Faith Builders IV: Active Obedience - Supplements for Spiritual Energy

How many know the vision of the road?

Alright, George, you raise your hand first.

What's the vision of the road?

Okay.

What's the phrase we use?

Building wholehearted disciples of Jesus.

The church doesn't need more Christians.

We got too many of those already.

The church needs disciples.

Jesus didn't say go and make Christians.

He said go and make disciples.

So we're here to build disciples.

Now you guys understand, I think being a Christian is really cool and all that.

But what I'm saying, though, is the way we in America view Christianity is really, really warped.

Because if this was truly a Christian country, the way we treat people, the way we handle money, the kind of websites we have would be radically different.

So Jesus said, go and make disciples.

And so making disciples is our goal here.

So what we've been on is kind of a series.

As everybody knows and knows me, or if you've heard me on the radio over the years, I'm a book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse guy.

That's what I do.

So we've been in Mark chapter four and five, but the reality is, you guys, is that we kept hitting on this theme of faith.

So we've taken off a little detour and we've been on an issue of what I'm calling faith builders.

Faith builders, supplements for spiritual energy.

Now I'm old enough now to need supplements.

Okay, my body is shutting down.

It's wanting heaven.

It's longing for heaven.

And everything in my body is moving south.

And as a result, I take supplements.

Well, you need, just like you take physical supplements for physical energy, and it really makes a difference.

I double my doses, by the way, on Saturdays.

So I do the regular dosage in the morning, and then about three hours before this time, I take another dosage.

I double my supplements on Saturday.

And when Liz and I are having problems, I double my dosage then too.

But I would call it spiritual homeopathics.

Kind of spiritual homeopathics.

How do we grow our faiths?

We've been on this kick now for the last month.

And here's been our seminal passage.

You don't have to turn there because I'm going to tell you to turn to James chapter 2 in a second.

James 2 · chapter mention

But 1 John 5.4.

If you're new here, you haven't heard this, just write, you can just jot it down, you can look it up later.

1 John 5.4 says this whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world.

What?

Our faith.

Your faith overcomes stuff in your life.

You don't even know it.

Even before you came to know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord, friend, and Savior, you actually had faith for stuff that overcame something in your life.

Well, the Bible teaches that it's impossible, listen to this, it's impossible to actually please God if you don't do things by faith.

Why?

Why?

Because God wants all the glory in your life.

He wants to do a work in your life that would be impossible without Him.

And so here's what we talked about the first week.

The first week we said faith supplement was what I called Rhema word supplement.

Rhema word supplement.

Not going to go back over that, but the difference between Rhema and Logos is what I talked about.

The next week we talked about, number two, spirit prayer supplement.

Spirit prayer supplement.

We have a group of guys that comes here at 5.15, and all you women are not invited.

You can't come.

But all the men in this room, you're always invited at 5.15 for 30 minutes, we pray over here for the service.

We pray for our families.

We pray for you.

You've been prayed for.

We prayed in our prayer time that when you got out of your car, when you got out of your truck, when you got out of your Jeep tonight, that when your feet touched the ground of this area, that God would begin a work in your life.

That's praying in the spirit.

So we we had spirit-led prayer.

Number three, the third supplement.

Last week.

Really important.

Listen up.

Friendship supplement.

Friendship supplement.

You need friends in your life, men and women, that build up your faith.

You need build up faith people.

You don't need too many faith suckers.

You have faith suckers in your life.

Every one of you go to a job somewhere and you have people, they just love to suck your faith out like a Hoover vacuum.

They make it their goal to just mess up your faith.

They don't mean to.

They're well-meaning.

They're just negative.

They're just joy suckers.

And I'm telling you, if you fill your life with joy suckers, your faith will just go down the toilet.

And we need faith builders, not faith busters.

So we talked about that last week, that you need people in your life that build up your faith.

That when you're when you're finished in a conversation and you feel better about yourself than before you started.

You spend some time with these people and you're ready to charge the gates of hell with a water pistol.

I mean, they they build up your faith.

So that's the friendship factor.

Now turn to James chapter 2, and tonight I want to give a fourth supplement.

James 2 · chapter mention

So the first is Rhema word supplement, the second was spirit prayer supplement, third one was friendship supplement.

We've got a different one tonight.

James chapter 2, and we read it in the Antiphonal reading.

James 2 · chapter mention

Verse 14.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

Can faith save him?

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute or daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Verse 18.

But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works.

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

You believe that there's one God, you do well.

Even the demons believe that, and they tremble.

But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac, his son on the altar?

Verse 22.

This is the seminal verse.

Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works, faith was made perfect.

Now listen, write down this quote.

It's important because I don't want there to be confusion here.

Martin Luther, the great reformer of faith and works, said this.

We are saved by faith alone, but not faith that is alone.

Here's his point.

When you put your faith in Jesus Christ to be your Savior, and you give your heart, you surrender your life to Him, you get saved right then.

You're going to heaven.

Have you done any works?

That point?

The only work you've done is the act of believing, right?

And that's actually the point of Abraham in Hebrews chapter 11 and in the book of Genesis is that he believed.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

What does it say?

It said he believed and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness.

So when you believe, God reckons unto you, he gives to you salvation without any works except the act of believing.

But what Luther's saying is if that's true, saving faith, then you will start to act differently.

You will start to work things out differently.

You will start to see a transformed life.

You show me a young man or young woman, and they say that they've come to know the Lord and their life is in shambles, you have reason to question whether they really come to know the Lord.

Now, some churches call it backsliding.

Some people say they're not even saved.

I don't know which one it is.

I just know that when salvation comes, it transforms you, but not overnight.

You see, guys, we gotta have patience for each other.

I mean, some of you guys are really messed up.

You just really are.

And if you knew about me, I mean, if you could just dive in tomorrow, I'm pretty messed up too.

So we're just a bunch of ragamuffins around here.

But the reality is that when the Spirit of God does come in, there is a conviction of sin that as we learn to walk even in these faith supplements, you do change.

And it's kind of crazy, it's kind of weird.

It's like you were doing this yesterday, and then you kind of don't want to do that anymore.

But it doesn't happen overnight, so we need patience for each other.

So here's the fourth faith supplement.

Don't miss this now.

Active obedience.

Number four, active obedience.

You see, an obedience that acts on what God is telling you to do.

That's what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about, I'm talking about that there is a work of the Spirit where God begins to work into your life a desire to obey God.

I have two Labrador retrievers.

I never trained a dog except back when I was in seventh grade with a Britney Spaniel, and that dog was mentally retarded.

Okay.

This actually was a dog that actually cost some money.

By the way, I'll give you advice on dogs.

This is free, has nothing to do with our message, but spend the money.

Spend the money.

Don't get a mutt, man.

Because you're gonna have that dog for at least 10 years.

And I see people just kicking their dog way too much.

It's like, man, get a good dog.

Anyway, I got a good dog, good breed, and I began to train that dog, and then that dog had puppies, and I took one of the puppies that I wanted, and we've got so we got two laps.

They're a good line.

And I'm kind of a dog whisperer in a way because I had never hit my dog, I've never kicked my dog, never beaten my dog, but man, they can hunt.

They're good dogs.

They want to obey because what?

They love me.

They love me.

You want to obey those whom you love.

You do.

And so there's this active obedience.

So here's what it says in verse 22.

Let me read it again.

Do you see that faith was, and underline this now, or highlighted if you've got like an iPad, working together.

Working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect.

Working together is the Greek.

Now write this down because it's really important.

Synergio.

Synergio.

S-U-N-E-R-G-E-O.

S-U-N-E-R-G-O.

Does that look like something?

Synergy.

It's where we get the word synergy.

So there is a kingdom.

Listen up.

There's a kingdom principle of faith that can't be complete.

The circuit can't be completed without works.

It says working together.

There's a kingdom principle of faith and our action working together in synergy.

The vertical relationship with Christ corresponds synergistically with the horizontal relationship with this world.

That when you act on active obedience upon something God's told you to do, God builds your faith.

God builds your faith.

You actually are transformed by acting on your faith.

And here's what happens.

When you don't act on your faith, your faith atrophies.

It atrophies, just like in your physical body.

I can think till the cows come home that I need to exercise.

But until I exercise, my body is not changed.

And I'm telling you guys, spiritually, it's also true that when God's speaking to you something, you've got to act on it.

In the New Testament, it's called the book of Acts.

Do you know why it's called the Book of Acts?

Because they acted.

And so there's this active obedience in our life, which means that oftentimes we have to do stuff that we don't feel like doing.

But we love the Lord.

We're trying to grow in that relationship with him.

So we just, we, we start to do it because we love Him and He's speaking to us about something, and we activate that faith.

And I'm going to call it active obedience, not active faith, because active obedience is how you define faith.

So there's no, so you don't say active faith.

Because faith is active.

So it's not faith until it is active, so I'm going to call it active obedience.

So, and so I know a man in this fellowship that God spoke to him a couple months ago to start getting out in his neighborhood, meeting his neighbors, having a relationship with his neighbors because he didn't know them.

And he wanted to express his love for God to start and have a relationship with his neighbors.

So he's been doing that.

And it's opened up all kinds of doors.

Because there's hurting, damaged, broken-hearted people everywhere we go.

And by opening up his life and doing some of the stuff they did with dinners and things like that, there's now a relationship, a horizontal relationship, and they're asking about his vertical relationship with God because it started with an intentional, proactive faith.

That's active obedience.

God spoke to him to do that, he did it.

That he calls you out of your comfort zone.

Because you see, in our comfort zone, we become we become insular.

We become selfish.

Right?

Everybody go like this, you know what I'm talking about.

You know?

That's what we do.

We become selfish.

That's just who we are.

It's our natural way.

Your natural way is always selfishness.

My natural way is always selfishness.

And if you have any doubts about that, become a parent.

Have kids.

I'm gonna teach my kid to be selfish.

Nobody's ever said that.

They do not have, it comes naturally.

It's natural.

Now turn to Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11, God is so committed to this idea of active obedience that he actually gave us an entire chapter of the Bible just showing us examples of men and women who walked out active obedience.

Hebrews 11.

Now faith is a substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.

By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Now look what he does now.

The whole rest, so he gives us a definition.

He's gonna follow with kind of part two of the definition in verse six.

But the whole rest of Hebrews 11 is all the names of people.

These are guys that did it.

So he says here, verse 4, by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain did.

Now jump down to verse 5.

By faith, Enoch was taken away.

Look down at the bottom, because he had hit this testimony that he pleased God.

Verse 7.

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household.

Verse 8.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out.

Verse 11.

By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed.

And he goes on and on.

It talks about Abraham.

So, so the reality, church, is that God begins a work in your life of faith.

He says something to you, he speaks to you.

But then you have to step out by faith.

So we have this little triangle.

Did we get that for the, did we get that diagram up?

There it is.

That I believe there's three parts to growing in Christ.

There is a knowing of Christ intimately, there is a flowing with his spirit, but look at that third one.

There's a going part, there's a go.

That's active obedience.

You've got to do, you walk out that faith in the go aspect of being a disciple.

So how do we do this?

So how do we go?

How do we become a people that completes the circuit?

Now listen up, this is important.

This is this is a key phrase tonight.

Trusting in and acting upon the promises of God.

Listen up.

The way you you grow in active obedience is trusting in and acting upon the promises of God.

Here's what 2 Peter says.

Now this is Peter.

This is Peter writing this.

You remember Peter?

That guy's got some issues.

Okay.

He he is he all through the Gospels, he brushes his teeth with shoe polish.

The guy is always in trouble, but there's one thing you can say about Peter, he has active obedience.

And I think that's why God's why Jesus loved him so much.

I like boldness.

I like passion, and I like people who don't give a rip.

I really do.

We are way too timid in our faith these days, guys.

We're so afraid that we're gonna ruffle some feathers, we're afraid that the parents will say this, or we're afraid of that, or whatever.

We walk in fear all the time in this country.

I mean, you gotta have political speak that just, you know, fits everybody, and you don't want to offend anybody.

That's like actually, that's the cardinal sin now.

Did you know that?

The cardinal sin is offending people.

We need a little more offending going on, in my opinion.

I'm sorry.

But but here's the deal.

Here's what 2 Peter says.

Here's what Peter says in his second letter.

We have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature.

We've been given, men and women, promises of God that when we trust in the promises of God, we actually become partakers of God's nature.

That's why in Hebrews 11 it speaks of, what did it say?

It said, we by faith the heavens were created by the word of God.

God had faith.

God has faith.

You're here tonight because God has faith in you.

Would you have faith in you?

I wouldn't have faith in most of you.

No way.

I don't y'all look in the mirror and I don't have faith in me.

I'm honest.

But God's got faith in me.

And God's got faith in you.

And here's the deal: you shouldn't care what people say about you.

You have Jesus living in you, and greater is he that is in you than he that is around you and on this world.

And all the things they say about your reputation.

God's got faith in you, and you've got to have faith in him.

Or you won't reach your potential.

You won't reach the calling that God has on every one of us in this room.

Every one of you in this room are called by God to make a difference and to make an impact.

You've been gifted that way.

So active obedience, listen up, this is really important, is based on imagination.

Don't miss this now.

Active obedience is based on imagination.

It really is.

Let me read Hebrews 11 1 again.

Everybody listen.

Listen to this.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is seeing something twice.

Faith is creating twice.

That's what it is.

You say, what in the world are you talking about?

Hebrews 11, 6 says, but without faith, it is impossible to please God.

For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Faith is seeing a promise of God twice.

Faith is the creation of God twice.

It's about your imagination.

You've got to see it to believe it.

And you see it first in your heart.

Let me tell you what I'm talking about.

You first see faith in your heart.

You're reading God's word.

You get up tomorrow morning and you're reading God's word and he says something to you and he speaks to you and you can see it.

But it's just in your mind's eye, it's just in your heart's eye.

You see it.

He tells you that you're supposed to marry that lady.

He tells you you're supposed to marry that man.

He says to you, start that.

I want you to start a company.

I want you to go to that guy that you offended last week, and I want you to say you're sorry.

You see it.

He speaks a word of faith in your heart.

Not good enough.

Not good enough if it just stops there.

You see, faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not yet seen.

So it starts here.

You see it, you feel it, you know it, you've heard from God.

He's spoken to you about something.

Hello?

But then there has to be a physical creation.

So I'm going to call it heart faith and feet faith.

Heart faith is God saying something in your heart, but then when you actualize it, when you proactively step out and do what he's telling you to do, that's feet faith.

And you've got to have heart faith, you've got to have feet faith, and too many believers today are all heart faith, but no feet faith.

You're driving down the road, and I know this sounds kind of crazy, but you're driving down the road, and that guy's got that placard and you know, asking for money.

Another one of those loony tunes that doesn't ever go to work.

And this time God says, help him out.

You go, that's stupid.

I know, I'll bet you anything.

That guy's just, he's just, eh.

But you do it by faith, you never maybe even see the results of it.

But something happens in you when you drive away.

I'm telling you, it is the only way to actualize faith because if you don't step out with things that God's telling you to do, guess what happens to his voice?

He shuts down.

I don't, I can't explain it.

I just know it's true that there's an anointing on every one of us in this room.

There's an anointing of the Spirit over every one of you in this room.

Not just because I'm a Bible teacher, is it upon me?

It's upon all of us.

We all have an anointing.

I'm not talking about losing our salvation.

I'm talking about losing active faith in the anointing because we we choose not to obey.

We disobey, we go the other direction.

In so doing, we cut off God's work of the spirit of building up our faith for the next thing that He has for us.

You see, you can get spiritual momentum.

Some of you have been called by God to do stuff, and you're so fearful that you haven't stepped out, and it's actually hindering faith in a dozen other areas, too.

You've got this idol in your life that is not of God, and you're looking at that, and when God speaks to you, you go, I can't do that because this is my life.

And then God can't work his mighty power in other areas of our life.

And so here's the deal.

There is this heart creation, a promise from God of something that then becomes a second creation, which is our act of obedience.

If you don't make a conscious effort to act by faith through obeying the promise of God that's in your heart, listen up, this is important, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape your life by default.

And so you become a reactive person instead of a proactive person.

And so what happens in your life, if you don't have a proactive faith, everybody else is gonna come in and tell you exactly what you're supposed to do, exactly what you're supposed to be.

And before you know it, you're just getting kicked around all over the place like a little puppy dog because you don't have a proactive faith because you're not acting on what God told you to do.

And it all listen, it always starts small.

It's always, it's just it's just little things.

That's why it says if you're faithful in a little, God will give you more.

And so God's got these windows of heaven, a blessing that he wants to pour out in your life.

He just wants you to be obey a little bit and he'll give you a little bit more, a little bit more.

And that's why we talk about the parable of the sower in in Mark chapter 4 and 5, when he's talking about that, he says, if you understand this parable, you'll understand all the parables.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

If you'll understand this one parable, he says, You, you guys have been with me all these years, you don't know what this means?

And they just asked him what it means.

I would say, Jesus, that's not really fair.

I mean, he came and said he doesn't know what it means.

And then you say, You don't know what this means?

Well, he already told you he didn't know what it means.

That's where you're having the conversation.

But but you've got this, you've got this seed of faith, and here's what he says.

He says there's four kinds of soil, soils of the heart.

And you know, and you know, one just gets stolen away right off the bat, one doesn't have any root, one one uh the the cares of life choke it out.

And the fourth is good soil, and what does he say?

It multiplies 30, 60, and 100fold.

That's God's will for every one of us in this room.

That is God's will that you multiply.

Your talents, your gifts, who you are, the way you're made is supposed to multiply into other people's lives and make a difference and change people's lives.

And so, and so there's this synergy of faith and works, heart faith, working with feet faith.

And this is real discipleship, church.

That when we're working together with this synergy, we find new life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to faith without works as cheap grace.

He wrote, quote, cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living in an incarnate.

Such grace is cheap grace.

But then he says there's a costly grace.

And he says this such grace is costly grace because it calls us to follow.

And it is a grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

And it is costly because it cost him his life, and it's grace because it gives us the only true life.

Isn't that awesome?

So you want that.

That's what you were created for.

That's life.

So, Jesus says in John 10.10, he says, the enemy, Satan, comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

That's often our choice in the promises of God.

If we obey, abundant life.

If we don't obey, we lose something.

He steals something, he kills something, he destroys something.

So now's the time.

Remember when there were a TV show years ago?

This is your life?

So this is your life.

Do we need more people like this?

That's really inviting.

That's really exciting.

Going to heaven.

I got saved 42 years ago, and I'm just trying to make it to heaven.

I I used to have fun.

Or get real.

Be yourself.

You see, our humanity is most fulfilled in the one who gave us our humanity, and that's in Jesus Christ.

And that's when we become all that we were meant to be.

And so when we step out and you say, Well, I don't know if I can do that, well, then you start with something small.

Just the next thing God says to do, just do it.

Even if you, even if you mess up, even if you uh make a fool of yourself.

I'm a fool for Christ's sake.

Who's fool are you?

You're all fools.

We're all fools in this room.

I want to be a fool for Christ's sake.

He created me.

He forgives me.

He gives me more power when I work things out.

He forgives me, even when people don't.

Right?

So that's the life.

So take the supplement this week.

Take the pill.

Take the red pill.

Okay?

And and take the pill and active obedience.

Walk out in active obedience.

Watch what he'll do.

So I want all of you, wherever you're at right now, just close your eyes.

Just sit there.

Some of you have your journals with you, some of you have your iPads or you take notes and stuff like that.

I want you to take a moment as the worship team comes up.

And I want you to ask the Lord this question.

Jesus, is there some act of obedience that you're calling me to do?

Speak to me and I will obey.

Is there something you're telling me to do?

Speak to me and I will obey.

Take a moment right now, just close your eyes, and I want you to go with the first thought that God places in your heart, and I want you to write it down.

It might be a person that you need to go to.

It might be some work, some step of faith that he's calling you to.

I want you just to jot that down when he speaks to you.