Hebrews 11:23-40

So as a church, we've been in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 11 is where we're at this morning.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Do you know offhand what is going on in Hebrews 11?

What's it famous for?

It's got kind of a nickname.

You know what it is?

Jewish?

Danny, I'm glad you're here, man.

But that is not the name of the nickname for this.

You got like this Jesus.

That's the classic Sunday school answer, right?

No, it's the Hall of Faith.

The Hall of Faith.

So I call I've entitled this sermon More Faith, because we looked at the first half last week.

We're going to talk about More Faith this week.

But I want to put up in front of you just where we're heading.

Because the pastor is laying the stage for an exhortation for you and me.

And it's this exhortation to keep going, to run your race with perseverance, to clear the path, and to go, to run.

It reminds me of what Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, where he talked about we don't run purposely or aimlessly.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

He's strategically doing life in a way that aligns with a mission, a purposeful life.

And so this writer here is calling these Christians, saying, your life is like a race, and you need to do that life in a particular way and don't give up.

And you have an audience, you have this inspiration that I want to bring into your life, which are other people who have lived by faith.

I want you to derive inspiration from these other stories of faith.

So here it is, in Hebrews 12, 1 through 2, he says, Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses, that's what we're going to be reading about this morning, is this cloud of witnesses.

They're surrounding us.

Let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

Let us also run with endurance the race that lies before us.

And then he's going to put it and put it to Jesus.

He's going to point to Jesus.

He says, We keep our eyes on Jesus, who is the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.

We're talking all about that faith this morning.

Jesus is the one who pioneers and perfects the faith that we're going to talk about this morning for the joy that was laid before him.

So that's where we're heading.

In fact, we'll be looking at that particular passage next week, but that is why he's giving you the story of Moses.

Why we're going to look at the story of Joshua and the story of Rahab and some of these other characters is because they are your cloud of witnesses.

Now remember, these are Christians who've been following Jesus for a little bit of time and they're discouraged.

They're going through suffering.

Some of their friends have been thrown in jail.

Some of them have been thrown into jail.

Some of them had their stuff taken away simply because they're following Jesus.

They've been ostracized, they're feeling an acute pain in their life because of their dedication to God.

And so they're questioning.

Well, maybe we should abandon the faith and we should just kind of revert back to classic Judaism and the Levitical law.

Now, you'll recall last week that there were four elements in each of the stories that we looked at.

This pastor, as he's writing about this cloud of witnesses, he oftentimes includes these four elements.

They don't have to be there.

It's not a perfect template, but we see it in many of the accounts, and we'll see it this morning as well.

The first is a sense of revelation from God.

That God is speaking to the character.

Maybe it's a promise that God gives to Abraham or to Sarah, and they're called to respond to that promise.

They're not, but but here's the thing, right?

When we talk about faith, and sometimes there is this idea within Christianity that it is it is called the faith, or there's this value of faith, but it's what do we have faith in more than beyond just like faith in Jesus?

Like, what am I supposed to believe about, you know, my cars seems to be getting old?

Like, what what does faith look like in that context?

I, you know, I have a career.

What does faith look like in that context?

I've I've got a family.

What does it mean to have faith in that context?

And sometimes you hear in Western Christianity this idea of name it and claim it, or the health and wealth gospel, which is like, you just gotta have faith that it's gonna work out, which is really no different, we said last week, than kind of like a secular idea of faith of just, you know, believe in yourself.

You might as well believe in yourself.

But no, these characters here they have an anchor that their faith is attached to, and it is the promises, the revelation of God.

The second element that's in these stories is the impossibility or extreme challenge in the circumstances.

The extreme challenge in the circumstances.

So with Abraham, for him, he had um he was told to leave and to go to a land where that God would show him, but he wasn't told what that destination was.

He's just like, hey, go.

And Abraham's like, okay.

Okay, where are we going, God?

Well, just go.

Go and leave.

And it and he ends up in a land, a foreign land.

It says he lives in tents, and he's just he well, we'll I'll give you the third thing here in a second, but there's this impossibility, there's challenges that come with this responding to the revelation of God.

The third aspect or element that's in many of these stories is the calculation made by the individual, their reasoning to walk by faith.

It's the self-talk in a sense.

It's the way that they're like processing through the impossibility of the circumstance, the call of God.

I mean, imagine like triangulating your life off of God's promise, the impossibility of the circumstance, and then how do you talk to yourself about that?

And the pastor, as he's retelling this story, these stories of faith, he gives us this window into the self-talk.

How they're they're like they're trusting that God who you know can do the impossible, he's doing it.

They're they're trusting that God is the one who lays the foundation for a city, you know, a future city whose foundation is made by God.

Like there's these different kinds of commentary that the pastor gives that is this kind of internal voice, the way that they're reasoning about it.

And the fourth element is just the act of faith, what they did by faith.

Okay?

So you remember we talked about that last week, um, and we we um looked last week at these stories of faith in Genesis.

So we we started with Noah, and then we looked at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

Sarah was in there also, um, and then after Jacob came uh Joseph.

And it was this whole variety of expressions of faith.

This morning we're gonna see this is kind of the layout of verses 23 or the outline from verse 23 through 40.

We see some stuff about Moses, the parents of Moses, Moses himself, the people going along with Moses to cross the Red Sea.

We see that Joshua lived by faith, um, and a new Israel generation goes with him into the promised land.

We see the faith of Rahab, and then the writer says, I've ran out of time to talk about the rest in 32 through 38, and then we have a conclusion in 39 through 40.

So I'm gonna put that up here on the screen, and then I want to just draw your attention to two specific things this morning.

It says this by faith, Moses, after he was born, was hidden by his parents for three months, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they didn't fear the king's edict.

By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and chose to suffer with the people of God rather to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

For he considered reproach for the sake of Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, since he was looking ahead to the reward.

By faith he left Egypt behind, not being afraid of the king's anger, for Moses persevered as one who sees him who is invisible.

By faith he instituted the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch the Israelites.

By faith they crossed the Red Sea as though they were on dry land.

When the Egyptians attempted to do this, they were drowned.

By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after being marched around by the Israelites for seven days.

By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, welcomed the spies in peace and didn't perish with those who disobeyed.

And what more can I say?

Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight.

Women received their dead, raised to life again.

Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection.

Others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sown in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.

The world was not worthy of them.

They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.

All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised.

Since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

Let's pray for a second.

Lord, we're looking at this text in Hebrews.

We believe that you wrote it by your spirit through this pastor that's deeply concerned for the race that these Christians were running.

Lord, we ask, would you take this text and apply it to our life?

Even maybe it's just a phrase.

Maybe it's just one verse out of this.

I pray God that you would just speak to us in our lives.

Just let your word intersect our lives this morning.

And I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So last week at a granular level, I went through each one of these stories.

This week I'm gonna do the opposite.

I'm gonna just talk about some broad concepts from the text.

The first is this the way in which the story is told.

Do you see that?

As we go through this, you you see that there are this retelling of stories that you're probably familiar with.

I mean, you probably know about Moses, whether it's through the Ten Commandments movie or the cartoon that came out, you know, 20 years ago, um, Prince of Egypt.

Uh, or maybe you grew up in the church, the story of Moses is pretty familiar.

But this pastor takes the story of Moses and he tells it and he highlights this is what faith looked like in his life.

And he tells us first about Moses' parents.

You recall that.

I'm gonna go backwards here in the slides, and we see that the parents for Moses, their step of faith was to hide their son while Pharaoh was looking to kill the baby boys.

And we said this last week, like we don't know anything else about these parents.

And yet, this pastor wants you and I to see that their moment of faith was to make a mini ark out of bull rushes, reeds by the edge of the Nile River, and to let him go.

And to kind of let him kind of drift out there in the water and to see what would happen.

That is that's exactly what I want you to grab a hold of.

Because this pastor, right?

This pastor who's writing this, what he's doing is he's pulling such diverse accounts.

Do you see at the end when he's like, I've ran out of time?

But he kind of lists out short form, like, here's like kingdoms were conquered, fires were quenched, you know, it's like all these different ways in which faith is expressed.

Now, let's pull in a couple of other aspects here.

When when you become a follower of Jesus, there are a few things that happen.

When you when you decide, okay, I I believe that Jesus died for my sins, and I'm ready to surrender my life to Jesus, I'm ready to repent and believe in him, there are a few things that happen.

One is that you are translated, you're moved from what's called the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

God brings you in.

Now, that at that moment, God gives you a new heart.

It says in uh Ezekiel 36 that a part of what God's doing under the new covenant is that you're um you you have this part of you that's dead that comes alive.

It's in material part.

It's you know, the Old Testament writer calls it a heart.

Sometimes it's called your spirit, but it's the spiritual capacity to relate to God.

With the fall, when you're when a when a child is born, it appears that the Bible is saying that there's a part of you that is dead and needs to be regenerated, and it's your spiritual capacity to relate to God.

And at your decision, at the point at which you're born again, you have this regenerated aspect.

This is Romans 8, Romans 6, talks about how you have this renewed capacity to relate to God.

You're spiritually alive.

But not just that, the Bible also says that the Spirit of God is given to you.

So you not only have now a capacity to relate to God, differently from like a human relationship, you have this spiritual aliveness, whatever that is, going on in you, but you're also given the Spirit of God dwelling in you, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And God's Spirit is speaking to you, guiding you, directing your steps.

So translate that over.

I just imagine that many of you have like grown up in the church.

Maybe that's not the case.

Maybe you're just brand new to Christianity, but for those of you that grew up in the church, oftentimes Christianity is reduced down to like being filled with the Holy Spirit means that you're sharing Christ with people around you, like you're doing evangelism, you're talking with other Christians, you're encouraging other Christians in their faith, you're living kind of a moral life.

And that's about it.

I mean, sometimes that's like the vision of living the Christian life.

Is that your experience, or maybe did you get a broader vision?

Like some of you, maybe that was kind of like the extent of what it means.

Like, okay, you're a follow of Jesus, now you kind of be a good person and hang out with other Christians and you know, listen to Christian music or or buy Christian art or some dorky thing like that.

Sorry, I I've been around the Christian for around like Christianity for a long time, so I'm a little bit cynical.

And I worked in a Christian bookstore when I was like 13, and so all like the Christian commercialism is like I hate that stuff.

But but this is what this is this is um the case.

In Hebrews 11 and the Old Testament, saints, the followers of God, did all kinds of life.

There's a story of Bezalel Bezalel?

Yeah, Bezalel, in um Exodus in Numbers, who would experience the filling of the Holy Spirit so that he could be an artist and design the temple.

So Bezaliel, full of the Holy Spirit, was an awesome artist.

And him living by faith was to like trust in God's ability as he's making this these beautiful artifacts for the temple.

David, filled with the Holy Spirit, was an incredible warrior.

Like the Spirit of God came on him to kill a giant that was mocking God.

That was like the Holy Spirit inside of him, right?

You had Jeremiah the prophet, who, like in the midst, he's like a he's a politician.

He's probably had family members in the royal in royalty in Israel, in Jerusalem.

And and God calls him, like, I want you to tear down, literally, I want you to tear down culture.

I want you to destroy.

And then I want you to preach hope, a message of hope, to the exiles.

And I want you to give them a vision for living in exile in Babylon.

And then I want you to prophesy destruction to the surrounding nations, which are these like basically like diatribes, political diatribes about how you've rejected God and you're arrogant, uh, Edom, you're arrogant, and Esau, you know, you're arrogant, and God's gonna destroy you.

Here we have some parents, like, and they express they trust in Yahweh.

They trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by making like this craft project that's like this floating boat.

Can you imagine?

Like, we're let's go collect some reeds, we're gonna make like a little floating boat and we're gonna stick our baby in it.

And that was their step of faith.

Then you go to to this guy, Moses, who's like, can you imagine?

Like, I had a have you heard the saying like a uh turtle on a fence post?

Like you ever felt like a turtle on a fence post?

Like, what's he doing there, right?

Moses must have been that guy.

Like, what am I doing here?

Like, I was adopted, I was the guy floating in the river, and I've been adopted, but then I was nursed by my mom.

I'd like foster care with my mom, but she's my real mom, but then I'm like an Egyptian, and I got all this access to Egypt.

It's like kind of a crazy setting.

But he, when he grew up, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He rejects this place, which is incredible, and instead he chooses to suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin.

So he makes this radical decision about who he's going to identify with.

Like this is all like identity.

Like you can imagine, uh in the language, I mean, it kind of speaks for itself, but he makes a choice to suffer with the people of God.

I I kind of feel like that when I come to church.

It's like, I you know, we we could all be going to church out in the county, you know, where it's nice out there sometimes.

You ever been out there?

You know, it's kind of like it's kind of nice out in the county.

But then, no, it's like, hey, we're gonna come to church and we're gonna identify with Baltimore.

And that's a step of faith.

Because, you know what?

The city has some problems, and it's kind of difficult in the city.

But but, you know, and some of you, it's different seasons, you've decided this is where I'm gonna live.

And you could choose to live somewhere else, and yet you've decided to do this kind of thing that I'm gonna suffer here with the people of God, rather to enjoy a fleeting pleasure of sin.

It's just it's interesting the decisions that are being made along the way by these characters.

Here's Moses.

He's considered the reproach for the sake of Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.

Like, was there any more treasures, you know, than the treasures of Egypt?

No.

But he chooses like.

Like, I'm gonna follow Christ, which you know, how didn't even know who Jesus was at the time?

But the this pastor is connecting the dots, saying, Hey, look at this faith, kind of like a Russian doll, it's embedded here, it's pointing towards the example of Christ, rejects the treasures of Egypt since he was looking ahead to a reward.

I mean, that that's the I that's the essence of faith.

Remember early on in the chapter, like two weeks ago, he says that faith, you know, that you know, that God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

That it's impossible to please God without faith.

You must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

And here's Moses doing that.

He's trusting that God's God's got a reward for him, even though on the front end.

You think of like like um a mother Teresa who makes a decision to dedicate her life to the unlovely.

A person like only a Christian can do that in a hopeful way.

Now, there are many people who are not Christians who decide to live their life and and make great sacrifices.

But a Christian can reasonably make that decision because they have a hope for a future reward.

We have the hope of a resurrection, we have an eternal life that we're going to that we're going to live.

And that is the idea here behind Moses.

So, all that to say, um the way in which God tells these stories of faith, like you gotta, you gotta appreciate this one, right?

You get let's jump ahead here.

Rahab, Rahab, the prostitute.

By faith, Rahab the prostitute, welcomed the spies in peace and didn't perish with those who disobeyed.

Like, look at how God tells the story.

Like, God is like, he's like all about faith.

You know, was he saying, like, the fact that she's a prostitute was okay?

No, but that's her identity, and it's like carried forward here.

But God's telling the story of Rahab, who becomes a great-grandfather, a great-grandmother to David, and a great, great, great, great, great grandmother to Jesus.

It's this incredible inclusion, and the way that God is like telling, just the way that God is interpreting and narrating the story of faith is just should be encouraging.

So I want you to see as these stories come out is that that the vision that God has for your life and the way in which you're going to express faith in your life is much broader than just evangelism, living a good life, and talking to and attending church.

Those are all good things.

But living the Christian life, having a vision for the life of being a Christian is so much broader.

It's comprehensive.

And so if you're if you're like me and you kind of came from this reduced-down concept of Christianity, just let the Bible blow your mind and see that like following God is this inspired, like just beautiful, big thing.

Okay.

I promised last week that I would hit, because we talked about these elements, like, and the first one is this idea of revelation, that these characters are responding to the revelation of God.

And one of the practical things that often comes up is like, well, how do I hear God's voice?

Like, all right, like how does how do I know what God's telling me in my life?

Like, practically.

Like, did God speak to me this last week and did I miss it?

And is God gonna speak to me this week?

And and how do I hear it?

So I want to walk through with you four common ways in which God speaks to us.

First, the first thing I want to I want to ask you, and I want to encourage you, is if God spoke to you in a really clear, distinct way, where it wasn't just like reading the Bible, but it's like this is God's word for you.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Being ready means that you're ready to take notes, right?

You're ready to capture it.

Like you, I don't know, if you take notes on your phone, do you carry a notepad in your pocket?

You might want to live in a dis with a disposition that you're ready for God, because God may just be like, hey, you're ready.

Like you're gonna just forget.

And the second thing is that you're listening, there's an anticipation where you're asking God, are you trying to speak to me?

Like, is there something there going on?

Okay, that's the first thing.

I want to read to you a quote from Henry Blackaby as he talks through this thing.

Uh, Henry Blackaby wrote this book about 30 years ago.

If you haven't read this book, there is a workbook that goes with it.

It's called Experiencing God.

It's a really beautiful book, right?

This is this the um workbook uh is excellent.

It's a 12-week Bible study.

There's five lessons per week.

And um, if you want one, I'd be happy.

The church will split the cost on it.

$7 for you, the church will pick up the other seven dollars.

I think that's that's um the price.

It changed my life.

I've done that study.

I did it first when I was 14, revolutionized my experience with the Lord.

I've done it two other times since then, and every time it's been just dynamic.

But one of the things that he covers is how to hear God's voice, how to hear God speaking to you.

And he says this early on.

He says, an intimate love relationship with God is the key to knowing God's voice, to hearing when God speaks.

You come to know his voice as you experience him in a love relationship.

As God speaks and you respond, you will come to the point that you recognize his voice more and more clearly.

Some people try to bypass the love relationship.

Some look for a miraculous sign or try to depend on a formula to see the steps.

I think it should say see the steps to discover God's will.

No substitute, however, exists for the intimate relationship with God.

It's relational, first of all.

It's relational.

So if you try to take your Bible and use it like a horoscope, where it's just like, well, this is the verse I'm going to today, and so, you know, that is gonna be like, oh, you know, like that's that's the that's special, you know?

No, it's relational.

So there's it needs to be this sense of like that God is communicating with you.

And you can't divorce the concept from relationship.

If it's just like, oh, you know, there is like the clouds were in this shape, and that must mean God wants me to do this, or I saw the flowers arranged in this particular way, and so God wants, that's that's just not it.

That's not relationship, that's something else, but that's not a love relationship with Jesus.

So that's the first thing that you have to have in place is a relationship.

Now, let's say you you're growing in that relationship with God because you're spending time, giving God time on a regular basis.

He says here, his voice becomes, or you or you recognize his voice more and more clearly.

More and more clearly.

And I've used the example of learning like my own drinking coffee and how coffee becomes something I enjoyed more and more as I got older because I could recognize, oh, this is good coffee versus really gross coffee, right?

Um and we talked about that when we went through Hebrews chapter 5.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

You learn to hear his voice more clearly.

But let's go through a few of these.

Um the first is that God speaks through his through the Bible.

God speaks through the Bible.

It looks like that didn't make it up here onto my slide.

But God speaks through the Bible.

And it says in Psalm 119, your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.

We also have 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

All scripture is inspired by God and it's profitable.

Another version says, it's useful for you.

Teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

So God's word is useful.

So God speaks to us through the Bible.

Uh 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, continuing on, so that the man of God may be completely equipped for every good work.

And then Joshua 1.8.

God's speaking to Joshua, he says, This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth.

You are to meditate on it day and night, so that you may carefully observe everything written in it.

So we oftentimes call the Bible God's Word, and God speaks to us through the Bible.

There's nothing that God's going to tell you that's going to contradict the Bible.

We use the term authority.

We say that God's word is the final authority.

And so if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, I've got a word from the Lord for you, I would listen up.

But then I would go and I would, and I would write it down.

But then I'd go back to the Bible and say, Does this line up with what the Bible says?

Because God's not going to contradict himself, right?

So knowing your Bible, using the Bible, letting, obeying what it says is what Blackaby would call like using it over and over again.

Your senses are exercised by regular use.

So you go to the Bible and you read, you know, something about loving your neighbor.

I would say that day, maybe just do something to love your neighbor.

And that's using the Bible, right?

See if you can just respond literally to what it says.

Makes sense, right?

I I know.

I'm this is real simple stuff.

We're starting simple here, okay?

But it's easier to take that for granted.

It's gonna talk about being honest, it's gonna talk about encouraging one another.

But literally, like on the day when you're reading that in the Bible and it says encourage one another, just spend some time.

I'm gonna try this.

I'm gonna try it out in obedience to God's word because I believe God spoke to me this morning, and it says, like, I need to be somebody who's patient or somebody that's loving.

You know, I need to pray for this person.

So use the Bible.

Use the Bible in a way where you believe it is God's word and that He's spoken to you.

In doing that, the more you read the Bible, you're learning what God's voice sounds like.

You're learning what God's voice sounds like.

So that's the first thing.

God speaks to us through the Bible.

That's ground zero.

The second thing, though, is that God speaks, there it is, God speaks through prayer.

God speaks through prayer.

Here's what this looks like.

God takes the initiative by causing you to want to pray.

So the Spirit of God is stirring in you.

You may it may feel just like this natural thing, like, oh, I'm gonna take a moment and pray.

But God is actually working on you, prompting you to pray.

The Holy Spirit, through the word of God, reveals to you the will of God.

So what do you pray for?

Well, what does the Bible say?

Like if you don't, like, I don't know what to pray.

Like, like if we go here to Psalm 36, let's take a hard one.

Verse 1: an oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked person, dread of God has no effect on him.

Okay, so God says that in verse 36.

36, I mean verse one.

You could pray like God, I pray for the wicked person.

They are not, they don't have any fear of you.

I don't want to be like that.

I want to have, I want the fear of God to have an effect on me.

Let this be the oracle of my heart, let this be written on my heart, write your word on my heart, right?

So that's taking the Bible and praying scripture.

Number three, in the spirit you pray in agreement with the will of God, right?

So the Bible shows us what God's will is.

We respond back and we say, God, I want you to do your will.

I see it here.

It's written here, do it.

Number four, you adjust your life to the truth of God.

He gets a little bit beyond prayer here, but I wanted to put this in front of you.

This is all from Blackabee's book.

You look, you listen for confirmation, further direction from the Bible, circumstances in the church.

You obey.

God works in you, uh, and you God works in you and through you to accomplish his purposes.

And then number eight, you experience him just as the spirit revealed as you prayed.

So that's the that's the cycle, right?

The Spirit prompts you to pray.

You you're taking the thing that you're prompted to, you know the Bible because you're reading it and you're in it.

You're you're you know that that's God's will, you're praying it, you're responding in the ways that you think are obedience.

All this stuff, it's being confirmed.

And look at number eight, you end up experiencing God.

That's the relationship, just as the Spirit revealed as you prayed.

So there's this beautiful cycle that's occurring, and you're hearing God's voice kind of like a flywheel as you're doing this relationship.

Now, um, that's the most subjective.

You're like, well, I don't know if it's God.

Again, the the greatest thing is like as you're praying or you're prompted to pray, the safest place to be at is led by the word of God, by the Bible, right?

The third thing, though, is the church.

God speaks through the church.

Now, how does this work?

What does this look like?

Um, it can be on Sunday, like I'm preaching, and you feel like, okay, that's God speaking to me.

That's awesome, but that's not the majority of God speaking through the church.

This last week on Friday, Marvin called and he's just sharing.

Like, hey, here's what God's doing in my life.

Feel like I'm working, and you know, I just feel like God's showing me this, and God's showing me this.

I think it was right when I was kind of feeling down and bummed out about the like we don't have any food to feed anybody.

And I'm listening to Marvin just share.

And he's just like pouring out, like, here's my story, and here's what God's teaching me.

And there's things that he's saying that the Holy Spirit's already showed me that I'm supposed to be doing, like, and he's literally using the language that God's already been speaking to me about.

And I'm like, oh, Marvin just thinks he's just sharing like life, and the Holy Spirit's just like speaking to me through the church and encouraging me, and it's so good.

It's so good, you know?

That for me, that's that is oftentimes how God, when it says God speaks to us through the church, is just being around other Christians.

And it's not like, oh, I've got a word for you, brother.

And then, and you know, maybe you do, but that's not how we talk in our church very often.

And I like that about our church that we don't talk like that very often.

No, just like be normal.

You know, just be normal.

Like, and and who knows, God could be just putting crazy stuff on your heart.

Can I tell you one like really crazy thing?

I know, oh man, I'm running out of time, really quickly.

Like, just like just to illustrate the point that like God can work in your life in just the most like normal way, that you're like daydreaming, and your random thoughts can be like God could be working through that.

Here's one thing.

One morning when I was uh 16 years old, I was at this retreat with a bunch of other kids in high school, and I was sitting out reading my Bible on this field, and I'm sitting out there and I'm looking.

Um actually, no, let's go before that.

The I was in I was in Bible college, and I was remembering this event of being at this retreat.

I was in Bible college in a really boring class on the book of Revelation.

I was totally tuned out, and I'm sitting there in my Revelation class, remembering when I was a few years earlier at this retreat, and it's in the morning, and I remember I was on this field reading my Bible, and there's all of these little water droplets on the grass, and I'm totally messing the story up, totally messing it up, right?

So I'm the the water droplets, I'm thinking about these water droplets, and I'm thinking about this.

Um shoot, man, I totally got this out of order.

I'm so sorry.

I'm in class, I'm in class.

Lord, please use this.

I'm in class, daydreaming about a devotional, um, Andrew Murray devotional that had water droplets on the front of the book.

Okay?

Yes.

And the the book cover reminded me of the camp.

And doing my devotions on the field where the grass droplets were, okay?

And then I remember thinking, like, oh yeah, I remember being at the camp.

What was the name of that field?

Because this camp like dedicated this soccer field to this guy, this random guy named Chet Bitterman.

And so I'm daydreaming in my revelation class about like I went from the book to the prayer time to water droplets to the name of the field, Chet Bitterman, and I'm thinking, like, who's Chet Bitterman?

I wonder who that why did that camp name the field after Chet Bitterman?

That moment.

That very moment, the professor who I tuned out, literally out of his mouth, he says, yeah, when I was in college, Columbia Bible college, I had a roommate named Chet Bitterman, who went to South America.

Yeah, went to South America and he was martyred for his faith.

I was like, that was like the most craziest like random head trip I've ever had.

And it came away from that.

Like, man, God can just like use our random daydreaming.

And I've got ADD, and I'm like, like, I daydream a lot.

Like, my the channels are flipping in my head.

And the Lord's like, look, I can use the crazy like ways that your brain just like changes channels, you know.

I can direct even such a crazy brain as yours.

Thank you, Lord.

So, anyway, God can speak through the church.

And sometimes you think like you're just telling me, like, hey, here's what happened this week.

And yet, God is in such a like a normal, natural way.

The Spirit of God lives in you and can be encouraging someone else.

He can be speaking to you.

Okay, the last one, the last one is that God speaks through circumstances.

This is like opened and closed doors.

Maybe finances run out.

A job change, you know, like like Marvin.

I'm not I'm not picking on Marvin, but like, you know, a job ended in one place and he got redirected.

And and God's speaking through the changing of jobs.

Real life can be the staging of God's message to you.

Your experience this past week may be full of billboards from God.

Again, are you paying attention?

Now, I'm not saying you over-spiritualize your life.

Not everything that happens is the message of God.

Right?

You've met those weird Christians that kind of overly spiritualize everything, and you're like, okay, you're like a helium balloon that's flying.

Like, come back over here.

Let's anchor you back to reality.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about just pay attention.

As you're doing life, God can orchestrate events and conversations in such a way that He's trying to speak to you.

It's on you and I.

Are we a people that are paying attention?

Are we reading the Bible?

Are we letting God's still small voice speak to us?

You remember Mary, like she's storing away stuff in our hearts.

That's what I'd encourage you to do.

Don't be out there like over-spiritualizing stuff.

I mean, you can talk and say, like, and ask questions, but don't like be the one that's like, I know this is from God, you know?

No, just store it away in your heart.

And it's like breadcrumbs.

I sometimes I'll create documents where it's just like, man, it seems like we're heading in this direction.

And this happened, and this happened, and this happened, and I'm getting a sense of God's direction.

And so when the thing happens, it's like, of course it's gonna happen, because all these things have been like God's been confirming it.

So these four things Bible, prayer, church, and circumstances are an intersection.

And oftentimes, when God's showing you something significant about like direction in your life, oftentimes all four of these things are banging, they're going.

Like the Bible's like it's a Holy Spirit highlighter.

It's like, oh man, that that's things right in the Bible, that's what I'm thinking about, and then you're praying about it, and people are talking about it.

But it's not just once, oftentimes.

You remember how many times did God promise Abraham about what was gonna happen to him?

Like three, four times, right?

When God's guiding you, he gives you grace to do it.

So, like there's the enabling, the the grace, the power to kind of be patient.

He's oftentimes repeating it and reminding you: hey, this is what I've shown you, this is what's happening.

All of these characters.

All of these characters that we've looked at, Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, all of them, all of them are living by faith.

All of them are living by faith, responding to the degree of revelation that they have from God.

And that's the God of the Bible for you and I.

When we're called to run this race, to lay aside the weights that hinder, we're running, we want to run like Jesus ran, with this sense of purpose that God's got a plan, the Spirit of God's at work in our hearts, and who knows what's going to happen.

This is my last point to you, and it's really three sentences.

Is the struggle in your life related to faith?

Let me ask you that again.

Is the struggle, some of you are struggling, is the struggle in your life right now, the pain points in your life right now, are they related to faith?

Something that God's shown you?

Have you connected the things that maybe you're suffering in your life and it doesn't relate to you following the Lord in an area?

Those are the things to cut off.

Those are the things.

The other things where there's pain points, you need to go back and connect it back to the life of faith.

Is the struggle in your life related to faith?

Are you doing hard stuff because God has called you to that thing?

Are you suffering because you are obeying God or is life hard for some other reason?

I just want to encourage you to connect your life and the hard things in life to the life of faith.

What is God, what's God promised you?

God does not stick Christians in hard stuff just so that they can have hard stuff in their life and whine about it.

No, he puts hard stuff in your life so that he can make you a mini micro demonstration, a play, a reenactment of the resurrection.

He wants to demonstrate the resurrection power in your life through the things that you are suffering through.

Or it's not from the Lord and you need to let it go.

All right?

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word.

Thank you for these cloud of witnesses that inspire our faith.

Lord, we ask that they would go to work, that the Holy Spirit would go to work to apply these things in our life.

Help us, Lord, to live this exciting life of just being connected to you, hearing you speak.

Lord, we give you our week.

We ask that you would work in our lives.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.