Faith Facts 1

Why don't you reach down and pick up your Bibles, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad, those watching by live stream?

You do the same.

Let's say this together say heavenly Father, I am a believer.

I believe in the realm of the impossible, for with him who believes, all things are possible.

I have possibility, faith that my God gave me and I walk in it, not just every once in a while, but every day.

I walk in faith in Jesus name, amen.

Doesn't that make you feel stronger?

Already when you say those things, you can be seated.

Turn to your Bibles, to Hebrews, chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Thank you, worship team, beautiful job.

Well, we just love to worship God around here.

Hebrews 11, verse one.

I don't know really how many times I've preached out of these verses, but more than a few.

All right, verse one now.

Faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear Verse six.

But without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that comeeth to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

And so today, I just wanna share a simple message entitled faith facts, faith facts.

You know, the world we live in is filled with narratives instead of news, falsehoods instead of truth, and very few facts, very few.

I mean it's very difficult to find any facts, and so that's why our faith has to be continually fortified and strengthened with facts out of the Word of God.

I mean, this word is what we measure everything by.

I mean, this is the truth.

This is not a version of the truth.

It doesn't need to be interpreted.

Well, you know my interpretation.

No, the Bible's already been interpreted from one language into another, and so it's by revelation, and a lot of people just don't have the revelation to walk in the kind of faith that they should.

And whose fault is that?

Well, it's not God's fault.

I mean, you know, if a carpenter wants to build something, if he's got the wood and he's got the tools, he can build a table, he can build a house.

You know, if a seamstress has got needle and thread and has got some fabric, well, she can make a quilt, big on quilts around here.

You know, you got the raw materials.

We have been given the raw materials to bring things to pass that are not natural, that are not seen, and they come from an unseen world.

That's what our faith is designed to operate.

Our faith is designed to operate in the unseen world, where I like to call it the causal realm.

Everything that we need is in that realm and if you don't move it out of that realm into this realm, it's never gonna show up.

How do you move it?

Faith, glory to God, specifically your faith.

So you know, when you exert physical energy, like I used to do when I used to mow my grass, now I just watch it done.

I pay to have it done because I don't care to use my energy that way.

But I care to use my energy watching the Aggies beat Alabama last night, and I've spent a lot of energy living vicariously through, as I have for many years.

Aggie football team Rolled tide rolled over is what they did.

All right, so that's enough of that.

But when you expend energy, don't you have to eat?

I mean, you've got to replenish yourself.

If you're working out in the hot sun, what do you got to do?

You got to hydrate, right.

If you're walking and living by faith every day, the way you're designed to.

Your faith has got to be nourished.

Your faith has got to be replenished.

I make no apologies for being one of the ways that your faith is replenished, but it's not the only way.

In fact, the most important way is for you to take the word of God yourself and obtain revelation Amen, to nourish your own faith.

So out of today's scripture we've got some faith facts.

I probably won't get all the way finished today, so I see, as a pastor I don't have to get it all done in one service, I got next week.

So today we're going to share out of these verses.

Let's look at verse one Now.

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

So the first point to make is faith is always now.

Faith is always now Present tense.

Everybody say present tense, present tense.

When you hear future tense you're hearing hope.

But faith is not hope.

Faith is a substance of hope.

Faith grabs a hold of something that's hoped for in the future and brings it into the now and now.

What I hope for I have now, that's faith, and God is a faith God.

We can't get anything done with hope, so we've got to watch.

When we confess the Word.

What does the Word confess means?

It means to say the same thing as, and specifically, we confess God's Word, we say the same thing that God said.

God said it one time.

Holy men of God wrote down what he said that we need by inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

Some preachers are preaching that it's fables, that it's just stories passed down from one generation to the next.

If you've got a pastor like that watching by live streamer and maybe you're visiting here this morning get out of there as fast as you can, because he's a thief and a liar, just like Jesus talked about.

All that came before him in Jesus said, are thieves and liars.

Religion kills, steals and destroys.

That's what's going to happen to you If you sit under a ministry like that and the seminaries, the cemetery, whatever you want to call them, are turning and churning these kind of preachers out, and so we've got to beware.

The Bible is the Word of God.

It was spoken so it could be written down.

It was written down so then we could in turn speak it and agree with God, speak what he speaks, and so it's in that realm that faith brings our hope, our desires, the reality.

One version says faith is the title deed.

Years ago I was praying and I saw the Corvettes come out 2005 and, man, I had to have one.

But I didn't rush right out and buy one.

I had to pray about it for awhile.

I prayed about it all 2005.

I bought about $500 worth of magazines Because the 2005 model was different than the 2004 model.

So there was a new generation of Corvette and it reminded me of the C3.

This was a C6, sixth generation.

Oh man, I wanted one, but I just bridled my flesh, bided my time.

2006 went.

Finally, latter part of 2007, I was praying, wasn't even thinking about it.

You know, just sitting on the shelf, it was my desire.

I just, you know, I wouldn't.

I didn't act on that because I hadn't heard from God if that belonged to me.

How many of you know?

It's not in here that Corvettes belong to pastor.

It doesn't say that.

So if I'm gonna find out, I've gotta find out how, by the witness of the spirit.

But in this case I'm praying about something totally different.

And the Holy Ghost said oh, by the way, you can have that Corvette now.

Well, he didn't have to say it twice.

So I started looking for one.

Well, I couldn't find one in Houston.

And the ones that I found I didn't want because I wanted the top of the line Z06, 505 horsepower, six speed.

I wanted the top of the top of the top because I had waited all my life for a Corvette.

I wanted one since I was 14.

So that's a long time, and so I wanted to do it.

Right, if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it upright, it's gonna get the top of the line, and so.

And then the ones that were here, they were nothing like what I wanted and they were five to 10,000 above list and I just that's against my religion to do that, to pay that kind of money.

And I found online a dealer in New Hampshire that would order me a Corvette because they had a lot of allocation.

See, that's what we didn't have in Houston.

They didn't sell enough at that time, didn't sell enough to have much allocation, so they don't want to get a handful, and so they charged top dollar for them.

But in New Hampshire they're in New Hampshire.

How in the world do you find one?

Going to all that story.

But anyway, I trusted the dealer in New Hampshire.

They sold it to me for 3,000 under list.

I wrote them a check for $1,000.

They sent me the order blank.

I checked every box on General Motors order blank of options.

Every option Check, check, check, check.

And one of the options was museum delivery.

So when a car was made, it was not delivered to Nashua, new Hampshire.

It was not delivered to me, it was delivered to the Corvette Museum which is right across the street from the Corvette factory in Bowling Green, kentucky.

So, and then they make the car ready and then you come pick it up.

All of that is by faith, all of that is on a signature, all of that is as a result of a phone call.

What do we trust God?

As much as I trusted the dealer in New Hampshire, as much as I trusted General Motors to make my car the way I wanted it to make, to trust the Corvette Museum to make it ready for me and have it ready for me and I was fast up, ready to drive out of there when I showed up Do we trust God that much?

Didn't he write some things down?

Faith is the title deed.

When you have the title deed, it's almost the same as having it.

Oh yeah, you want it in the natural.

But when you have faith for something, it's like you've already got it.

Yeah yeah, I bought my Corvette, my Corvette.

And I bought it.

Well, you didn't, I didn't really buy it, I didn't pay for it yet.

But there came a day when they called and said okay, it's done, it's sitting at the Corvette Museum and now we need you to pay for it.

I had to pay for it and that was a pretty big check.

I mean, of course, I had a loan, so they broke the check and I put some money with it.

But that money went to that dealer and I hadn't got nothing but a piece of paper.

But I was so happy because I had that piece of paper.

I got a piece of paper In fact we got more than a piece of paper that says you're healed, that says you're blessed.

Glory to God.

Faith that's what faith is.

It's now.

And when you start saying, well, god's gonna do it, I know he's gonna give me a Corvette someday, I had to move out of that gunna to acting.

I had to act.

I had to find it.

I had to find out exactly what it was that I desired.

A lot of people don't get anything.

They don't really want anything in particular.

They just want some vague thing.

Well, god can't act on that, on vagueness.

No, let's be exact.

What is it that you're believing for?

Well, I just want good health.

Why don't you describe it Amen and claim it because it belongs to you?

Faith is now Glory to God.

I mean when you can say, by his stripes, I was healed.

That means I am healed right now.

I'm not waiting for the doctor to tell me I'm healed.

I'm not waiting for the diagnostic test to bear witness.

I am saying that I am healed right now because the Bible says I am.

If I was, I am.

I know that simple and we're faith people.

But we're living right now in a time when we're going to have to.

We're going to have to perform this on a regular basis in every area of our lives financially, socially, your business, your career.

Glory to God.

We've got the answer.

Faith is always now, don't put it off till tomorrow.

You know God and Genesis 17,.

You know God says Abram, your, your name is no longer Abram, it's Abraham, which means father of nations.

He said I'm renaming you right now.

He's 99.

And God gave him a brand new name 99.

He said your name's not Abram anymore, it's Abraham For a father of many nations.

Have I made thee Now God?

Did God lie or did God tell the truth?

Well, let me ask you something Did Abraham have any babies that instant?

Was he able to go in and his wife and conceive a child?

Right then, no, nothing changed.

Nothing changed in this world, except God spoke something and Abraham said all right.

So he starts introducing he was my name's Abraham, I'm father of many nations.

He's my wife, princess.

She's, she's, she's Princess of nations.

Come on, come over here, little princess, let me show, let me introduce you.

She's 90.

But 90 days after they started talking, in line with what God said, they conceived Isaac.

And about a year later, say a year after, the promise came, which is what they were told Isaac shows up.

Are y'all with me now?

So so God calls the things that be not as though they were amen, all right.

So that's what faith does.

If Bible says that it was a counter done to Abraham for righteousness and he became the father of those who believe, amen, everybody say Abraham is my father, through faith in Christ, all right.

So number three here in the third verse, it says through faith, we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen with the natural eye in parenthesis are not made of things that appear to the natural eye See.

In other words, all the substance that we can see here in the natural realm came from the causal realm or the spirit realm.

Everything is there in the spirit realm.

Your blessings are there, your health is there, your, your finances are there.

Everything that you need some of you believe in for a spouse, they're there in the spirit realm.

Wait a minute.

You mean I know I'm just saying their identity is there.

No, they're here, but their identity is there.

I'm going to say that again yeah, yeah, your spouse is running around somewhere, but their identity is in the spirit realm.

You're going to have to get that identity out of the spirit realm and you can't just start looking and be led by your eyes, be led some for some online thing or whatever.

You're going to have to go beyond that, find the identity in the spirit realm.

I don't know who that's for, but it belongs to somebody, all right.

So it says here then that the worlds were framed.

I like to amplify it.

The world was put in order, fashioned and equipped for its intended purpose by the word of God.

So then our world can be fashioned, put in order and equipped for its intended purpose by the words that we speak.

Are you with me now?

How many of you are just perfectly satisfied with your world?

Because your world is, right now, the, the cause, the reason it is what it is is because what you've said about it, that's the law.

It's the law of, of every human being.

Whether you're saved or lost, you have what you say.

So your world, whatever it is, if it's good, mediocre, pretty good, sort of good, terrible, whatever it is is a result of the words that you've spoken.

So if you don't like your world, hey, let's change what we're saying about it.

I know that sounds triad.

It sounds like he said that says that all the time.

Well, when are we going to start doing it?

We have to start doing this, especially now.

The other side is saying all kind of filthy, terrible things are lying out out of both sides of their mouth and everywhere else, lie after lie after lie.

Look, we've got to speak the truth.

You know, I'm on my, on my Facebook page.

I'm always trying to speak positively, speak the truth about our country.

Most people say, oh, god's through with it God?

Well, no, god.

As a matter of fact, god's not through with America.

If he's through with America, I guarantee he's through with Russia and China and all the rest of these horrible places.

I've been to a whole lot of them.

They're not worth going to, to be honest with you, compared to America, even right now.

Even right now, they want you to believe this narrative, so you'll get so sour on America as founded that you will buy into this Marxist ideology.

That's how they work.

That's how they roll.

They're fixing to roll over too.

All right, so God framed this world.

We can frame our world.

Everybody say I'm framing my world.

You know, ephesians 5 1 commands us to be imitators of God.

Be there for followers of God as dear children.

Followers means imitators.

You're to imitate God.

You're to act like God.

Being godly means acting like God.

God called the things that be, not as though it were.

God framed his world with words.

There's a time when I framed my world with words and my world was pretty crummy.

Glad us and I just moved back in Corpus.

We were broke.

I mean, we were so broke we couldn't pay attention Moved in with my sister.

That's how broke I was.

I couldn't even provide housing for my family.

When I look back on those days, it's just a miracle.

How did we even exist?

I mean, I had no job.

You know, it's amazing.

So God just made a way where that song man, I can sing that song because I've lived it.

God made a way where there was no way, and so people would come up to me.

I went to church one Sunday and you know people hey, brother John, how's it going?

Well, I'm hanging in there.

Hey, how you doing, brother John?

Well, I'm just plugging along.

I mean, that was a height of my faith.

I knew better than to say I'm broke and homeless, other than that, everything's fine.

I knew better than to say I'm busted flat in New Orleans and I can't even pay the bus ticket ticket to get to New Orleans, as the song said.

No, I knew better than to say something terrible.

So I said that was the height of my faith.

I'm plugging along, I'm hanging in there, hanging in there.

I don't know how many times I'd said it and I just couldn't bring myself to say I'm blessed, thank you.

And I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I just couldn't.

I just I just couldn't do it.

And so one morning, after about the thousand time I'm hanging in there to this gentleman, I mean a voice came back to me like it was so loud it sounded like the whole church heard it.

I mean my being reverberated.

And he said, yeah, and your fingernails are about to break.

Well, I didn't take but a man nanosecond to figure that one out, that I was trusting in my own strength, I was trusting in my own ability to hang on to the rope or whatever I'm hanging on and I don't have any fingernails anyway.

That's ha ha ha, but anyway.

So he said yeah, but your fingernails are about to break.

And, man, I, I, I trotted down as a guy kept walking, you know, about a hundred feet away and at the church, you know, I'd maneuver my way around and tap him on the shoulder.

I said let me change what I said.

I'm better and better, things are better and better.

Huh, what?

He didn't know.

He didn't even pay any attention to what I said.

It didn't take anything about it.

He wasn't really interested in my welfare necessarily.

He just being polite.

You know how we do, how you doing.

You don't really care, you don't really want to know how they're doing.

You know you don't want to sit down for 30 minutes and hear actually how they're really doing.

Right, and I knew he didn't care, but I had to do it.

I had to change at least one person that I had lied to.

According to this word, I'm blessed and I've been saying different.

I had created trouble, I had created a lid, I had created this, this limitation.

I had limited God with my confession.

Are y'all with me now?

So let's create and fashion our world and equip it for its intended purpose.

Well, our words that agree with God's word, amen.

And to this day it's been.

You know, 34 years ago, I guess, something like that.

I still say the same thing.

When I roll up how you doing, pastor, I'm doing better and better, everybody says it.

Now, around all my security team, they say the same thing as I'm saying what if they said, well, I'm hanging in there, well, I'm just plugging along, thank God, it's influential when you say better and better, I know I could say I'm blessed to the Lord, thank you.

Well, you know, holy Joe doesn't attract a lot of people.

You know you turn people off sometimes with our I know that's the word, but people are not acquainted with the word.

Well, when I say I'm better and better.

Most people look at me like, wow, I hadn't heard that.

And it hits unbelievers right between the eyes because it's a surprise every time I say it.

How things going with y'all.

Oh, that's what I thought.

Okay, praise the Lord, you're getting the hang of it All right.

The third thing, and I'll close with this, in verse six but without faith, it's impossible to please God, for he that come at the God must believe not, it's not optional must believe that he is and that also that he is a rewarder, not a punisher.

A rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Not someone's going to teach you a lesson with a car wreck, not someone that's going to have some kind of esoteric meaning behind cancer.

Well, I got cancer, but God allowed it, and I just know, you know, I'm glad I got care.

I heard somebody say that not long ago.

I'm just glad I got cancer, because if I had gotten cancer, I wouldn't have been able to have the kind of you know.

And they're still getting over it.

They still don't have any hair, they're still weak and they're still bragging on the devil, blaming God for the cancer.

Oh, it's dangerous to do that.

You've got to believe that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, not a punisher.

Don't get God and the devil mixed up.

So faith is released through words and actions and actions.

James two, 10 in the way man says faith without corresponding action is dead, being alone.

Corresponding action If you believe, the first action of faith is to speak, but after that there needs to be an action, there needs to be something that you do, because faith without corresponding action is dead.

There has to be.

You know, the simple definition of faith is faith is acting.

Like the Bible is true.

Believe is an action verb.

It demands.

Yes, speaking is so important, you got to speak it.

But then, beyond speaking, there is another subsequent action that is required.

So I go back to my Corvette example.

Some of you can't relate to that.

You just need to aim higher.

Maybe you don't want a Corvette, maybe you need a, maybe you want a Mercedes, maybe you want say listen, you know we sell God short.

He cares about everything we care about.

Well, that's just so carnal.

Well, why should the devil's crowd get all the nicest cars?

Why should the devil's crowd get to ride in airplanes?

Everywhere they go In first class, we have to sit in the back next to the potty.

You ever sat in the back next to the potty.

I don't recommend it.

I would.

I think I'd skip that flight.

So God demands faith of us.

That's how I read that.

It's impossible, please, god, without faith.

So then, faith is demanded of us from God.

God demands us why?

Because he gave us, he dealt to every man, to measure faith Romans 12, three.

So we have the faith.

When we got saved, we were dealt the measure of faith.

What did we do since then?

That's the question.

You don't ever have to wonder if you've got faith because you have it, and it's not gonna come to you by praying for it.

It comes by you acting like.

The Bible is true when you start.

So the Corvette example I could have sat there.

Yeah, god said I could have a Corvette.

What did I have to do?

I had to go find it.

I had to go find where they sold them and buy one.

I didn't wait for somebody to decide oh, I need to give Pastor Griner a brand new Corvette 2008.

Z06 Jetstream Blue, black, ebony interior with Sienna trim, which is burnt orange, by the way.

Don't tell my Texas buddies that I had a car that would burn orange in it.

But anyway, it was the first car like that, that they made, the first Z06 in Jetstream Blue and with that interior and Larry where you Larry, or Larry's a Corvette fan.

So Larry heard about my Corvette and he started looking online and he fan, he said, pastor, your car is sitting behind gold ropes in the Corvette Museum right now.

I believe that's your car and back then, you know, the online was kind of fuzzy, you know they didn't have good cameras and so you could just kind of.

But sure enough, when I got there, when I flew up there, brother JD flew, james and Jay and I up to Bowling Green, kentucky, and we went on the VIP tour.

It came with the delivery VIP tour of the Corvette plant.

It made me proud to be an American going through that plant, looking at what we do, how we do.

It Made me proud to be an American Because I knew that that process was invented right here in this great land.

And then we went across the street and there was my Corvette sitting behind gold ropes in the lobby.

For everyone that went through to see the antique Corvettes and all the old ones and the historic ones, they had to walk right past mine.

It was sitting there gleaming man I mean shining and boy I mean that's pretty amazing.

I didn't believe.

For that I said God now put it behind gold.

No, it just was a bone.

It was just another sign that God was right in.

He was wall to wall in that with me.

Y'all are looking at me like a cow at a new gate.

Let's quit limiting God.

Let's quit allowing our past failures and past troubles to color and to diminish what God wants to do right now.

Let's quit letting the news media and the liars that are all out there begin to cause us to lose our sights and lower our sights down to just barely get along Boulevard at the corner of Lack Lane.

Listen, god's got great for you.

He's no respecter of persons, he's a faith God.

He demands faith and when you deliver the faith to him, he performs it.

He performs it.

Glory to God.

Come on, lift your hands right now.

Father, I thank you that you've given me the faith.

When I got saved, you dealt me the measure of faith and every day I'm feeding that thing.

I'm feeding your faith that you gave me.

It's increasing more and more and more and I'm using my faith to accomplish kingdom business.

My life is an example.

My life is a testimony of a good God.

My life is a testimony of those who worship false gods, who are in bondage and in darkness.

When they see my life, they want my kind of life.

They want to see the God kind of life.

I'm a witness sitting in the witness chair with evidence.

Come on, lift your hands and receive faith facts today.

Faith facts.

Come on.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

That's the purpose of it.

That's the purpose of it.

I said that's the purpose of it, glory to God.

One more little tidbit that I can't leave off Look at Acts 14.

Acts, chapter 14.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

I love this one.

People will still say well, you know, I won't believe it till I see it.

What are you gonna do without it?

Acts 14.

Verse eight Paul is preaching in Lystra and Derby, in Lystra, cities of Lycanea, verse eight.

And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impudent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked.

Everybody say never had walked, never had.

Let me just think about that in adult, never had walked, lame.

The same heard Paul speaking, paul who steadfastly beholding him and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice see, paul is preaching and he sees this man who had never walked and he perceived in himself.

It says he perceived Didn't say the Holy Ghost told him, didn't say he had a vision, there was no gift of the spirit.

He had a witness, in other words, that man's got faith to be healed.

And so then Paul's faith said stand upright on your feet and the man stood up and walked.

Glory to God.

So when did he have faith to be healed?

When did he have faith to be healed?

Before he walked, before he ever stood up?

He had the faith.

He had the faith.

I said he had the faith.

What did he have to do?

He had to stand up.

He had to do something that he couldn't do before he had to act.

See, that's my point.

It's my point.

A lot of times we're waiting around, waiting around for God to do something when we haven't acted.

And I found, you know, when you're believing God for something specific, you know, like my Corvette, I'll say it again you have to ask God.

Okay, how do I act?

My faith, one part I left out was I sowed a big seed.

I sowed a big seed for my Corvette.

I planted a seed, wrote the check along with, later on a down payment.

Way before the down payment came came the seed that I planted for that car.

Are y'all with me now?

But it's different for different things.

Sometimes it'll be a seed that you plant, sometimes it's something else, but you're always going to have to act.

Your faith, you're going to have to act like the Bible is true, amen.

As we put these faith facts into operation, our world will become a testimony of God's goodness.

Come on, lift your hands and receive the Word today.

Glory to God.

Thank you Jesus.

Thank God, you've given us the material to be faith people.

We are overcomers in every area.

Hallelujah, come on, let's rejoice a little bit.

Hallelujah.

Thank you Lord.

I just perceive.

You see, I'm not God didn't tell me, but I perceive, just like the water level rose in here, your faith level got, you know, your faith level got nourished and some of you just coming up in the next level.

And what you hear today, if you'll put it in practice, the thing that you've been believing, maybe waiting a long, long time for boom.

Because faith, you know, faith does.

There's seed time with faith.

Faith is not instant potatoes, I said.

Faith is not instant pudding.

I used to like instant pudding.

Why?

Because it didn't have to be cooked on a stove.

They just add the milk in the powder, stir it around, sit it.

You know I usually never let it sit up.

I'd eat it when it was a liquid.

That was kind of stupid, I know you've never done that.

Now, instead of pudding, I'll just buy a can of frosting and eat that.

It's almost like that.

I don't do that anymore.

I used to, but I don't eat it.

Y'all get anything out of this today.

Was this worth coming to church for?

Amen?