Faith Works

Well, pastor's been preaching and started another series Sunday morning on faith and I think he titled it Faith to Turn Things or Turn Things Around, and I know he'll continue with that.

And we talk a lot about faith in this church and we're going to talk more about faith tonight.

Are you tired of hearing about faith?

Good, because faith is important.

And I know it's important because in Hebrews 11, verse 6, it says without faith it's impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11:6

That right, there is the number one reason you must have faith in order to be pleasing to God.

It's impossible to be pleasing to God without faith.

Jesus, all through His ministry, he was measuring faith.

He was commenting on the level of faith that people have.

He marveled at faith.

And he also marveled at unbelief.

You know he said things like I have not found so great a faith, not even in all of Israel.

Great is your faith.

And then, where is your faith?

What happened to your faith?

Oh, ye of little faith.

And why did you doubt?

And so he rebuked unbelief and hardness of heart.

He was always measuring faith.

Romans 117 says that the just shall live by faith, and it's quoting an Old Testament Scripture.

There, the faith is important to God and it's all throughout, and so it should be important to us.

And so we're majoring on faith at this church, and we'll hit other things, other topics, but really faith is part of all of them, and none of this word is without faith.

And so you know, romans 12, 3 says that each one of us, we were dealt a measure of faith.

So how do we get faith?

God gave each one a measure of faith, and really that was so.

We would have enough faith so that we could believe on Him and receive the salvation that he provided for us.

He provided enough faith that we could at least do that.

But faith comes besides that.

In Romans 10, verse 14, it says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and then it goes on asking how, then, shall they call on Him who have not believed, and how shall they believe in Him who they've not heard?

Romans 10:14

And how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach unless they are sent?

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings and good things.

Everybody look at your feet and say, wow, I've got beautiful feet.

Now just comment on your own feet, don't comment on your neighbor's feet.

But how can people believe except they hear the word?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and so faith comes.

And so I've got four points tonight.

And that's the first point tonight is that faith comes.

Romans 10, 8 and 9.

I'm going to flip over there and read the scripture.

But what does it say?

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 in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes into righteousness and with mouth confession is made unto salvation.

And it says the Word of faith that we preach.

You know, people who don't understand what the Word of faith is are often times critical of the Word of faith.

But they got saved if they're a believer.

They got saved by the Word of faith because they had to believe in their heart and then they had to confess with their mouth.

And that is the simple Word of faith.

And so we preach the Word of faith here at this church, and it's the same Word of faith that Jesus preached.

It's the same Word of faith that Paul preached.

Let's just take a minute here and I want you to think about some unlikely people in the Bible, some unlikely ones, the people that did some great things, that were highly unlikely to do those things.

You can go back to David and recall that Samuel was charged.

You know, you got Saul who was king, and Samuel came in and he was charged to anoint the next king.

And so he went to Jesse and went through all the sons and God told him that it was in that house and he's going to find the right son.

And so he went through one son, two, three, four, all the way down the line, and he did not find the one that the Holy Spirit wanted him to anoint.

He was anointing the next king of Israel, and so the dad, you know, samuel, asked him do you have any others?

Well, no, well, yeah, I do, but it's just the one son.

He's back watching the sheep and certainly he's not the one.

I mean, what kind of a dad.

That's just awful.

Right there, you just about pretty much forgot about your youngest son and totally disregarded him as being a prospect and didn't believe that anyway.

But it turns out that David, the youngest one, the weakling of the bunch, the least likely was the one that God anointed king, was the one that God chose to lead Israel.

And so he was anointed king, and he didn't lead Israel right away, he was just anointed.

That came later.

And so think about the unlikelies that David had with him.

When David went out and slew the giant, they were shouting the praises of David and David.

You know, saul has slain his thousands and David is 10,000.

And so that didn't win him any favor with the king, and so he had to go into hiding and run away.

And the men that were drawn to him these are the men that were attracted to David, those that were in debt and discontent and in a mess those were the men that God put with David and they became the mighty men of valor for David.

And they became that because David trained them up in the ways of the Lord and he taught them about faith in God.

And so they weren't the mighty men of valor right away, but they became that because they learned about their heavenly father and they were taught the message of faith.

Gideon, when God called him, the angel of the Lord came to him and found him hiding and just trying to thresh a little bit of grain and hopefully his enemies wouldn't notice and come pick on him again and steal his food, like they'd been stealing his lunch all the time.

And he just wanted to have lunch and the angel of the Lord came to him and said you, mighty man of valor, he was an unlikely person there, moses.

He stuttered, he couldn't talk.

He was an unlikely.

Abraham and Sarah.

God promised them an abundance of heirs.

They were more numerous than the sands and more numerous than the stars.

The God promised them an abundance, but they were too old and so it was very unlikely and so they had to believe.

They had to have some faith put into action to receive the promise that God had for them.

Look at Jesus as disciples.

Every one of them was an unlikely somebody.

I mean, they were a bunch of guys that fought with each other and argued and they all had personalities.

They were fishermen.

There was a tax, somebody from the IRS.

He chose somebody from the IRS to come and be on his team.

Thomas doubted, judas betrayed.

I mean, these guys were flawed people, but when he poured into them and poured into them and taught them, they became excited and they put this stuff to work.

And finally, when he released them into their ministry and you know there was 500 that were following Jesus, and then you end up with only 120, he said I want you to go to this place and wait there until the Holy Spirit comes.

And only 25% of them went.

But 25% of them received the Holy Spirit and went about and did great things, the Lord working with them, and performed miracles and signs.

And so you know, there's a lot of unlikelies, and you can look at yourself.

I oftentimes look at myself and say, oh my gosh, I'm an incredibly unlikely.

My dad was a preacher.

I wanted nothing to do with that, Absolutely nothing.

And so I went the other way.

I was not serving God and I hated public speaking.

I was terrible at it and I didn't like people, especially large groups of them.

And so you know, be careful, what you say I will not do, because you'll find, you know, he who sits in the heaven laughs, and sometimes worthy entertainment, I guess.

And so I'm just the title of tonight's message.

I didn't give it a title yet, but the title of tonight's message is Faith Works, and Faith Works for you, it works for all the unlikely characters of this world.

It works for people who are out of position.

It works for people who don't have any talent or any gifts or any natural ability to do anything at all.

Faith Works.

And so Faith will work for any of us.

Whether you have talent or not, whether you're good looking or not, it doesn't matter.

Faith Works.

And so we're going to go over some of the four points tonight about faith, and the first one was that faith comes.

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

You can't have faith, your faith can't be planted on the inside of you, without reading God's word and receiving God's word, and then faith is put to work.

The word of faith.

It's a word of faith because it must be spoken.

You know, god spoke word and then man wrote words down so that we could speak words again, so that we could speak God's words again.

God created the whole universe by the word of faith.

It starts off in the beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Holy Spirit hovered above the face of the waters and God said let there be light.

And there was light, and he didn't say.

He didn't say I hope this works, I hope this works.

I hope this works.

Let there be light, holy cow, there's light.

It didn't surprise Him.

He was not surprised by the outcome of His own words, because he believed and he knew on the inside I'm going to say let there be light.

And the light switch is going to get turned on.

And so he created this universe, he created this earth, he created everything that is by His words, by the word of faith.

And so I want you to know we have creative power of speech, because he created us in His image, he created us to be like Him, and I know Adam lost it, but Jesus bought it back.

And so here we are today, having received back the original condition that God intended for man through His Son, jesus Christ.

And so the word of faith, that's the word of faith that we preach around here Now.

Mark 11, 23 is a familiar one.

You know you can say, okay, well, I get it, I'm not a likely person, I'm an unlikely, but you know I can have some faith and I can do some stuff with faith.

But you're asking me to do it a lot with faith.

I mean, I'm not to the point where I can say, walk into a dark room and say let there be light and have the lights come on.

That takes a lot of faith and that is true.

But you have faith enough because you've been dealt a measure of faith.

And then your faith, that you receive faith, comes by hearing the word of God, by being taught the word of God, faith comes.

And so I'm here to tell you that you have enough faith to move your mountain.

You know, and we can all have various sized mountains.

We can be looking at something some struggle in life, being dead and discontented and distressed, just like David's men.

We can have any of those conditions and call that a mountain.

But I want you to know that you have enough faith on the inside of you to move that mountain.

And so Mark 11, 23 and 24 says for assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be removed and cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes those things which he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe you receive them and you will have them.

And so that is a huge promise right there.

That requires faith.

You got to hear God's word and believe that God's word is true.

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

And so we believe God.

This is his word, and what he says must be true.

And so we've got to figure a way to put this into practice.

And it requires us believing and saying and not doubting in our heart and you know, we've heard Mark Hankins talk about this but that mountain being cast into the sea, why was it cast into the sea?

Is it a literal mountain where we've got, you know, a Mount Everest, 29,000 foot tall mountain that we can speak to and have it just tiptoe over and fall into the ocean?

Well, it does say whatever you say, whatever you ask, when you pray, believe you receive and you'll have them.

And so it says whatever.

But these are mountains in your life.

And why did it say throw into the sea?

So the sea, the earth, is about 74% water and the rest of it is land, and so you can put a lot of land in the water without raising the sea levels.

You know they're talking about the rising tides, the rising sea levels.

You could literally throw a whole mountain in the sea on one side of the planet and the water would rise some amount because the mountain has a mass, but the levels of the ocean would not be perceptively higher on the other side because it doesn't make a hill of beings worth a difference.

You could put a rock, you could put a mountain, you could put 10 mountains in the ocean.

The ocean is a place so deep, so big, so vast it can completely consume an entire mountain, and it has, because entire mountains have slid off into the ocean.

And it can consume that and completely conceal all evidence that that mountain has ever existed before.

And so he's saying to you, with your faith, that if you, whatever you say to your mountain, it'll be cast into a place that is deep enough, big enough, vast enough, that it will entirely consume your mountain, such that there's no evidence that that mountain in your life ever previously existed before.

That's what your faith will do for you.

And you say well, I don't, you don't understand, I get it.

A big mountain can go in the sea.

My mountain's not in front of me, it's on top of me, it's crushing me.

No problem, there's a scripture for that too.

First Corinthians 10, 13 says no temptation test or trial will be taken you, but such as is common to man.

And so we don't undergo anything in this life except the things that are common to man.

There's nothing unique or special about you or anybody else with regard to what you're going through.

You say, well, my problems are pretty bad, other people have had them, other people are going to have them.

There's some people out there that have the same problems you have.

It's not unique, it's not special, they're just man problems, people problems.

That's what we experience in this life.

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

But God is faithful.

He will not heap on top of you more than you're able to handle.

Is that what it says?

It doesn't say any people quote that scripture.

That way God will not put on you.

He will not heap on top of you more than you are able to bear.

You know we do these kids against hunger packing events out here in the lobby and we got the four ingredients right.

How many have packaged these meals and know what I'm talking about?

So that's just about everybody.

So if you haven't, we got an assembly line.

We've got rice and soy and a vitamin mineral mix and some dehydrated vegetables, and we're trying to get to a particular weight in the bag, within a particular range, so that we can have good quality control.

We got a specific amount that we're supposed to put in that bag and so when we put the rice in, we're going to put it in a bag.

Now, when we put the rice in, we may have put not quite enough in there, and so we put it on the scale right there, and then there's a little teaspoon.

You take a little rice and you put a little bit more on there and a little bit more until you get to the right measurement there.

I want you to know that God is not in heaven with a scoop of trouble and he dumps it on you.

He said, well, they're doing pretty good with that.

And he takes a teaspoon and puts I'm going to put a little bit more and a little cancer right here and a car wreck over there and a stillbirth over here, and let me just put as much trouble on them Just one more grain of rice.

If I put one more grain, they're probably going to collapse and fall apart.

So I think I've reached my limit.

That is not God, he does not heap trouble on you.

It says God is faithful.

Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond your able?

Who's the one that does the tempting in earth?

Satan.

So people need to stop accusing God for what the devil is responsible for.

God said he was going to put some limits on it.

He said I'm going to put limits on the devil.

I will not allow you to be tempted by the devil.

You can infer that beyond what you were able, but will with the temptation.

So there's the temptation.

He said we were going to have some troubles in this earth by the it comes with the territory.

So alongside that, he said I'm going to make a way of escape.

If the devil is going to put this on you, I'm going to open an escape route for you.

If he's going to put this trouble on you, I'm going to show you the exit ramp so you can get off of that highway and back on course and out from under that trouble.

I will make a way of escape that you will be able to bear it.

And that word bear is a special word in the Greek.

Right there it means to bear up under something.

That means to put your shoulder into it and lean into it and press with a force against it.

You can oppose this trouble in your life with the God ability because God's faithful, he's given you a way of escape.

But it means I've got this mountain on top of me, no problem, god's faithful, he's going to give me a way of escape and I'm going to put my shoulder into it.

I'm going to bear up under that thing and I'm going to launch this mountain here.

Hold my beer and watch this devil.

I'm going to launch this mountain into the ocean because he said, I can speak to this mountain and if I believe those things which I say, it's going to be done.

So this mountain is going in that place and there's not going to be any evidence of it left anymore.

So we got no excuses between those two scriptures.

I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

What does all things mean?

Means all All things?

Well, does it mean yes, it does.

What about?

Yes, it does.

It means all things.

I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

First, john 5.4 says for whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world.

You ready for this?

Our faith.

Well, that's kind of braggy, Isn't that a little bit prideful to say I'm overcoming the world because of our faith, my faith.

Well, where did the faith come from?

Can we stop playing the?

You know, taking credit for stuff?

Where did the credit go?

God gave us something.

He gave us a measure of faith.

He said we can have some more faith.

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

And who does that faith belong to?

It belongs to you because he gave it to you.

And then he said you can overcome the world with our faith, and this is the faith that overcomes the world.

This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

And so I'd like to point out there that you know it's your faith, stan.

You've got a world that you live in and you're going to have to overcome the world, but it can't be by my faith, it's got to be by your faith.

We can't overcome by pastor's faith or somebody else's faith.

We overcome the world that we live in by our faith.

So he gave you the tool to be an overcomer.

In fact, he actually made you more than a conqueror, because Jesus overcame the world and defeated the devil and then handed the keys right back over to us and gave us authority and he said okay, there's the devil, he's been defeated.

Okay, I'm going to take my foot off, but you put your foot on Now.

You keep your foot on there, and if you take your foot off and you let him rear his ugly head, then you're going to have some more trouble in your life.

And so the trouble that we have.

Often time comes because we allow some things when we need to be disallowing some things.

You know, when Jesus was with his disciples, he said who do men say that I am?

And they said you know Elijah or Jonah or some of the one of the prophets.

And he said but who do you say that I am?

And Simon said you're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus said flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father, who is in heaven, and you're Peter the little rock.

But on this great rock, the rock of the revelation knowledge, the revelation knowledge that you just repeated to me, that didn't come from man, it came from God.

That's the rock that I'm going to build my church on, it's revelation knowledge.

I'm going to build my church on that, and the gates of hell will not prevail and I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever things you bind on earth will be bound in the heavenlies and whatsoever things you loose on earth will be loosed in the heavenlies.

And so there is a correlation between what we do naturally and the spiritual realm.

Faith has an action We'll talk about that later but we live a supernatural life.

You are a spirit.

You are supernatural.

You are a spirit.

You live in a flesh body, a mortal body, and you have a soul.

We know that.

But there are things that we do naturally, natural things that have supernatural consequences, and so we've got to be careful what we're allowing in our lives.

Jesus said, okay, I've got the devil my foot's on his head, now I'm going to take mine off, and you just slide your foot over there, and then you got control and I'm going to go sit up there and you and the Holy Spirit got this, and that's what he did.

But then some people kind of lose sight of stuff and we allow some things we shouldn't allow.

We've got a mess in this world out there because Christians have been allowing stuff on earth that should not be allowed, should not be allowed in our schools should not be allowed to be put in front of our kids, and then the heavenlies are allowed to do some stuff in our children's lives because we've allowed some things and so we have the authority to allow and disallow.

We need to be disallowing some things, but we can't live by someone else's faith.

We've got to live by our faith.

But our faith is enough to overcome the world, and this is the victory that we have.

This is the victory our faith.

In the message Bible, that same verse reads the conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith.

The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith.

He gave you power that can bring the world around you to its knees and it has a name and it's called your faith.

Your faith can do some stuff, and it doesn't matter how tall you are, how short you are, what your talents are, how likely or unlikely you are.

It doesn't matter, it's not about any of that.

God can do some pretty awesome things with some pretty unlikely people.

People who are faith, people, faith people are dangerous people, dangerous to the devil.

Second point tonight is faith grows.

Jesus said in Matthew 17.20, if you have faith as a mustard seed.

You will say to this mountain, be removed from here and go over there and it'll be removed and nothing will be impossible.

Nothing will be impossible for you.

Yes, it said that nothing will be impossible for you.

If you have faith as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible to you.

Faith as a mustard seed.

What's special about a mustard seed?

It has nothing to do with the size of this.

It's not saying that if you have a tiny little I mean if mustard seeds about I don't know if you can see that, but it's about that big, it's probably about the diameter of a grain of rice.

That's about how big a mustard seed is.

It's about a millimeter, maybe two millimeters in diameter.

And he's not saying if you've got a millimeter of faith, nothing will be impossible to you.

That's not what he's saying.

He's saying if you have faith as a mustard seed, what's in a seed?

Well, the whole plant or tree or bush or whatever is in a seed.

And if you take that seed and you plant that seed into a good ground, into a good place, and you provide plenty of water and sunlight at the right time and the right amount, it will grow into something pretty spectacular.

Now we got mustard.

You know, you got the yellow French's mustard and Heinz mustard and the squirt bottle and it comes from an herb mustard.

But I understand that this was a mustard tree because Jesus talked about the birds of the air being able to nest in its branches.

So this is not an herb mustard and I had to go find out that there is a Middle Eastern mustard tree.

There's an actual tree and it's kind of a rugged looking tree and it can reach a height of about 25 to 27 feet tall.

So you got this little seed that doesn't look like much that, when planted in the ground, can grow into something enormous and the birds of the air can nest in its branches and it can provide shade for people underneath it.

And so if you have faith as a seed, that is, a seed that can be put in the ground and grow, can your faith grow?

Your faith can grow and the mustard seed can grow into something about 4,000 times the size of the original seed.

Your faith can start here and it can grow into something about 4,000 times its original size your delta measure of faith and it can grow.

You can draw faith out of God's Word.

By hearing God's Word.

You're getting faith tonight.

Your faith is being hopefully increased by God's words being ministered to you tonight.

But that faith is as a seed, meaning it can grow.

With men things are impossible, but with God all things are possible.

If you have faith as a mustard seed, all things are possible.

Romans 1.16,.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

As it is written, the just shall live by faith, and it's implied there the just shall live by their faith, not somebody else's faith.

I want to reinforce that, but it says that, for in this the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

The amplified says it this way it says both springing from faith and leading to faith, disclosed through the way of faith.

That arouses more faith, and so faith causes more faith.

Let me give you a negative example of this.

We had an air conditioning unit at our house go out a few weeks ago and I went outside and started looking at the condenser unit.

Houses have a split system.

Part of the air conditioning is inside your house, part of it is outside.

When I say condenser unit, it's that part of the unit that sits outside that has the fan and blows hot air up out of it.

And so I went outside to check that and I opened up the electrical side of it and I look around and I didn't see anything obviously wrong.

You know, when a car doesn't start first thing guys do they pop the hood and they kind of just start looking at stuff like we know what we're talking about, right.

Well, I pulled the electrical panel off and I didn't see anything immediately wrong.

But I smelled something burnt and so I'm looking more carefully and I don't see anything there.

And I'm leaning closer to the house I smell something more and more burnt and I look and there is a box right here in front of my face.

It's the disconnect switch.

So when a guy goes to work on your air conditioning unit and doesn't want to get shocked, he's going to throw this disconnect switch.

That kills power to the unit.

So I opened that box up and there was a terminal block and it's got some plastic parts around it and the wire insulation on there and it was burnt and melted down on there and I'm like you know a terminal.

I wish I had a picture of it.

I guess I could have brought a picture and showed you.

But a terminal block has a wire coming in one side that's bolted down and a wire that comes in on the other side that's bolted down.

That's it.

It's just a point of connection for two wires for electricity to go from here to there.

It's a connection point and it melted down.

And I'm like why in the world did that melt down?

Well, it's hot outside.

How many of you know it's hot outside this time of year.

So it's hot.

And your air conditioning units they run hotter in the summertime because there's more heat.

They're running longer, there's more heat being generated, there's more heat on them and so all the components are getting hotter.

And something about electricity and wiring is that when the wire gets hot, the level of resistance goes up and that means that it's drawing more amperage down that line.

It's trying harder to get the electricity where it needs to go because there's higher resistance, and so that produces heat and it gets hotter, which makes the resistance go up, which makes the amperage go higher, which makes it hotter, and you get there's like this little cycle, a downward spiral cycle for that thing, until it got hot enough that it just went into complete meltdown.

Faith is the opposite of that.

Faith leads to more faith and more faith and more faith and more faith.

And when you give a testimony to somebody else and you start talking faith to somebody else, you're increasing their faith and faith turns into more faith and faith turns into more faith.

And so I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It is the power of God unto itself.

If we're not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, we need to be talking about this stuff on a regular basis.

It needs to be part of our regular conversation.

We need to be faith people talking as if everyone we're talking to is another faith person.

You don't know what you're doing for that other person building their faith where they're at.

You don't know whether they're in debt or discontented or distressed, but you're gonna build their faith.

And so we need to be light and let your light so shine before all men.

Jesus said and we can generate faith all the way through.

We're generating more and more faith.

So I just gave the negative example of this, but it says a little bit further down in that same chapter.

So Romans, chapter one, verse 18, starts talking about the opposite of this.

It says for the wrath of God it talked about, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, but the wrath of God from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

The wrath of God is revealed against those who suppress truth.

How many know there's an effort to suppress truth in the world today?

The wrath of God is being revealed against people who do that.

The wrath of God's revealed against people who suppress truth and who are unrighteousness or who are living in unrighteousness.

It says in verse 19, because what may be known of God is manifest to them, for God has shown it to them, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen.

And then, a little bit later, in the next verse, it said they are without excuse.

God has revealed himself to people.

God is not gonna let people get out, escape this world without an opportunity to see him revealed to them.

People are going to be met with a choice.

In fact, that's our job.

Our job is not to bring people into heaven kicking and screaming and crying and dragging their, you know, like you bring your dog into the vet and their paws are dragging on the tile floor and they just don't wanna go.

Those people, if they don't wanna go, they don't have to go, and it's not up to us to drag them there.

Our job is to bring people to a point of decision.

Our job is to make sure that people are confronted with the truth of God's word, with the righteousness of God's word, that they're confronted with salvation and have a choice, and then they can make their choice.

And then we need to get on our way.

Our job is not to force people, but to ensure that they have a choice.

But God is all throughout nature.

God is evident to all.

So I told you I didn't wanna be a preacher.

I hated public speaking, it was terrible at it and I didn't like people, especially large groups of them, and I didn't.

So the next thing is I didn't know what to do or be in college, and so I dropped out of school and went sailing on a tall ship.

In fact, I drove up to Bridgeport, connecticut, hoping to get a job on this tall ship.

I didn't even have a job.

I just told my parents I dropped out of college and I'm gonna go hope you get a job over there and they were like well, I hope that works for you.

And that was it.

I was on my own and I did get a job on that ship and I made $150 a week on that boat.

Actually, I started out making $100 a week on that boat but I had a place to stay and I had food to eat and I didn't have a care in the world and I was going sailing and I was gonna go some places and see some stuff.

And I've gone some places and I've seen some stuff.

I'm looking back over my life.

I've been to 36 states, more than a dozen countries I'm probably forgetting a couple or three here or there, I don't know but more than a dozen countries.

I've sailed up and down the Gulf Coast, all throughout the Eastern Caribbean and all on the Atlantic side of Europe, across the Atlantic.

Twice I've been to England, ireland, scotland, france, spain, portugal, holland, the Azore Islands, once by accident, twice on purpose the Canary Islands.

I've been at sea during hurricane forest winds.

I've climbed some mountains.

I've been diving in the depths of the sea on shipwrecks to the limits of sport diving and maybe a little bit beyond.

I've seen lots of God in all of this world and I'm running from God, trying to get away from the call of God on my life.

And everywhere I go, in all of nature and all of creation, all I see is God, god, god, god.

And I can't get away.

He's evident to people in creation and people can't get away from who he is, because the creation reflects the Creator.

And thankfully I couldn't get away from Him.

So I just gave up and said all right, god, you win.

And here I am or here I is, which is correct, I am or I is.

I guess it doesn't matter.

If you're serving God, you can say it however you want, all right.

So faith comes and faith grows.

And next thing is faith produces James, chapter one, in verse two, he said my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

You can get happy about it when there's trouble in your life, how many first reaction when you have trouble is to shout for joy and get happy and gleeful.

That's not a natural reaction.

But let me remind you we are not a natural being, we are a supernatural being.

Our spirit has been recreated and born again.

It says we are new creatures, creatures that have never before existed.

Until that point of creation.

We were recreated, our spirit is reborn, we're a new thing, and so our spirit, that's who we are.

Our flesh is something different.

Our flesh is always warring with the spirit, we're always contending with each other.

Our flesh wants to go one way and our spirit's trying to get us to go the other, and then we got our brain in the middle.

That's oftentimes the deciding factor, and sometimes the spirit wins and sometimes the flesh wins, and it really boils down to what's the brain gonna decide to do.

Am I gonna serve God that day?

Am I gonna follow His word and do what it says, or am I gonna do what this flesh wants to do because it feels good in the moment?

So, my brethren, count it all joy, get happy about it.

When you follow into various trials and this is what you're joyful about You're not joyful about the trouble, you're not rejoicing.

Thank you, lord, for this trouble.

No, we know that trouble comes because we allow some things we shouldn't allow in our life, or we didn't disallow some other things, or we didn't keep our foot on the devil's neck when we're supposed to, or we're just living in a fallen world and it comes with the territory.

We know that there's trouble out there, but this is what we rejoice in.

We rejoice in it because knowing that the testing of your faith, faith came and faith is growing, and now there's a test, and the testing of your faith produces patience.

God, give me patience, and give it to me right now.

I need patience now.

That's not the kind of patience Knowing that faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfected, complete, lacking nothing.

And so when we go into trouble, I can rejoice, knowing that it's just like going to work out in the gym.

You guys look like y'all, I'll go to the gym and work out.

Okay, rocco goes to the gym and works out.

But you go there not because it's fun to feel the pain, but because you know that there's a corresponding improvement that comes with it.

You know that if you get out there and you exercise and I go run, I know that my heart's gonna get strengthened, my lung capacity is gonna increase, my muscles are gonna have a higher level of endurance, I'm gonna be able to go faster and further and run longer time than I have before because I'm exercising this.

So, really, when you run into trouble, know that it's an exercise for your faith and that faith produces endurance, as the word there.

The Hebrew word for patience literally means endurance, your ability to endure something, and that when you endure that, let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfected, complete, lacking nothing.

So you can't be perfect, complete, lacking nothing, unless you've gone through some stuff and had some success and applied your faith.

You will never be perfect, complete and lack nothing.

You will be imperfect, incomplete and lacking if you don't apply your faith against a resisting force.

Does that make sense?

All right, so we can get happy about it.

Hey, here's a resistance.

I'm going to apply my faith against this.

I'm an overcomer.

This is the victory that I have in this world my faith.

And I've got an obstruction in front of me and I'm going to apply my faith against this thing and I'm going to lean my shoulder into this thing and I'm going to put a demand on what God says I can have and I'm going to launch this mountain that's in front of me.

That's keeping me out of God's promise.

I'm going to launch that mountain into that sea and then I'm going to keep on going, walk right into God's promises.

I'm going to obtain what he said I can have, and so my faith is growing.

And I've got a resistance.

My faith is stronger.

Now, if you go through some stuff, your faith gets stronger and stronger.

Hebrews 10.35 and 36 says this therefore, do not cast away your confidence, your boldness of speech, your outspokenness, which has great reward, for you have need of endurance.

It's the same word that we just read in James, chapter one, verse two, where faith produces patience.

It produces endurance.

Same word For you have need in Hebrews 10.36,.

For you have need of endurance so that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

You can't have the promise until you have done the will of God, until you have applied your faith against all opposing forces and obtained the victory.

This is the victory that we have in this world our faith, okay.

So we have need of endurance so that, after we have done that, we can receive the promise.

You can have the promise.

Abraham had a promise from God.

Moses had a promise from God.

It says in Hebrews, chapter 11, that they never received the promises from God in this life, but they did receive the promise from God because, it says, having seen them from afar off, they were assured of them.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They lived their entire life assured that God is faithful, who promised, and that he's not a liar.

And I can see the goal out in front of me.

They were assured from afar off that they would have this and they never let their sights go on anything else.

Their sights were on that thing out in front of them and they kept marching more and more and closer and closer and further and further.

They were going that direction their entire life.

And then God let them come in and they received the full promise.

All their promises were met in the life that was to come for them.

And now we're promised.

We have the promises of God that we can have in this life and that which is to come.

We've got a pretty good promise.

Faith produces, patience, which leads to receiving the promises, and so faith comes, faith grows and faith produces.

And finally, faith works, but not without action.

James, chapter 2, verse 17,.

James 2:17

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

So faith comes, faith grows, faith produces.

If you have works, you can have faith and no works and have nothing and never achieve the promises of God.

I've got faith.

I believe that God's Word is true.

I'm just not going to do anything about it.

You know, people who are determined will find a way to get something done.

People who are determined can do some stuff.

I don't know who will is, but where there's a will there is a way.

And if you're determined enough you can get on the other side of anything with your faith in action.

And if you're not determined enough, you'll just make excuses and you can believe God's Word but you never really applied it with action and then you never get the promises.

So really it comes down to a determination or an excuse.

We can be determined and lean into it, put our shoulder up under it and get through it and on the other side of it, or we can make excuses why that mountain was too big, there were too many mountains.

I don't know.

People make excuses, but God didn't give us any excuses because he made a way of escape for us through all of this faith works Verse 18, james.

James 2:18

Chapter 2, verse 18, it says but some will say you have faith and I have works.

Show me your faith without your works and I'll show you my faith by my works.

One thing my dad used to say here's something along these lines was don't tell me, son, show me.

Well, dad, you don't understand.

And there's the longer the story, the more convoluted this thing is, the more details that come out.

I've learned this with my kids too.

The longer the explanation, I just stopped listening to it.

Don't tell me, show me.

And so that's what this scripture right here is saying.

James is saying Show me your faith without your works.

You got nothing for it.

And I'll show you my faith by my works.

I won't have to talk a good game.

I'm just going to apply my faith and you're going to see me have the victory because I've applied God's word, I've put His word in action, I've got faith in action.

I will demonstrate to you God's faithfulness through His word in action in my life, and I don't have to shout it so loud when I'm demonstrating.

That's what this verse is saying right there.

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

Even the demons believe in tremble.

You know there's Christians out there that believe in God and don't really apply faith in their Christian walk.

In fact, they have a lot of unfaith and they end up blaming God for a lot of the trouble in their life.

You know, god took my loved one because I guess that he needed my loved one there more than here.

How did God do that?

Well, it was cancer.

So God gave your loved one cancer.

Really, what kind of a?

It doesn't match up.

And so it's not enough to just believe in God, but you must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

It says in there that Abraham, our Father, was justified by works when he offered Isaac, his only Son, on the altar.

That you not see that faith was working together with His works, and by works faith was made perfect.

And so you can have all the belief in the world, but if you don't speak the right things and put the right actions to it, faith is never perfect, it's incomplete and you're going to be lacking.

And so this is a word of faith message tonight You've got to have the right words in your mouth.

You're not making stuff up, we're just speaking God's words, we believe it and I speak it, and then I go ahead and live my life as if it's true, and that's the action that we have.

And so faith comes, faith grows, faith produces and faith works.

Amen, all right, well, I hope that was a blessing for you tonight.