Attitude Of Faith

I'm Pastor James Button Rock, an associate pastor here at Glorious Way Church, and it is my privilege to get to minister God's word to you tonight.

The title of tonight's message is Attitude of Faith.

You know all kinds of attitudes we can have, but having an attitude of faith is a good attitude to have.

It'll pave the way for your success.

We talk a lot about faith here at Glorious Way Church, and it's because the Bible talks a lot about faith.

Faith is important.

Faith pleases God.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

Jesus measured faith.

It says that the just shall live by faith.

So we're charged that this is how we live by faith.

And then in Romans 10, 17, it says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

So you cannot have faith for something apart from God's word.

In fact, you can't even know whether or not you can have something unless it's written in God's word and promised to you.

And so faith begins with.

The will of God is known, and it's pretty important, and so we're going to teach some more on faith tonight.

Let me read you a list of names and then you, watching by livestream, I would like you to respond if you recognize any of these names and so we're watching over here.

Claire's got the.

She's borrowing my computer to monitor what's going on on Facebook tonight.

So if you're watching live stream by Facebook, you can chime in.

I'm going to read the names and you can chime in and say yes, I recognize them.

So here we go.

First name Shemua Shaffit, eagle, paul T, gadiel, gaddy, am I L, sethur, nabi and Gayuel.

Anybody recognize any of those names?

Just chime in.

I bet we have radio silence over there.

I'm seeing we got nothing is because you don't recognize these names.

You know why you don't recognize these names because these are losers, and losers are not built up in God's word.

So these are the 10 spies who had a bad report.

You don't know their names because they died in the wilderness.

They didn't get to receive.

They were losers.

Anybody remember the two spies that had a good report Just waiting for some feedback?

Caleb and Joshua.

Very, I'm sure somebody got it.

Did anybody get that?

Y'all are slow, all right.

So we've got Caleb and Joshua.

They had the good report.

The losers they did not believe what God declared that they could have, and so all that comes out of Numbers, chapter 13.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

Anybody remember Michael Phelps?

So I'm sure you got some hands going up some responses.

Michael Phelps he was an Olympic swimmer Gold.

He set all kinds of records, gold medal I don't know how many received probably more than 20 gold medals, but does anybody remember the one who got second place?

Nobody remembers the second place finisher or any of the other finishers, but they all had some attitude, and so whether it was an attitude of faith or not, you can judge, but I'm gonna talk about the attitude of faith tonight.

So Caleb and Joshua they had the attitude.

While the 10 were saying negative things about going into the promised land, caleb and Joshua were saying things like let's go up at once.

They're bread for us, we can take them, we are well able to overcome.

Let's go in.

And so they had an attitude of faith.

Sadly, the rest of Israel didn't join their attitude of faith, and so the people who didn't have that right attitude ended up dying in the wilderness, and God raised up another generation to go into the promised land.

And so if we don't have the right attitude, god's patience is a whole lot longer than our endurance, and if we don't get it right, then there's another generation that will.

So I want us all to have the attitude of faith.

Let's get it right in this generation, right here and now.

Anybody can look at an obstacle and say that it's too big, but it's a faith attitude that says, yes, with man it's impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Hebrews 11.3 talks about how God framed the worlds.

It says by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, and so God spoke some words and the world was created.

He framed everything with His words so that the things which are not seen are made of the things which are visible.

So God's words produced something.

God's words are invisible, but they produced something that's visible, that we live in today.

And we also have creative power of speech.

If you don't like what you have in life, we really need to be checking up on what we are saying, because God gave us the creative power of speech.

We can frame our worlds with our words.

You've heard your pastor preach on this before.

So if you don't like what you have, check up on what you've been saying.

Romans 10, verses 8 through 10, it says but what does it say?

Romans 10:8–10

The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.

That is the word of faith that we preach that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe so, there's a confessing and a believing that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

There's all kinds of denominational Christians out there that speak ill of the word of faith.

Yet they're happy to proclaim that they believed in their heart and they confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus, and then they're saved.

They are saved by the very word of faith that many of them deny.

I guess they think it stops with salvation.

But we are to live by faith and we're to live by this word of faith, for with the heart one believes into righteousness, and with confession with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.

So let me ask you the question what do you say?

What are you saying?

We're fond of quoting Mark 11, 23.

Fresh, early, I say to you whoever says to this mountain, be thou removed and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes those things that he says will be done, he'll have, whatever he says.

Therefore, I say to you whatsoever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them, you'll lay hold on them, and so you'll get to possess those things that you believe and say.

But the saying is critically important here, and we've heard this before.

But why is it that Jesus said that we can cast a mountain into the sea, that our faith can cause this mountain to be removed and cast into the sea?

Was it a literal mountain?

I have yet to see a literal mountain picked up and moved by anybody.

But we have mountains in our lives, and so you know there are things that are seemingly impossible.

It's seemingly impossible to pick up a mountain and throw it into the ocean.

So you have things in your life that are seemingly impossible.

But faith says and has the attitude I don't care how big you are, mountain, I don't care how wide you are or how heavy you are, my faith is big enough to throw you into the ocean.

And then you know we talk about the ocean.

Why the ocean?

Well, because the ocean is the only place that's big enough, vast enough, deep enough to entirely consume a whole mountain, such that there's no evidence that that mountain ever before existed.

And so you have enough faith on the inside of you to take whatever mountain you're facing.

You just got to have that faith attitude, that your faith is bigger, stronger and more powerful than any mountain that you have in front of you and that it can be cast into a place such that there's no evidence that that mountain ever existed.

And so you must believe and speak.

And so what is your attitude of faith saying?

When the Israelites went into the Promised Land, moses didn't get to go in with them.

It was Joshua that led him in.

And so in Joshua 1-7, it says only be strong.

So these are words, god's words to Joshua.

He says only be strong and very courageous.

That you may observe, to do all according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you, and do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.

And so there is a prosperity that's available for you, for all of us, when we're very careful to obey God's words, it's easy to make some assumptions about what God says.

You know, sometimes they'll give us a direction and we can start going that direction, and the specific leading that we have to follow comes from the inward witness along the way, so we don't get the whole plan laid out in front of us.

You don't get to know every detail.

And so we follow that inward witness, we follow the Holy Spirit guiding us on the inside and as long as we're faithful to do that, we can have a prosperous way, whichever way that is.

But God's way is always prosperous when we follow it.

So it says be strong and very courageous and say be weak and timid.

It says be strong and courageous.

So the attitude of faith is strong and courageous, not weak and timid.

Another someone in the Bible.

So Isaac, he obeyed God.

God told him to go someplace and he sent him to the land of Girard and it happened to be a time of famine.

And so Isaac, he didn't question, he didn't whine about it, he just went.

Isaac obeyed God.

Obedience will bring you prosperity along the way.

Isaac obeyed God.

He went to Girard and where God calls you to dwell, you need to be sowing in that land.

There's opportunity for you in the land where God calls you to be.

He won't call you to a place to live and dwell and put roots down and be there for a while if there's not also a corresponding opportunity for supply.

So here Isaac went into this place.

It was a time of famine and he sowed during that time of famine.

Nobody else was sowing during that time, they were busy eating their seed.

But he obeyed God and he sowed in that time of famine.

And it says he reaped a hundredfold the same year.

And then it says he began to prosper and he continued to prosper until he became very prosperous.

And so his attitude of faith was I don't care what famine we have, what's going on around me, other people are eating their seed, nobody is sowing in this time.

God called me to be here and God prompted him to sow.

And so he obeyed, he sowed, he reaped and he prospered and continued to prosper and he became very prosperous.

So obedience to God will bring in your prosperity.

When the brook dried up, it said Elijah the prophet was sent to Zeraphat and God commanded something ahead of him.

What did he command?

He commanded that widow woman to be a supply to Elijah there.

And so you know, elijah was sitting by this brook and it began to dry up and he didn't get fearful, he didn't whine about it.

I imagine it could have gotten a little bit rough.

Seeing the water shrink down to nothing.

He got tired of straining that last bit of mud through his sock to drink the last few drops of water.

But God sent him to a place and so God has sent these people on missions.

He sent our church on missions and there's always a corresponding supply.

Jesus told Peter to go fishing with a hook and catch a fish.

Actually, he probably caught more than one fish.

Now that I'm thinking about it, because he said the first fish that you catch there would be a gold coin in his mouth.

Any fisherman knows that when you put a hook in the water and you catch one fish, you don't stop fishing.

You keep putting that hook out in the water over and over again.

But the first fish, jesus said you can catch a lot of fish, I guess, but the first one is going to have a coin in its mouth and use that coin to pay your taxes and mine.

So that must have been a big supply.

Taxes aren't cheap, but Jesus provided for even the taxes.

He told us disciples where and when to let down the nets and that resulted in a huge catch.

That was a huge monetary benefit because they caught far beyond what they could consume in their family.

And God is faithful.

He always gives a supply to eat and a supply to sell or to sow or to invest, and so he told them where the fish were and it resulted in big money for the disciples.

And so this church is on a mission.

God prompted Claire and I to sell our house, our first home and it didn't seem logical to do it in that moment, but both of us were prompted to do that and so we agreed and we put our home on the market.

And what was?

We didn't Actually we weren't selling our home, it was putting it on the market, on the rental market, and so we put it on the rental market and really that led to a chain of events and a series of decisions after that that resulted in a big win for us, because we're now invested in lots of real estate.

God showed us a model that works and that model has helped us and many others fund the gospel.

When you're on an assignment for God, he's always gonna provide for that mission.

And I said, you know, this church is on a mission and I was talking, I think, during the offering Sunday evening, but I asked Brother Pete, who has served in the US Army.

In fact he had a lot to do with the supply chain for our military troops overseas.

But our troops, when they go on a long range or long-term mission, they can't carry their whole supply with them in their backpack, in their vehicles when they go.

And so they go knowing that there's gonna be a supply unit that's gonna pick them up at some point and fill in the blanks on their supply.

It's gonna.

They're gonna meet, they're gonna rendezvous.

They have to meet up with their supply.

But they don't turn around and bail on the mission to get a supply, their mid-mission or some steps away on the mission, and then they meet their supply and they're able to continue on.

You know our long-range bombers they leave here and fly somewhere halfway around the world before they have to refuel mid-air with an air tanker that meets them there.

There's a point that's already predestined for them to meet and hook up with their supply.

And so God has a supply for you.

An attitude of faith doesn't whine about it, doesn't wonder about it, but it recognizes that God is faithful.

Who promised and I'm gonna get out there on my mission, I'm gonna obey God and he will supply because he's faithful.

In John 16, 33, jesus said these things I have spoken to you.

In me, you may have peace In me.

You can have peace In the world.

You're gonna have trouble, but be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world.

And so Jesus is charging his disciples, charging us, to have an attitude of courage or good cheer, it doesn't matter.

What's going on around us does not determine our attitude, but the promise of God and the faithfulness of God and the truthfulness that's in his word determines our attitude.

We have faith in that word and so he says be of good cheer In me, so we've got a place to have peace.

We can be in Christ and have peace while there's trouble all around and know that the trouble all around has been overcome already, and so we can have good cheer, we can have a cheerful attitude of faith in this world.

It's similar to what Joshua was told by God only be strong and very courageous.

Be strong and very courageous.

He wasn't fearful, he wasn't worried, he wasn't anxious, he was cheerful, excited and zealous to go in and to possess.

According to John 15, verse seven and eight, if we abide in him and his words abide in us, we can ask, and that word ask is a covenant demand.

We have a covenant in place with God that, on his side, he's required to fulfill and obligate when we invoke the covenant and so we can ask or put a demand on our covenant what we desire and it says it shall be done for us.

And by this my father is glorified.

So God actually gets glorified.

When we recognize we have a covenant and we put a demand on that covenant which then obligates the supply to come in and so that you know, having an attitude of faith there recognizes that God is faithful and we have a covenant and he's a covenant keeping God, and so we have that available to us.

Whenever we put a demand on that, when we realize that we don't have to perform God's part, we can have what is impossible for man, because with God truly all things are possible.

If we're struggling with this, if we find ourselves toiling and straining in life about things you know, the world will say try harder.

But the word of God says we don't have to try harder.

In fact we shouldn't try harder.

We need to receive God's word better, because the answers are in God's word.

In other words, we need to become better doers of God's word and then the toil goes away.

This life isn't without work, but it doesn't have to be toilsome.

His yoke is easy, his burden is light.

This world has already been overcome.

We're charged to occupy, not overcome.

Again, jesus did the overcoming.

We're the occupying force in this territory, and so the obstacles that you see and talk about can also keep you out of your promises if you have the wrong attitude, just like the 10 spies, you can turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 10.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

Verse 13, I'm sorry, chapter 10, verse 1 through 13.

And I'm going to skip around here, but we'll get the context of this.

It says in verse 1, we're over brethren.

I do not want you to be unaware that our fathers, talking about these Old Testament figures, were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, and so they had all of the positive experiences, all of God's provision.

They all experienced this along the way.

But in verse 6, it says but now these became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

And so there were some failures along the way.

I guess in verse 5, it talks about those failures.

God was not well pleased in verse 5, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness because he wasn't well pleased.

They didn't enter into the promise, as really they excluded themselves.

It wasn't that God doled out punishments, that they didn't follow God's command and they excluded themselves from the benefits, and so they became our examples of things that we should not do.

And so here's a list of behaviors or sins that they committed along the way.

That kept them out of God's promise.

They were idolaters, they committed sexual immorality.

Some of them also tempted God, it said.

And then there were complainers Complaining, and Pastor pointed this out here, I think on Sunday, that complainers were right up there with idolaters and sexual immorality and those who tempted God.

Complaining will keep you out of God's promises.

It says that they were destroyed by the destroyer.

But all these happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition.

So they're written as an example, so that we don't have to fall into the same failures that they experienced.

But then in verse 13, no temptation has.

In the Amplified, it says no temptation, test or trial has taken you, but such as is common to man.

And so the things that they experienced in life, the things that the New Testament people experienced in life, the things we experience are all common to man.

We have common experiences.

So there's no temptation, test or trial taking you, but such as is common to man.

But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted, tested or tried beyond that you're able.

But he will always make a way of escape that you can bear it.

And that word bear is to bear up under it.

And so if you find yourself under that mountain, saying well, this mountain is big and if it were in front of me I could remove it.

But now you're under this mountain, no problem, he'll make a way of escape.

And the same faith to escape means that you can just hurl that mountain.

You're in a good position under the mountain to launch the mountain into the sea.

So let's have that attitude of faith that overcomes Some religious people have a sense of false humility.

They're overly humble.

Religion and false humility will also keep you out of God's blessings just as easily.

God desires the best for His kids and he says so In Luke, chapter 12, verse 32,.

Luke 12:32

Jesus says do not fear little flock.

It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom of heaven.

Our Father is a good God.

He is our Father, he's our heavenly Father and he wants you to have good things.

It's His pleasure to give you the kingdom.

He wants to give you everything that he has.

But then religious crowd will say it's too big or too nice, or that's way more than I need.

Or if I consume less, or if I take less, that will make more available for other people in God's kingdom.

Well, that seems like a humble thing to say, but really it's a bit of an arrogant thing to say it's.

You have no understanding of just how big and vast and limitless God's kingdom is, because if I don't take more than my little portion, that will leave more for someone else.

That's saying that heaven and God have a limited supply and that's just not the case.

There's more than enough for everyone to have more than enough.

Living that kind of a humble position or just simply not even recognizing what that God has big promises for you, that limits what's available to you.

And I've experienced some of this along the way.

I'm getting better, I've gotten better, I've made improvements along the way, but I've been promoted at different points in life to a position where I didn't take the full benefits of the position or I didn't recognize that I had been promoted until long after I had been doing the job.

I've worked on a ship and I treated myself like a deckhand, but the officers on board the ship treated me like a chief engineer, which is an engineering officer.

So when I got invited to an event on shore that was just for officers, I questioned why are they inviting me?

I'm just a deckhand.

And one of them questioned me and said but aren't you the engineer?

I said well, yeah, I'm the engineer, but you know that kind of means a grease monkey, I get greasy and dirty and I'm in the engine room and fixing stuff.

He said no, you're the chief engineer.

I said the chief engineer.

He said yeah, the chief engineer, that's an officer.

I said an officer.

Huh, I'm an officer, I'm going to put on my best dirty clothes and go to this event.

And so I went and had to act like I was an officer.

But they were, they were.

They looked at me one way and I looked at myself another, and so you know I've been a.

I worked my way into a foreman position.

I was running a crew and I I kept people's time and gave them instructions and job assignments, but still I treated myself like I was one of the laborers or one of the one of the crew members.

And so you know that'll keep you out of your benefits.

If you don't recognize who you are, you won't recognize what you have, and so you've got to have the attitude that corresponds with the assignment God has given you.

I'm going to flip over to Matthew, chapter five.

This is the be attitudes here.

And, by the way, the be attitudes literally means a state of supreme happiness, in case you're wondering what be attitudes are.

So there's an attitude, the be attitudes has an attitude of supreme happiness, and that's something that corresponds with faith.

But this is Jesus talking here.

In verse two it says then he, jesus, opened his mouth and taught them, saying Blessed are the poor in Numa, the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

But you hear that word blessed are the poor.

Well, finally, you know, the poor are finally getting something.

But it's the poor in spirit, those who are without spiritual benefits.

I could say right there.

And what is the spiritual benefit he's promising them?

The kingdom of heaven, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So there's a corresponding.

Here's somebody who thinks they didn't have something, and I am providing them the answer, and so the blessing comes when the answer meets up with the needs.

So, all the way through here, blessed are the poor in spirit who don't have an inheritance, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

They get to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Well, that's not really blessed, but the answer is, for they shall be comforted.

So they are blessed.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

And people are always, you know, thinking about the meek.

I've taught on this before.

But the modern definition of the meek is somebody who's quiet and gentle, easily imposed on and submissive, and so the meek tend to get the raw end of the deal.

They get taken advantage of.

But that's not what this is talking about here.

Jesus used very specific words that had critical meanings that that culture of that day would easily recognize.

So when he used the word meek, they recognized that that was a Roman military term describing horses.

It was a reference that they were familiar with.

So a horse that's been meek is one that has been highly trained for battle, one that can run straight into the trouble at a full gallop and not wince and not turn away and not be.

There's not an ounce of fear in that animal.

The animal is incredibly powerful, but it has a natural desire to live, and so, you know, they would ride this horse right off the edge of a ravine down into the river to chase whatever was in front of them, and the horse would obey the commands of that rider faithfully all the way through to the very end.

And so there wasn't any circumstance that would distract that horse from what its rider or its.

You know.

I like to liken that to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives us gentle nudges along the way, and that horse will respond to a gentle nudge of the heels or a gentle nudge of the reins and go from a 30-mile-an-hour gallop to a halt, a stop almost instantly, and then go in whatever direction the rider requires of it.

And so that horse has been meeked for battle.

It is highly trained, it's very powerful, but it's completely harnessed and completely submitted to the will of its rider, and so are we.

Are you those watching and listening?

Are you completely submitted to the will of the Holy Ghost that gives you gentle nudges along the way, such that you can ride into whatever circumstances in front of you and have complete trust and faith, knowing that the Holy Spirit is not going to steer you wrong.

It doesn't matter what's going on around you.

The Holy Ghost needs to have complete control and we need to be fully yielded to Him.

And so, when we're fully yielded to Him, we can be effective as a meeked horse.

We can be effective in His military that way.

And so we've got to be somebody who believes God's Word and believes that it's true, be sensitive to that witness, the inward witness of the Holy Spirit, to be spirit-led.

And so believing in speaking God's Word opens the door to supernatural results and supernatural things.

And so what is your attitude?

You know this is a good point to check up on yourselves, on myself and myself.

I'm not checking up on you, I'll check up on me.

You check up on you.

But what does your attitude say about your faith?

Would people around you recognize that you're a person of faith or do you project an attitude of anxiousness, anxiety, fear and worry?

Fear is faith in the opposite direction.

And so we can build our faith, we can build our courage.

Only be strong and very courageous, it says.

And Jesus said be cheerful.

I've overcome.

And so we need to have that attitude of faith, that strong, courageous, cheerful, no matter what's going on around us, completely trusting that the Holy Spirit is not gonna steer us wrong and that, even though we may launch on a mission without the full ration, the full supply, we can know that if God sent us on this mission, we're gonna meet up with our supply along the way and we will not run out.

I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging for bread, and so we need to encourage ourselves in God's Word and build our faith.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

So our faith, we can know what we can believe by God's Word and we can increase our faith by God's Word.

So meditate on his promises.

Meditate on his promises, obey his word, believe in your heart and then speak from your mouth those things.

We don't try to do things or create results on our own.

We know that God yields those results.

The results are his.

We're responsible to do his word and to be faithful over that.

Be quick to obey.

If we're not quick to obey, there's probably somebody in line behind us waiting to take our position, and we've seen this before in ministry and, in fact, this church, in some of the things we've done.

We're doing because there was somebody else that this was assigned to, that they were slow to do this or reluctant to do this, or they didn't want to do it at all.

And so God's looking for people that are responsive to him.

And so we need to have an attitude that's responsive to the gifts and callings that God puts in our life.

Put those things to work for him, and then, finally, we need to expand our capacity to receive the blessing.

If we believe God's word is true, then we need to make room for that blessing, because his supply is always more than enough.

He's able to make all grace abound to you so that you, having all sufficiency and all circumstances and all kinds of conditions, may have an abundance, it says, for every good work.

And so our supply far exceeds our need.

It's available to us whenever we put that covenant demand in.

Whenever we desire it, we can lay that covenant demand in there, and God's obligated to respond to that.

We're not fearful, we don't have an attitude of fear, we've got an attitude of faith, and so we ought to be saying things let's go up at once, let's take possession.

We are well able.

And so there's the attitude of faith for you tonight.

I hope that's a good encouragement.