how you can find out if you

have faith in God's Word or not. Ephesians 6 and one says,

children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment

with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long

on the earth. What child does not want to live

long? What child wants to just die?

I know some children that have been older on the child spectrum

that we're embarrassed to death, but we want long lives, we want

healthy lives, we want good lives.

If you're a child, if you understand anything that this

lesson is about right now, honor your father and mother, obey

your parents because that is the first commandment that God ever

gave to man under the old covenant, the 10 commandments

that also came with the promise that it would be well with you

and you may live long on the earth.

Jesus, what a wonderful example of what to do as a young child.

At 12 years old, he went to the feast of the Passover, the one

we talked about this morning. He went there, the whole family

went there. They went there and then when it

was over, they were headed home. Do you remember they went a

day's journey before Jesus parents realized he wasn't

there. Now I've talked about this in a

previous lesson. I won't go into all the details,

but I can understand how somebody gets left alone.

I told you this morning we had a huge family, the Butler site.

We, we had people left in town because you just assumed they

were in another truck. They were with somebody else.

Jesus parents went a day's journey before they realized he

wasn't there. They have to go another day's

journey to get back to Jerusalem.

The scripture says after three days they found him.

And where did they find him? In the temple.

He was listening to them. He was asking them questions.

He was answering their questions.

And his parents marveled at that.

Do you remember that? What did they marvel at?

Oh, you're so good. We need to just leave you here.

This is where you belong. No, they said hers.

Mother Mary said your father and I have sought you soaring.

Where have you been? And what Jesus say, don't you

want me to be about my father's business?

Now listen, sometimes the reason kids don't obey their parents is

because they don't we, they don't think Mom and Dad

understand. They don't get me.

They don't understand I need to do this and I can't do what they

say. If ever a kid, if ever a child

had parents that didn't understand and had pure motives,

it was this. Jesus at 12 years old, he wanted

to be in the temple. He wanted to be in Jerusalem

hearing them, asking questions, answering their questions.

Is that what happened? Luke 251 says.

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject

to them. But his mother kept all these

things in her heart. Jesus is a child, exemplified

what it's like to obey your parents, to honor your father

and mother at a time. He was fast and talking about a

prodigy. They knew he was, the people

knew he was, but he still humbled himself and he went home

and he was subject. Do you have faith?

We decide as children whether we have faith in God's will on this

at all. What about young men and women?

Timothy also speaks to this, or Paul did to Timothy.

Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the

believers in Word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in

purity. Don't let people despise your

youth. Now I didn't realize we didn't

talk about whole Timothy was, but he's clearly talking to

someone who's young and how the young should look at this.

Early adulthood presents a lot of opportunities and

temptations. Look, when when you finally

realize nobody might actually give or catch you, you get some

choices. These don't go way away in life.

If if you're young and you think I'm just going to sow my wild

oats, look, this doesn't go away.

If you think you're going to do it while you're young and then

you're just going to grow out of that, you need to meet some 60

year olds. I know until you decide to walk

in faith, you're not stepping away from it.

This is a pattern we start as children.

If you haven't started it, then do it in early adulthood.

If you kept it, just keep going through it if you did before.

Our faith, our conviction is what insulates us from bad

choices when we can't see the harm in.

And you insert the blank. Been around long enough for

people that have said this Blank is filled in a lot of different

ways, whether it's sexual purity, whether it's the kind of

things we're ingesting and taking sobriety away from our

bodies to taking a little money out of the the cash register

where you work. People say, I just don't, I

don't know. I can't see how it's really

going to hurt anybody. Faith then becomes your

conviction that insulates you from such a bad choice.

Do we believe it? Do we not?

You see, it's really simple. When we started this out, you're

like, oh, how are we going to cover all that material?

It's by putting our faith in God.

Our faith and our conviction will need to be the proof for

what? We can't look at what we can't

understand yet when we can't see what's so wrong about whatever

it is when we read the Bible, our faith has to say, but I'm

going to do it anyway because that is what the Bible says.

How do we place this in this section?

I want to take marriage and raising children together.

I realize a lot of married people never have children and

they're fine with that. But most of the married people I

know have children, and so I'm going to put them together

because they offer a lot of the same circumstances.

How do we deal with marriage and raising kids?

The perfect and the painful fact is there are times when things

are going great in marriages, in raising kids and people slip

into worldliness and sinful choices.

Been around long enough in the church and dealt with enough

marriage problems. Sometimes they happen to people

who's like, how in the world could you could this happen what

everything looked perfect in your family and they'll say it

was had no financial problems, had no real issues, but whatever

this thing was came in this sin. It was like we behave like we

don't need God. See things can getting going so

smooth for people. They're like, I don't need God.

I got a great life. So like I'm in some third world

country where I can wonder where I'm going to eat next and I

really need God. It's amazing that sometimes when

things are so good, people can become disconnected from God and

faith suffers. There are times when things are

going horribly bad. Times when people slip into

world in this and lose confidence in God.

Thinking of one situation I had to deal with right now in which

it it got to the point in this relationship because what seemed

right was not happening, what seemed like God should be doing

and the answer to all their prayers never happened.

And because of the devastation inside to the answer being no to

their prayer, it was almost like they behave like they don't need

that kind of God. If God's not going to let me

have XYZ, if God's not going to answer my prayer when I need

this and it's just right, then I don't need that kind of God.

That's what it seems like. Why would we take either of

those positions? I submit it as simple as our

faith, our faith, our conviction will need to be the proof for

what we can't understand yet for what we can't look at when life

has situations and look the scriptures are clear about

marriage. We take a vow for marriage.

It's for life what man, what God has joined together.

Don't let man put us under and yet some marriages, people like

I cannot live the rest of my life like this.

Now they're not being beaten at night.

They're not being it's not like they're worried about their

life. They're just not happy with this

person that they thought they knew.

Yes, you can. You can make it.

God's not just looking to make you miserable the rest of your

life. You know the greatest enemy to

contentment that I know of Choice.

If you get a smorgasbord of stuff set out, you can have the

hardest time trying to decide what to get.

This potluck this afternoon. I don't want to be just stuffed

of everything, but I all these choices and I can't have them

all. So what I want to, if you had

just put out, here's some chicken, here's a green salad

and here's a Key Lime Pie or that apricot cobbler, but just

one of each. You just eat it, you're happy,

you get all those choices. And now contentment is like,

well, but I'm going to get this and I'm going to be full.

But then I didn't get to have that.

Life is kind of like that. I know people that got married

and didn't like who they married, who who the person they

married turned out to be. The only thing that caused them

to really split up was they figured they had a choice in the

matter and they just go find another.

The Christian doesn't have that choice.

Fascinating thing. Statistics will prove this out.

If you will stick to the choices you made, if you will stick to

the vow that you made, you will be amazed that when this doesn't

turn out, when you just do what God says in faith that it's

better than it ever was before. Focus on the Family has a lot of

research on this. I can't do all this and we're

not really set up as a brotherhood to do it, but

there's research done on this of I forgot.

It was 10,000 or 12,000 couples that were at the point of ready

for divorce that went ahead and enjoying what their focus group

was about on trying to re establish and save these

marriages. Over 85% of the marriages, the

people that went into it reported when it was over, they

were happier about the choice they made on who they married

than they were on their honeymoon.

Do you know what their whole focus of that was?

This is over and you're talking almost 10,000 people that said

it's even better than it was back then.

People that completed the program, they had a 99% success

rate on those marriages lasting. You know what they did?

There were three main things that they did.

They said they started worshipping together and riding

in the same car to worship services.

Like what's that have to do with anything?

I don't know, but I can guess. But you don't need my guesses

right now. They started worshipping

together, going regularly. I don't know how they defined

regularly. I know how the Bible defines

regularly. But they went to church and they

rode in the same car. That was 1 #2 Yeah, I'm going to

tell you. Read the Bible.

They just got them writing, reading the same literature and

talking to one another about it. They didn't even require it was

the Bible. I'd tell you, if you're not

reading the Bible, man, that's the key.

They got them reading the same literature and talking to one

another. Had to be religious and #3 they

got them to get actively involved in their place where

they were worshiping. With what's going on, almost

100% said our marriage is now better than it was when we first

were madly in love with each other.

Because now you're surrounding, you're running around a purpose.

What happens when these people that fall in love are falling

apart? They're no longer doing this

together. We're just doing life and

there's somebody that we got to drag with us.

I submit faith. Their conviction will have to be

the proof for what we can't see. If you can't see a path to

happy, then you're going to have to believe it's there and just

keep doing the right thing. The empty nest.

What is the empty nest? Some people may say, I don't

even know what you're talking about.

Empty nest syndrome is a real thing.

Empty nest syndrome is the name used to describe the sadness and

distress parents sometimes feel when their children move away

from home. This can be immediate.

It can also take years. You may say, ma'am, my kids

moved away a long time ago, everything was fine and all the

sudden he's just not the same person.

She's just depressed all the time.

She's sad. It could be.

Empty nest syndrome symptoms are sadness, anxiety, grief,

irritability, a sense of fear. This can be especially difficult

when you enter marital conflict into the problem.

You know what? Most studies, and this is on the

social side of things, point to lack of purpose.

You've had all these kids, you've raised the children,

however many they were. You've been busy, but it was

over 1. You just gave them all your

time. You had all this.

And then when they're gone, it's like, what is the purpose now?

What are we doing? People even begin to wonder if

they know each other. And I would point you to Titus

Titus 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 verses one through 5. Now this, I don't want to go on

a lesson of this, but what you will find is that the older men

and the older women are reminded that they have a purpose in the

ministry of the church. Very specifically, the women are

asked to teach the younger women, the older women, the

younger women. One of the things is how to love

their husbands. Interestingly enough, guys,

we're never told to help teach people to love our lives.

They're taught to teach to love us.

You have a purpose, even when your kids are gone and you think

I'm growing old or whatever it is.

As we get older in life, the church needs us.

The church needs you, you know. I know I have had young people

at Oakdale tell me I almost didn't come tonight, but I

thought, you know, Leon and Doty are going to be there.

They'll name other older people. You may not know that you as an

older person are the reason that some of the other people are

here, just because they know you'll be here.

You have a purpose now. I would really, as strong as I

can, encourage you younger ladies to go and reach out to an

older one and the older woman to reach out to let the younger

ones know you're available because it's just not kind of

where our culture seems to be in most places right now.

There's always that fear of prying or that fear of trying to

give advice where advice isn't wanted, but just try to offer

your time to people. You are needed.

The Lord needs you. The church needs you.

Older men, everything that I just said could apply to that.

Our faith, our conviction will need to be the proof for what we

can't look at or understand yet. If in the empty nest phase of

life we're saying what is my purpose?

Faith is going to have to be the foundation that supports us

through that. When the load's too heavy, any

group can get to the point. You think you can't go far

enough. I know you're on to me by now,

but there are times in life that every direction we cannot see

how it's going to work out. There is no way we see a path

forward or a way that we're going to be happy.

So I'll point you as we'll start to Romans chapter 5 in verse

Romans 5 · chapter mention

one. It says therefore, having been

justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord

Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into

this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory

of God. He says you're thinking past all

this. You know, there are times in

life we do that. The boys and I, we love to

backpack. At first I think I loved it

more. And I'd get home and I'd tell

Rachel the boys did so good. You know, they were little.

And now we get home and they're like, mom, Dad's doing so good.

It's not as fun as it used to be the older I get, but I still

want to do it. Why it hurts to breathe and walk

up some of those mountains. And then I also know coming down

may be hurt worse than going up did on the knees.

Why do you do it? Do it for the time with them on

the top of the mountain. Because there's nothing like it

to me. Now.

I can understand that on climbing and walking a path out

in the middle of the wilderness. Surely I can get that when I

think of this life as a mountain.

Sometimes it's not fun. Sometimes we're just doing good

to breathe and keep carrying the load because why in the world

did I bring that? That is life.

Sometimes we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Our faith, our conviction is the foundation of this hope.

It's an expectation. I know what's there now.

We have gotten where most of the times I want to go on the

trails. I already know because I know

what's at the other end. I know it's worth it.

I used to like to go on any trail and just figure out and if

it wasn't a good one, Oh well. Now I expect that I want to go

somewhere. I expect to see something

amazing. And not only that, don't answer

yet. Don't buy yet.

Not only that, we also glory in tribulations, knowing that

tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance,

character and character hope, he says.

This process will produce hope. How is that?

It's because some of you have already been through things in

life that you didn't think you were going to make it through,

and then you did. And you're here in this

afternoon and you're like, OK, yeah, I've seen that happen

before. You know what happens when we

have success? The next time we face that same

kind of deal, we're like, hey, remember it worked before we got

success. There was a study they did with

rats. I don't remember the name of the

study. You can Google it and read the

details of it, but they basically put rats in a VAT of

water to see how long they live before they drowned.

It was like a couple hours. And then they did another study

where they did that again with a group of rats, but with another

group of rats, at about the time they were given up and going to

sink. They pulled them out, they dried

them off, they fed them, let them recover, and they did put

them in again. They found out the second time

they lasted like about 6 hours before they were going to give

up. They pulled them out, they dried

them off, fed them, let them get all rested again, and they put

them back in. They had rats that lasted over

two days. Why?

Because even a rat figured out that they could have hoped they

were going to get rescued. They could hang on.

Now, rats can do that. We can do that.

No matter what we're going through, it'll be our faith.

Our conviction becomes the foundation of the hope.

Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been

poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

How does this work? There is a faith that surpasses

understanding, the Scripture says.

And according to the book of Romans, the Holy Spirit being

poured out in our hearts has something to do with that.

When the load seems too heavy, our faith, our conviction is the

proof for what we can't look at or understand yet.

Finally, as we bring these to to to a conclusion when the end is

near, this lesson is it's a new one over the last year because

there was one season of life that I really was not didn't

feel equipped to even talk about.

And that's the end. I've seen different people go

through different seasons, but going through what we went

through with mom was totally different.

And it completed my experience with when the end is near in a

lot of ways. Not completed that I'm there

yet, not the completed that I think I can tell somebody all

the right things. But here is the consistent thing

every time, whether you have a long goodbye or you got a week

to say everything you need to say, faith really comes down to

the end. Romans chapter 8 verse 18 says,

Romans 8:18

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time

are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be

revealed in US. I can't even compare what's the

glory to whatever you're going through?

That's that's lung cancer, that's anything.

Nothing compares to the glory that would be revealed in us for

we were saved in this hope. But hope that is seen is not

hope for why does 1 still hope for what he sees?

Think about that. You're like, well, I have hope,

but I just need to see something.

Well then it's not hope. You've seen it.

This hope is this earnest expectation that's based on

faith, not on something you can grasp.

It's not hope when you see it. But if we hope for what we do

not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.

This word perseverance means endurance.

We will endure, and we will stay through.

Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weakness.

Once again He brings the Spirit, for we do not know what we

should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes

intercession with us, for us with groanings which cannot be

uttered. Comes from a Greek word

literally means unspeakable. The ESV says too deep for words.

There are times that we get life.

You don't even know what to pray for anymore as Cole prayed this

afternoon and he says for there's some, we pray for

health, but sometimes that's not the answer.

And we now we don't know what to pray for.

We want peace, we want comfort. Most of all, we want God's mercy

and we want the peace that passes understanding that is

this hope, this intercession. He says the Spirit makes

intercession for us when we want to pray, but we don't know what

to pray for. 2nd Corinthians 5 and 6.

So now, so we are always confident, knowing that while we

are home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we

walk by faith and not by sight. When we're in this body, we're

absent from the Lord. And he says, so in that case

we're walking by faith, not by sight.

We are confident, yes, well, please rather to be absent from

the body and to be present with the Lord.

Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be

well pleasing to him. He says he's come to the point

that he realizes the end is better than what I have when I'm

here in the body. Now, I got to admit there's

times that's hard for Greg to imagine.

I love my life. I love my wife.

I love my kids. But now, if I'm real honest,

I'll admit there's been times in that process.

It's like, how can I do this today?

Yeah, you can. How do I know I can?

That's faith. How are we going to face that

when we take something and we get to the end of life and say,

I don't know how to deal with this?

You're going to look back through childhood.

You're going to look back when you were a young adult.

You look at those years of the middle age and older, and you're

going to think of all those times that you've seen God's

will work even when your decisions were bad.

Here you are today, even when you know some of the things that

happened back then. Maybe you shouldn't even be

alive today, and you are. That is all, equipping you for

the hope you need for the end that there is hope, so that you

can know that whether present here or absent from here and

with the Lord, you want to be well pleasing to Him.

For why we must all appear before the judgment seat of

Christ, that each one may receive the things done in His

body according to what He has done, whether good or bad.

We know we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

Somebody says, oh good, because Christ, he's merciful, He won't

put anybody. Everything will be all good.

Verse 11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade

men. I'm assuming you're the Sunday

afternoon crowd. I'm preaching to the choir, but

just in case I'm not and you're here just because whatever

reason you're right or you're just curious, but you know

you're not ready. Paul told the church here we

persuade people because the terror of the Lord's real Jesus

says I didn't come to judge the world, but the very next thing

he says was, but the words that I speak, they shall judge them

in the last day because they're not my words.

God gave me these words. Paul knew that and therefore he

says we persuade men. Can you relate to one of these

life seasons We've talked about children trying to figure out

what next. What am I supposed to be focus

on honoring your parents focus on his will parents if they're

too young to get this right now, focus on teaching them to obey

you and honor you. You're like that honor part's

hard. I can make them obey, but keep

working. Best advice I can give is don't

give up. Young men and young women

confused about your future, Keep your faith on the Lord.

Your marriage is struggling today.

I'm going to tell you the Lord's going to be the thing that keeps

it together. You're raising children and it

feels overwhelming. I'm going to tell you that's the

Lord and your faith in Him. That's going to keep it

together. Your nest is empty.

You've made it through those things, but you've now feel like

blank and dole and you don't know what to do with it.

Focus on the Lord. He's going to make it work.

The load is just too heavy and you don't think you can naked in

any of these. Focus on the Lord.

The end is near and your life is fleeting away.

It's the same answer in every season of life.

It's focusing on the Lord. Your faith feels so weak and

you're like I believe, but it just feels insufficient.

The last example I'll leave you with this afternoon is the

father of the boy with a mute spirit, as it describes it.

It sounds like to me he had grand Mal seizures.

I'm not a doctor, but he came to Jesus in Mark Chapter 9 verse

Mark 9:18

18, and he said whenever it seizes him, it throws him down.

He foams at the mouth, he gnashes his teeth and become

rigid. I got it work for me when I did

a job in Oklahoma. This is what happened on one of

our days. OK, so when I think about that,

being one of my kids, I can't imagine the anxiety of a parent.

They didn't know as much about this back then, this thousands

of years ago. He's begging with Jesus to

please heal his son. And he asked his father, how

long has this been happening to him?

He said from the childhood. And often he's thrown himself

both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.

You already know we like to camp.

We had the kids up this last hunting season, the last week,

and it was cold and snowed and we had this fire and it was all

cool, right? Except everybody's paranoid.

The kids run around the fire. Somebody just falls that way,

right? This man's son has thrown

himself into the fire when he's had one of these seizures.

If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

And Jesus said, if you can believe, all things are possible

to him who believes and immediately the father of child

cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my

unbelief. I can relate to that.

When you're you're here on a Sunday afternoon because you

believe on some level, but you, there's just another level of

belief you know, you need. What I'm going to say is you

keep coming on Sunday afternoon. You keep coming.

Do not give up. It is a relentless pursuit of

this faith, as Peter says, until the day dawns and the day star

rises in your hearts and it will happen.

It absolutely will happen. Does your faith supports?

Does your faith support the foundation of your hopes?

Is your faith the proof of what you don't understand?

If it's not Hebrews 11 and six, we talked about it this morning.

Without faith, it's impossible to please Him.

We need to repent. Luke 13 and three.

We need to be willing to confess him before men.

Romans 10 and 10 and be baptized.

That's how we put on Christ. As many of you have been

baptized into Christ, have put on Christ Today, if you're a

Christian, you've obeyed the gospel, but you sinned and you

know that you need to to change things.

That doesn't mean you have to be re baptized.

You can pray to God. He's willing, He's faithful and

just to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

First John 18 and 9:00. But if you want the prayers of

the church according to James 516, then we'll pray with you.

We'll pray for you. We want to encourage you.

Keep the faith no matter what season you're in or what season

you're headed to. If we can be of assistive

evening, won't you come as we stand and see?