Foundations Of Faith

Bibles up and wave them around and make Jesus glad.

Let's just make this confession together.

Everybody say Heavenly Father, I'm glad to be tuned in by live stream and I'm tuned in into the spirit realm and my heart is receptive for Bible truth.

My faith stands on the Word of God, my confidence is in the Holy Ghost that lives big inside of me and I know that tonight I will hear information that will strengthen my walk and make my life even more successful for your glory in Jesus name.

Amen.

John 1633.

I don't know how many times I've preached out of these verses.

Jesus, of course, is speaking on the night before he was crucified and he was encouraging the disciples.

They were sad, they were grief stricken and quite fearful that Jesus was leaving them and he had shared with them about the Holy Ghost.

He'd shared with them about how he was gonna send the Holy Spirit.

He was gonna send another comforter.

He's a comforter and he's gonna send another comforter.

And in verse 33, he says these things I have spoken unto you that in me you might have peace, you might have shalom In the world.

You shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, be of good courage.

I have overcome the world.

I like to amplify it.

It says I have deprived it of its power to harm you and have conquered it for you, praise God.

And then over in 1 John 4, 4, the last part of that verse.

It says greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.

And in chapter five, 1 John, chapter five, verse four, and this is the victory that overcome at the world even our faith.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Foundations of Faith.

Foundations of Faith.

You know we're in this world, but we're not of it.

You know a lot of people are shaking right now.

I mean coming off of the COVID-19 thing with everybody and many people are still frightened, still concerned.

And then you've got government out there.

Fauci said oh, it's not over by a long shot.

Thousands could die per day.

You know he's the voice of doom and gloom.

I say COVID-19, stick a fork in it.

It's done.

That's what I say.

It's not scientific, it's faith and so.

But we're in this world, not of it.

But Jesus said we would have tribulation, we would have affliction, anguish, persecution, trouble, and then this word pressure.

We're gonna have pressure in this world, but be of good courage, be of good comfort, the greater one in us is how we can be strong.

Our faith is how we overcome the pressures of life.

Sometimes we give the devil too much credit.

I think we think the devil does everything, but sometimes there are just pressures of life.

Some pressures we have because of decisions we make.

Sometimes we have just life brings with it pressures of all sorts, but it doesn't matter what type of pressure it is or which direction it came from.

We overcome it.

We can overcome and this is one of our foundations of faith.

You know, as a home builder for 25 years, I'm real.

You know I pay a lot of attention to foundations because I found out that a house is only as good as its foundation.

I've seen houses with lousy foundations and they start to fall apart after a pretty short time.

They start having big cracks in the brick, they start having cracks in the sheet rock.

Doors won't open and close.

Inside.

You can feel, you know, unlevel floors downstairs and if it's a two-story house, sometimes even worse upstairs.

I've seen brick begin to.

You know most of the houses at Houston.

They're not brick houses, they're brick veneer.

So they just have a single layer of brick on the outside, more for decoration than anything else.

And I've seen slabs start to shift and bricks start to break loose from the side of the house.

And I've seen chimneys about.

I went to look at a house one time and somebody was so concerned and the chimney, the foundation for the chimney, that there's a lot of weight on a chimney, all that brick going up two and a half floors, thousands of pounds of weight on that slab.

And I happened to know that that slab was a anyway, it was a substandard slab because I knew the builders that did it and the chimney was leaning off and about to fall into the backyard.

I mean, it was about eight inches pulled away from the roof and very much longer.

It's kind of like the leaning, leaning tower of Pisa, you know.

And that thing is about to drop off at the backyard.

You don't want to be there when that happens, but the foundation of a home has to be designed to withstand pressure, and so our faith is the foundation from which we can bear up under the pressure of life.

So in a home there's two kinds of pressure.

First, the weight of the structure itself that's sitting on top of the foundation, and again, all the houses that I built were concrete foundations.

Now there are some older houses in town that are built just up on blocks, you know, and they really don't have concrete.

I've seen some pier and beam type foundations, but all my houses were on slabs slab on grade, they call it.

And so you have the weight of the structure and, as I mentioned, the veneer brick veneer weighs a lot, especially in a two-story house.

So there's a whole lot of weight bearing straight down on the slab and then you've got the weight of the material and you've got the weight of the studs and the walls and the floor joists.

If there's two-story, you've got the weight of the second floor, then you've got the weight of the roof and the roofing material, the air conditioning equipment inside and all of that, and so you've got to withstand that pressure.

And then the other pressure is from the hydraulic action of the soil on which the foundation rests.

And what do you mean?

Well, you know, soil can heave, it can move, and parts of town, some parts of town, have mostly clay soils, and clay is known as a very expansive soil.

It swells when it gets wet and when it dries out it shrinks and starts to fall away from the slab.

So here the pressure against the slab.

In areas with have clay soils you have pressure that forces up from underneath the slab and pushes up against the pressure of the weight of the house and with that pressure in different places it can crack the slab.

And out in this part of town we have more sandy loam soil.

It's not as hydraulic the hydraulics are better.

It just basically settles after a while.

The biggest problem out here are the trees that were taken out before the foundation was put in.

So when you have a big oak tree, a big root ball and it comes out and then you pour a slab where that root ball used to be, well, many times the soil will settle underneath the slab and after two or three, four, five years a slab can settle, start to crack.

So all of these things you know.

You've got to prepare the soil properly.

You've got to drill and sometimes drilling, pour piers, cylinders of concrete, sometimes 10, 12 foot deep, put steel in that and let the slab rest on top of the piers, all of these kind of things.

You have to dig out beams and put steel in the beams.

You have to prepare the house for success.

It has to be built with pressure in mind.

Jesus said that if you build your life on shifting sand in other words, people who know the Word of God but don't apply it they've got a terrible problem.

They're going to suffer damage, they're going to suffer loss.

He said, when the storms of life come and beat upon that house, it will fall and great will be the ruin of it, because it's built on sand.

And so we've got to build our lives on the foundation of faith, and I know I've been preaching a lot about words and faith lately, but these are the days that we have to employ and be doers of the Word that we know.

That's the only way we have success, and I still believe this is the greatest year yet.

And so what preparations do we need to make our foundations of faith to overcome the pressures of life?

That's good for us to have a checklist, kind of look around at our foundation.

Is there something lacking in our foundation?

You know, I've seen people be really successful for a long time and then suddenly I've got four things one, two, three, four things to leave with you tonight.

And sometimes one of these four things gets weak.

People quit applying what they used to know and they could have problems with their building their lives, in other words.

So what preparations?

So the first one I want to talk about is found in 1 John 4 4.

It's just greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world.

Remember, the greater one lives in you and you know when you're feeling lonely, when you're feeling kind of all by yourself.

Jesus said I've shared these things.

What things?

Well, he taught them about the Holy Ghost, taught them about that they were going to do the greater works.

Told them all these things.

He said I told you all these things so that you would have peace, you would have Shalom, health, prosperity and peace that you might have it.

See, might means it's not might God.

Might.

God might not know.

It's on you.

In other words, this is your faith talking.

You're going to have to remember that in every difficulty you face, every pressure you face, you have the greater one in you.

You have the greater one.

I know it's simple, but people do forget, and I'm not gonna mention these names, but I have.

I was, I was preparing for this today and I was thinking about this point and I thought about three of our widows, and I'm not gonna mention them by name, but these three widows, you know their, their husbands, you know all came to this church at one point and now they are in heaven.

So while I've been their pastor, I saw them married to their husbands and then their husbands, at different times For different reasons, went to heaven and now they're left as widows, are left behind.

Of course, I have a tender heart toward all widows because the Bible tells me I need to pay special attention and, and what I'm delighted about in each of these three ladies is their countenance, because they have such peace, they have Shalom, and I mean that didn't mean that they didn't love their husband, doesn't mean that they don't miss their husbands, but they have been successful and Responding to the pressure of losing their husbands and they're living Happy, fulfilled, joy filled lives right now.

And when I see them in church, they're laughing, they're smiling there, they're just excited Instead of feeling like, oh, I'm so alone, oh, oh, I tell you it's always better to remember that the Holy Ghost lives in us.

You know, jesus told them in John 14.

He said I'm gonna give you the Holy Ghost, he's gonna live in a bad with you forever.

And he said it's even expedient for you that I go away, because if I don't go away, the father won't send the Holy Ghost, and and and it says here in John 16, 13.

He shows us things to come, and verse 14.

He shows us what belongs to us.

You know I get tickled.

Brother Hagen was a pastor for 12 years and he later found out, after he pastored that long, that that Jesus never really called him to pastor.

He said I permitted you, you were in the my permissive will.

I can't imagine how that feels, but anyway, he said every church had trouble, every church.

I mean, it's just like a family.

You're gonna have squabbles, you're gonna have difficulties, you're gonna have people that don't grab ahold of what you're saying.

They're gonna have pressures of life.

And and One time his, his own family, it was a cousin, I think.

His mother calls oh, you've got to get over there.

So, and so's having a fist fight out in the driveway.

They've called the cops and it's I forget now what member of the family, but anyway, it's his mother called him.

So he's his old son, don't get in any trouble.

He's oh no, I'm not gonna get in here up, I'm just gonna go act like the Bible is true.

He said I went over there and I just remembered.

You know the whole way over there.

When I got out of the car, here they are snorting and sniffing and you know, just fix, fixing to throw another punch and everything.

And he just walked up and didn't say a word, he just rested on the greater one living on this and they kind of stumbled and sputtered and said all we should be doing this, we're sorry, he didn't even have to, he didn't even have to fuss at him.

Yeah, I'll just remember.

The Holy Spirit is not just hitchhiking, you know he's in there.

He's in there to put you over whenever there's pressure and help you meet and exceed the pressure.

You can have something to push back Against the pressures of life.

Thank God for the Holy Ghost.

I've had to remember that many times.

Alright, so remember the Holy Ghost.

The greater one is in you.

Number two Is one that we preach on all the time.

Mark 1123.

Remember Jesus said that you could have what you say.

In fact he said you do have what you say.

I remember one of the visitations appearances that Jesus made to Brother Hagin and talked to him personally.

He said you know, whether positive or negative, you have what you say.

A lot of people don't realize that.

They don't think their speaking is that important, but no, it's very important.

What positive or negative, whatever you are and you have today is a result of what you believed and said yesterday.

That can sting a little bit, so I don't mean it to sting, I just mean it.

I mean to say it with love, but I mean to say it to remind you that if you don't like something about today, if you don't like your life, you don't like your finances, you don't like something about your life.

Think about what you've been saying and believing, because that's the main cornerstone, these are the foundations of your faith with which you're able to push back against pressure.

And so, mark 11, 23, you can have, you know, believe in your heart and speak with your mouth, and it shall come to pass.

Always talk about how great God is.

I think sometimes we just talk too much about the devil.

Yeah, there is a devil.

We don't have to talk about him all the time.

Let's talk about how great God is, let's magnify him.

You know one saying that I've had for years whatever you magnify will be magnified.

The more you magnify your trouble, the bigger it gets.

The more you magnify the devil, the bigger he gets, the more you magnify the trouble in our nation, the bigger it gets.

Listen, we have the answers to all of these things.

They always talk about how great God is.

You know, you can always say you know, he never leaves me, no forsaken, never leaves me.

See, you'll never be lonely as long as you say the right thing.

We might have a feeling of loneliness from time to time, but if we'll have the right speech, if we'll say the right thing, we'll feel we'll have peace.

I gave you these, jesus, that I've told you these things, and in me you might have peace.

See the might's on you.

You can either have peace or you can have torment, either one.

And so he never leaves me nor forsakes me.

He's greater than my problems, he's greater than the devil.

I'm never alone.

Just those are simple things that we can start saying instead of what we've been saying.

You know, and first John 5.4, your faith is the victory that overcomes the world and its pressures.

Your faith, your faith, not my faith for you, but your faith.

Yes, I can use my faith for baby Christians.

I've done that many, many times.

All my relatives, one by one through the years, almost every one of them.

I've used my faith to help them, but at some point they've got to get their own faith At some point.

They're now there, once God has intervened for them.

Now he expects them to walk on their own and to trust them for themselves.

So these are foundations of faith where you can provide a supernatural pushback to the pressures that come with life.

I mean, jesus said they just come with the territories.

You know, I had a prophetic word, I think Sunday 4 last.

You know, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened under you.

But rejoice.

So I was in that prophetic word.

I was quoting a first part of 1 Peter, chapter 4, I think 16, and then I went on and said some other things.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

I didn't just keep going with that verse, but I was talking about this time that we're living in, and so let's not be amazed at the trouble.

Let's just stay amazed at how great God is.

I mean, it's messed up.

If things look, it doesn't take very long for God to start bringing things back around in a better direction.

And so let's keep our faith activated against these pressures.

All right, number three, I trust you're getting something out of it.

I want you to be encouraged.

I mean, this may not be new, and since it isn't new for most of you, then it's water for what you already believe.

I'm watering the seed that you already had, and then you might hear something that you hadn't heard in a long time, and something's planted in you fresh and new.

It'll bear fruit.

Number three remember faith always has a good report.

I mean, just train your lips to give a good report, no matter what.

And let me tell you, bring you back to numbers.

This is one of my favorite times here in the book of Numbers, and this is right.

When Moses was about to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land, he had sent the spies, the twelve spies, and they scattered out the land.

They brought the fruit of it.

They said, yeah, it's a land flowing with milk and honey.

It's absolutely you're right, it's beautiful.

It's wonderful.

Here's the fruit.

Nevertheless, there's giants in the land and the cities.

They have walls, cities.

Well, were they bringing a good report?

You know it was a.

It could, it might have been accurate.

You know what they were saying was not a lie, but they brought that report as a report of defeat, and so they kept talking.

They said, you know, they got giants in the land and they've got these fortified cities, or fortified up to heaven, started exaggerating.

And they said you know, we, we look like grasshoppers in their side and in our side.

In other words, we kind of agree with them.

We're like grasshoppers.

I don't know what we think.

What do you think?

You think there's any chance we have of getting this, you know?

So that's an example of bad report.

But here in numbers 13, 30, caleb's, and Caleb's, still the people, see, they were all excited, they were all upset.

I don't know, maybe they had some signs, maybe they protested Moses, I don't really know, I'm not sure, but man, they were really upset.

And Caleb's still the people before Moses said let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.

See, now, that's a good report.

He was one of the spies, he saw everything the 10 saw and he said let's go up at once, we're well able.

And then in the next chapter, chapter 14, and they're all see, they're even worse off now.

They're really having a big, big boohoo and they're all just coming apart at the seams.

And this time, in chapter 14, verse six, caleb Joshua had said the first thing Now Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jefuna, which were of them that searched the land, they rent their clothes and they spoke unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying the land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land.

If the Lord delighted us, then he will bring us into this land and give us a land which floweth with milk and honey.

Only rebel, not against the Lord.

Neither fear ye the people of a land, for they are bred for us.

Their defense is departed from them and the Lord is with us.

Fear them not See again.

Joshua had the same.

He saw the same things that the 10 saw, but his report was one of victory.

His report was a good report.

Faith doesn't hide from circumstances, you know.

Faith doesn't hide from symptoms, doesn't hide from diagnosis the doctor has or diagnostic tests.

It doesn't hide from bank balances.

It doesn't hide from married trouble.

It doesn't hide from anything like that, but it overcomes them.

That's what faith does.

It overcomes the pressures of life.

In other words, you're not healed by what you deny.

I've had people, you know I was thinking about the little boy that his arm was in a cast and he went up in the healing line in his church it was a church kind of like Gloria's Way.

It didn't happen here but it could have happened here and the little boy goes up there and says what do you want, johnny?

He said I want you to pray for my arm that ain't broke.

And so he was.

He had a cast on that arm and his arm ain't broke.

So you're not healed by what you deny.

Listen, you just face what the report is.

We're well able to overcome.

This is bread for me.

You know I've had people dread chemotherapy, somebody that gets so overwrought, they're so worried about how it's gonna be.

Listen, whatever the what you're gonna do to get rid of whatever it is that's facing you, you've gotta face it in faith and you've gotta face it with your mouth speaking.

A good report, hallelujah, oh, faith has a good report.

Whatever you magnify will be magnified.

And the last one is found over here in Romans.

And again, I know that you've heard these things, most of you have.

I learned this from Brother Osteen.

He never, he never retreated from preaching the same thing many times over, in fact, all of his stories Gladys and I had numbered.

I wish we hadn't.

I wish we had wrote all the stories down and numbered them.

I just feel bad that I didn't do that because he had so many good stories.

And he'd start one of his stories and went back when we, when we got promoted to sit on the front row right in front of him, we could get away with this.

Gladys would say, let me tell it, let me tell it.

And he'd laugh.

I don't suggest you know if you're going to another church, I don't suggest you interrupt your pastor in the middle of his message.

But anyway, romans 417.

And it says here, talking about Abraham, as it is written, I have made the a father of many nations before him or like unto him, whom he believed, even God, see.

So Abraham was like God in this respect, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

So the fourth way to counteract and answer pressure, the pressures of life, is to call the things that be not as though they were.

And of the four things that I've mentioned tonight, this one is the one that I've noticed people have the hardest time with.

They feel like they're lying, because when they've got symptoms of sickness, how are you doing?

Well, I'm sick, well, I've got this and see, you've got to remember.

You call the thing that be not as though it were.

So for Abraham.

Abraham was 99.

And God gave him the name Abraham, which means father of many nations, and he was complaining about not having seed and he was well past the ability to be a father to a child and his wife was well past the ability to bear a child.

So there was an impossibility.

And yet God named him father of many nations, named her princess.

And so he went around and introduced hi, hello, there, hi, I'm Abraham, I'm the father of many nations.

This is my little darling princess.

She's the mother.

And here they were, barren, here they were with no kids, but that only lasted 90 days.

90 days they conceived.

I said so.

They call the thing that be not.

They were just like God.

God calls the things that be not as though they were.

If we want to be imitators of God, as dear children Ephesians, chapter five, verse one, then we need to call the things that be not as though they were.

What's not Well?

Healing is not yet.

So you just say you're healed.

How are you doing?

Well, I'm well, thank you.

You might be sneezing, you might be, you might have a rash?

You might.

It could be any number of things.

You might be limping around.

Listen, I'm well, thank you.

You're calling what?

The calling the things that be, not as though it were.

That's faith.

So get your tongue hooked up with your believer, get your tongue hooked up with your faith, and it's always right to do that.

You can have what you call.

A lot of times we have things in our life.

Some of the pressures that we have is because we called pressure to us.

We called it, we invited it.

Now I often use, and I always do this because it's kind of dangerous, because we have pet lovers in our church.

I don't have any pets, but I do.

I mean, my kids have pets, but you have a dog, you have a cat, sometimes a cat If it's stray cats coming to your door and they're meowing, they want milk.

If you ever give them milk one time, they'll never leave you nor forsake you.

You have got a friend for life, right, but maybe you don't want a cat.

So have you ever tried to get a cat to leave?

Well, no, you're not gonna ever get the cat to do anything.

You can't.

They don't have obedience school for cats.

Cats have a mind of their own right.

And so there are cat people that enjoy that.

You know they enjoy talking about their disobedient little kitty.

That's all right, but you know, if so, what do you do to get rid of the cat?

Do you try to say, get out of here, cat.

It doesn't work.

So if you wanna get rid of the cat, call the dog, call the dog's not there.

You want the dog, you don't want the cat.

And so to get rid of the cat, you do what you call the dog, all right.

So call the dog.

When you call the dog, the cat will leave.

When you call health, sickness leaves.

When you call provision, black leaves.

See, it's kind of a simple concept.

If you wanna reverse it, go ahead.

I mean, I'm not against your cat, please don't be offended.

And so faith calls a thing that be not as though it were so for foundations of faith, your faith will have a strong foundation and you will push back against the pressures with supernatural power, against the pressures of this world.

Foundations of faith, let's lift our hands and receive the word of God, hallelujah, thank God for the Word.

And I tell you, let's put this to work in our life.

Do an examination, try to look at your foundations and make sure they're employed fully and you'll be blessed.