Full, Filled, Faith || Pastor Adam Mesa

Welcome to the Lesse Podcast. Here at Lesse we seek the loss, teach

the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by this

week's message. Says this in Hebrews leven to one, one to two.

Now, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we

do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. All these

people were still leaving. We'll talk about these people today. We're still living

by faith. When they died, they did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were

foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are

looking for a country of their own. If they had been looking up the

country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead,

they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God

it's not ashamed to be called their god, for he has prepared a city

for them. Let's pray this afternoon. Lord, We thank you God for

your word. Today. None of us came here Lord to hear the opinions

of man. The philosophy is a man or the doctrines of man. Today,

Lord, we came to hear from you as we open up the pages

of scripture today, May your word go forth. May you radically, radically

transform our lives today, Lord, and where you may you meet us where

we were at in Jesus name, Amen and Amen. You may be seated

on your way down, maybe look at someone and welcome them at church,

say you look good in church today, and then finish it off and say,

sitting next to me, you gotta have some confidence today. You may

not feel like you look good, you may not even look like you look

good, but if you got enough confidence, it'll really change the way you

step when you walk out of this place. That's what we're gonna talking about

today, what it looks like to have faith, faith and confidence faith in

God, and how that can build up our walk with God. And it's

my goal today that as we read the scriptures and they begin to jump out

the pages of today, that every person would walk out of here. If

you're a woman, it's my prayer that you walk out of here and you

say, I'm committed to be at the end of my life a mother of

the faith. If you're a man in this place, my prayers that when

you leave this place you say I'm committed to be a man of faith.

And so, ladies, if you're in here, want you repeat after me,

I am a woman of faith. Men, if you're in here,

why don't you say I'm a man of faith. Well that's some baritone in

that sounded like some of y'all men were at Quake Stadium yesterday with us.

So we gotta hang out. Five hundred men showed up to Quake Stadium.

We have blast together. We showed up and showed out and we let our

lights shine. Some of the quake staff came and told me, they said,

number one, your men are some of the kindest men that we've ever

hosted did before. They were truly kind, truly generous with all of us.

And they said, second of all, we've never had a group show

up on time like this ever before. They said, thank you for showing

up on time. My response was where we didn't have the women's ministry joining

us today, and said, now, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. I just do. My wife knows she's late to

everything, so okay, but let's be honest. You know you know you're

making us late whenever we're trying to go places, trying to get there on

time, you know. But uh so glad you guys joined us up.

I'm excited to jump in the word today. Today we're gonna be talking about

something. We're gonna be talking about what it looks like to have a full

filled faith life, a full filled faith life, and Lord willing at the

end of it, we'll see that we can live a fulfilled faith, a

fulfilled faith. And so we're gonna jump in. And so if you're a

note taker, I'm gonna give you the notes on the front end so that

you can really lean in to what we're talking about today. So today we're

gonna be talking about what it means to be full of confidence, filled with

calling, and faith for eternity. Full of confidence, filled with calling,

faith for eternity. Hebrews eleven one is known as the Great Faith Chapter.

It's the faith chapter that goes and reflects and looks at all of our four

mothers and four fathers, many of them in the Old Testament, who stuck

true to their walk with God, regardless of circumstance, regardless of surrounding.

These mothers of the faith and fathers of the faith stayed true. And so

I encourage you after we leave today, feel free to continue to read all

of the chapter of Hebrews eleven because it will encourage your faith in God.

We're gonna talk if you're taking notes, We're gonna jump right into what it

looks like to be full of confidence, full of confidence. The world has

a level of confidence in the world system. You're told to be confident in

your self, confident in your accolades, confident in your degree, confident in

having yourself put together. But God has a different way that he wants to

drive confidence in your life. And I'll give you a little key. It

is definitely not in yourself, is definitely not in myself. And so if

we want to walk out of here today with our faith filled up, what

happens is we got to see that first. We got to fill ourselves with

confidence. What type of confidence? Hebrews eleven one tells us many of us

know this first. And if you are marking up your Bible at all or

taking notes, there's some things I want you to underline. It says this.

Now faith begin to get an answer what faith is? People often have

the question what does it mean to have faith? What does it look like?

Christians are known as people of faith. There's a reason why, and

that's what we're going to talk about today. Now. Faith is firstly the

confidence your translations made something like assurance or something else in this particular place.

But faith is the confidence in what we hope for and the assuring about what

we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for that by

faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what

is seen was not made out of what was visible. So immediately we start

to get a breakdown and a sharing of what it means to have confidence in

what you do not seeing. If you see something, we have a saying

which is seeing is believing, Well, that's not faith then at that point,

because if you begin to see it, that's a different type of reality.

Moses said that Moses was trying to have faith in Yahweh when Yahwah came

in the burning bush and Moses said, could I see you first before I

take the next step. And then Moses said, if you take off your

sandals, I'll show you the back of me. I'll give you a little

peak. But other than that. I'm gonna need you to take your next

steps out of faith, because if I show you at all, I might

as well do it all myself. So I need you to hold on faith

to me and be confident in what you cannot see. A lot of times

we're trying to hold confidence based off of what we do see. There's a

saying that says, oh, if you dress good and you look good,

then you'll feel good. But reality is is that's not always the case.

You may dress really nice and have a ketchup stain on your tie. You

may be looking really good and have some spinache in on your teeth. I

want you to imagine, if you will, if you were me, if

I was up here right now and I was able to look at the screen

and maybe I had something in my teeth or I had something on my face,

I would have to make a very quick decision. I can either cause

attention to it completely, derail the moment, grab a napkin, try to

wipe my face off, or do whatever else. And then now everyone's starting

to wonder, I wonder what he was eating before service. I wonder I

wonder what marker he had that rub Now all of a sudden, everybody's derailed.

In the moment I see you d railed, I will start to lose

my confidence and what's going on. And so a lot of times or I

can make a decision that, Okay, I'm going to continue to press through

even though I see that I'm losing people. At one time, a girl

told me that she was dating a guy and she said that he was an

atheist. She was coming to church. Church had totally changed her life.

She gave her life to Jesus. And she says, but the guy I

started dating as an atheist. And so basically he's going to come to church

with me next Sunday and he wants to check this thing out. And he's

actually trying I'm trying to I'm trying to help him see the Lord, and

he's trying to help me to drive me away from church. He doesn't think

it's beneficial for me. And so she says, so, I just want

to give you heads up that he's coming to service. Well, they sit

on the second row right there, and I see this young man. He

looks like an atheist in all regards, and so you know what I'm saying.

So, so he's sitting in the second row, and the whole time

that I'm preaching and teaching, he's literally doing this. He's looking at her,

he's cracking jokes to her. She's trying to be polite, but she's

laughing, and he's looking at me. When I make eye contact him,

he's like this, Like I mean, he's literally like the dude's trying to

throw me off, right. And So in that moment, I had a

decision to make. Either in this moment, I'm gonna have confidence in my

own abilities, or I can have confidence that God has called me to this

and that the spirit of God is in me. And then as God has

called me to this, then I'm not gonna have confidence in myself in this

moment. I'm gonna have confidence in God in this moment. And as much

as he tried to embarrass me, as much as he tried to deter me,

in the moments in between my sermon and my poets points, I would

say, Lord, I pray for that young man. I pray you penetrate

his heart. I pray he be he goes from a scoffer to somebody that

knows you, loves you, and serves you. God. I pray he

goes from an atheist to someone that knows you better than anyone else God,

because in his pain, he's trying to derail some other people, he's trying

to pull her off course. He tried to pull me off course. And

that's what the enemy will do for your faith. God like this and give

you a thumbs down. He'll tell you mean, you know good, you

can't do this. That's what he tried to do with the mothers and fathers

of faith. And you have a decision to make in faith in what you

cannot see. Am I gonna be confident in God that God has called me,

that God has given me this life? Or am I gonna try to

be confident in myself? Because confidence in myself means I will fall apart the

moment I start to realize I can't do this, this is impossible, it's

not able to happen. And so confidence in faith is in the things that

you cannot see, where you trust God in all circumstances. That's what faith

is. The moment you start to see it, that will actually build your

trust in God. But building your faith means you continue to walk on water

like Peter did. It means you continue to say yes to God when things

look impossible. And I'll tell you this. If you don't have enough faith

for today, be inspired by other people's faith. Lest someone else's faith inspire

you today. If you don't have any, look to someone on the left

and right of you. If you don't know how you're gonna make it.

There are some people in this church, and people of faith who have seen

God faithful in their lives, that you can borrow some faith from until you

find a place to find some faith. Sometimes you gotta borrow some faith before

your faith becomes your own. I've done it many times before. There's times

in this church that I've thought to myself. Man, Man, I wonder

if any I wonder if any guys are gonna show up to the Quakes game

at all? What if what if no one comes? Oh? I wonder

if any ladies are gonna come to the women's not on Friday? What if

no one comes? Man? I wonder if any young adults are gonna come

to our young adult night? Man, what if no one comes? I

wonder if anyone's gonna come to church tomorrow? What if no one comes?

I wonder if I wake up and my wife just doesn't love me anymore.

Well, what if that day comes? You live by these fears, and

you live by these insecurities. But oftentimes, in my position as pastor in

the church, I'm often reflected and I remember a day twenty nine years ago.

Some of you guys may or may not know this story. Twenty nine

years ago, a Bunnet living family church had just started by Pastor Diego,

our founding pastor. I was just a kid back then. What Pastor Diego

did is from the very beginning, he believed that our church should have midweek

Bible studies on Wednesday night at seven. The only issue was is Pastor Diego

could have Saturday and Sunday off to have church. But he had to work

two jobs in order to start this church. So he'd work one job in

the morning and he'd work another job at night. And what he would do

is at his first job on Wednesdays, he would skip his lunch break,

and in his evening job, he would ask his job to sketch it skip

his lunch break. So he would ask his first job, can I leave

an hour early? He asked his second job, can I show up an

hour late? Just so he could do a midweek Bible study for people.

One night, he was holding a midweek Bible study. Church was only a

few months old at this time at Shadow Hills Elementary over in Southridge, Fontana.

And he comes, He load his truck up. He put speakers in

the truck, chairs in the truck, everything that's needed to put on a

sermon, a podium. He would sit during his early mornings, in late

afternoons he was study a message for that night. He'd prepare the word,

he would mark up his bible, mark up his notes. And this particular

Wednesday, he shows up to the school. He unloads everything, the tables,

the chairs, everything that's needed. Churches early on, So back then

you didn't have church planning movements, You didn't get money finance to start a

church or anything like that. It was bare bones. You're on your own.

And so he goes and he sets up for church and services starting at

seven o'clock, just like it still does to this day. At our midweek

service, and it's seven o'clock and no one's in the chair yet. Now

it's seven thirty and no one's still at service yet. Then it's eight o'clock

and nobody has still come to church. Yet next thing you know, it's

eight twenty and no one has come to church yet. Pastor Diego starts packing

things up, puts the speakers away, puts the chairs away. No one

came to service. As he gets in his car to start to pull out,

a man turns into the driveway and he rushes up and he says,

excuse me, sir, A friend told me that there's gonna be church tonight.

Am I too late? Did I miss service? Pastor Diego, who

was extremely discouraged, extremely heartbroken, he looks up at the man while he's

sitting in the car and he says, sir, you are right on time.

And what he begins to do as he gets out of the truck,

he opens the bed of the truck and Pastor Diego stands on it and he

has the man. He pulls out one of the chairs that was for service,

and they're in the parking lot. The man sits in a chair right

in front of him. Pastor Diego sits on the top of the truck and

he says, he preaches one of the best messages he had ever preached in

his life to an audience of one. To an audio it's a one just

full of confidence, not confidence in himself, not confidence in his own accomplishments,

confidence in the spirit of God that has called him to it. And

if the Lord has called you to it, then he will bring you through

it. And that's what God began to show. Pastor Diego. Here's the

thing that may not inspire you, because you may not be a pastor.

But I'll tell you this, You and I. If he gave up that

day, we would not be in the seats today. There would be no

abundant Livy Family Church. There would be nine hundred Civic Center Drive. There

would be no one in the courtyard sitting right now. There'd be no one

in the cafe. There'd be no one in the city of Pomona receiving the

word. There would be no Generosity Center two blocks away where people feat thousands

of people every single week. There would be no ministry to police and sheriffs.

If there was none of this, If there was none of this,

there'd be no discipleship, no neighborhood groups, no nothing in this area in

this church. If one one forefather of our faith, deciding that no one

was showing up was enough to quit, We're a product of one person who

said the fact that something went wrong today and no one showed up is not

enough for me to quit, because God has given me faithful confidence that he's

given me a word. And I'll tell you what, as I've looked at

his life. If you will be faithful with the one, then God will

give you the thousands because the size of abundant, living family church. It's

not a marketing scheme. It's not innovative systems. It's the faithfulness of a

few who said that God has called us to one. God will multiply it.

God will fruitful it. So you may say, well, I don't

have a church. Well, if God, if you be faithful to one

spouse, if you be faithful to your children, one children, if you'll

be faithful to one job, you'd be faithful with one dollar. If you

be faithful, then God can multiply it. God's not gonna multiply it with

more wives, fellas, He's gonna multiply it with more joy and more peace

in that lationship. Because if we could be faithful with the one, then

God can be faithful when he gives us the fruit of it. What happens

when you don't see it? What happens when it's not standing right in front

of you. We live in an era where it says only trust the things

that stand in front of you. But where does that get us. Faith

is faith in God that he's in it, and he's looking for us to

trust him, no matter the circumstance, no matter the surroundings. Our call

is a call to say yes. Arci Sprawles says it like this. This

is what Arci Sproul says. He says, it's one thing to believe in

God. It's quite another to believe God. It's one thing to believe God.

It's quite another thing to believe in God. That's what faith can begin

to do, in a confidence in faith, to know that God has been

faithful in other people's lives. And what the writer of Hebrews begins to do

is he begins to give you proofs through the faith of our four mothers and

our forefathers. Because what he's trying to do is he's to build your faith

up with other people's stories. And if you can hear testimonies of God's goodness,

then you could begin to see that God is faithful even in what you

cannot see. And so the second thing that the scriptures teach us is we

need to be filled with calling. Every forefather and foe mother had a purpose.

There's a calling to them. They knew that they weren't going to just

live this life to just pass away. They knew they were going to pass

something on. They knew they were going to do something in the name of

God. They knew that they were going to break through some things. That's

what they knew. And so they were filled with a calling. And so

God has purpose in every side of every single person in this room, every

person that's watching online. God has purpose for our life, and he has

callsed you and it's his desire to fill up your purpose and give you fullness

in your calling. So look at this verses right here, as we begin

to read, it says this, here's some fathers of the faith and mothers

of the faith. By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Kin

did. By faith. Why was it by faith? Woe? Because what

God told them was, you're to give me your best. If you can

trust me with your best, then I can multiply what you have. And

what Abel did is Abel gave God his best. He made an offering of

his best crops of his best food. And then what Kine did was King

gave God his scraps. And so Caine's gift was not a gift of faith,

It was a gift of belief. God, I believe in you,

I fear you, but I do not trust you with my resources. I

do not trust you with my hands. I do not trust you with my

life. So therefore, whatever I build on my own, I'll give you

a little crumb at the end of it. But Abel didn't do that.

So why do we look up to Abel now? As a Forefather says,

by faith he was commended as righteous when God spoke well of his offerings.

And by faith, Abel still speaks even though he is dead. There are

thousands of years later we still speak of Abel's trust in God. His testimony

still lives in the scriptures today, and so he is still being spoken about

by faith. Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience

death. Yahweh loved Enoch so much that Enoch would go into caves and he

would spend time with God, and he would seek God, and he would

pray and he would worship. And God was like man, I like this

kid Enoch so much that I don't even want him to die. I just

want to take him up to heaven right now so that I can hang out

with him. I like that guy Enoch. All he does is think about

means. All he does is talk about means. All he does is pursue

me. I don't even want to wait till he dies. Bring him up

to heaven right now. And he snatched Enoch up, and then what happens

and he says he could not be found because God had taken him away.

What I imagine is one day they would probably celebrating somebody's King Sanietta. And

so as they were celebrating the King Sanietta, they were like, oh,

we gotta go get Enoch. Enoch needs to come and visit this Kingcanetta.

And so they go to enoch house and the porridge is still hot, and

the bed is still made, and the fire's coals still burning, and they're

thinking, where did he not go? And God's going. I liked the

Enochs so much, I just brought him up with me. You guys don't

deserve this man right here. I want him to hang out with me and

all of my angels. You see, That's what the faithfulness of Enoch looked

like. Is regardless of his circumstances, he was hungry for God. God

loved his faith so much that he brought him to heaven and he never saw

death, for before he was taken he was commended as one who pleased God.

And then without faith is it impossible to please God? Because anyone who

comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly

seek him by faith. Noah, when warned about things not yet seeing in

holy fear, built an art to save his family. What a lot of

people may not know is in Noah's day it had never reigned before. The

earth was once covered by a firmament of water, and so what happened was

is the flood wasn't encasing where God broke that firmament and flooded the earth.

And so Noah and anyone else had ever heard of rain or ever heard of

a flood. So not only did Noah have to trust God with this arc,

he had to trust God with something he had never even heard of before.

That's what faith looks like. There may be things that God calls you

to that you never even heard of it. You don't even know of it.

You don't even know how it's gonna see through. You don't even know

how it's gonna happen. But you know, God, I know you gave

this to me. I know you spoke this to me. And so instead

of questioning, instead of downing, I'm gonna build this arc, this arc

of my life to trust you God, that you're gonna take this where it

needs to go. The people's scoffed Noah, not because he believed a flood

was coming, but because he believed something that didn't even exist was gonna come.

That's the depiction of faith, trusting God and something that you have concept

to wrap your head around yet, but you know that God has given it

to He reveals it to us in his word. He reveals it to us

in our time spent with him. And so by faith he was condemned the

world and became heir of righteousness, that is, in keeping the faith.

By faith, Abraham, when called to go out to a place he would

later receive us his inheritance, obeyed and win, even though he did not

know where he was going. I don't know about you. There's times I

have no idea where I'm going, God, where are we going? What

are we doing? Lord? And like Abraham, he's like He told Abraham,

you gotta leave your home. You gotta leave your family. All you

could take is your kids, your wife and some animals. And you gotta

go. And I'm gonna take you to a place where you're gonna be able

to expand your reach and build into the next generation. Abraham said, okay.

Lord didn't mean it was easy. A lot of things Abraham did wrong,

but he trusted the Lord through it. So by faith he made his

home in the Promised Land, like a stranger in a foreign country. He

lived in tents, as did I sink In Jacob, who were heirs with

him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with

foundations. I loved his part coming up next. Whose architect and builder is

God? The greatest architect and builder for your life is God. He's got

better plants, he's got better blueprints, he's got better schematics, he's got

better insight, he's got better direction. He's got more favor with anyone you

could ever meet. There are times at our church we got to get things

approved at the city first, thing we say is who do we know over

there? Because if you ever worked with city planning before, good luck.

If you're a stranger, good luck. We say, who do we know?

That's what life looks like. Oh Lord, I think there's some plants.

Who do I know? Why? I know? I know God,

Man, I know. I got the Father's son of Holy Spirit in my

life, so I know the architect, I know the builder. Okay,

so all the other resources are will come in because I know the architect and

the builder, and they'll know how to piece those things together. It's a

faith and trust in God even when you don't even see what has been built,

even though you can't perceive it. That's why Isaiah talks about do you

not sieve it? Do you not perceive it? God is doing a new

thing, says the Lord. See that's an idea that you can't perceive it.

You can't see it, But God can do a new thing. That's

a trust in God. That's what Abraham had. And by faith, even

Sarah, who was past childbearing age, wasn't able to bear children because she

considered him faithful who had made the promise, made the promise. This is

what it looks like. And so from this one man he was as good

as dead, came the descendants, as numerous as the stars in the sky,

and as countless as the sand and on the seashore. You see many

times in cases like this, as we see, you know a lot of

times we conceptually think to ourselves. If you ever meet an atheist or someone

who doesn't believe in God, you may think to yourself, how do they

not believe in a creator? How do they not believe in God? And

I talk to people all the time like I got this friend, it's an

atheist, and I just I just can't believe there an atheists. Well,

you know, there's a type of Christian who's a little bit more crazy than

an atheist. I slid quote about that there are Christians who are crazier than

an atheist. It's this Christian. An atheist believes there's no God. But

a faithless Christian believes in God but believes he isn't there. I don't know

what's worse. I went in Google trying to find out who said this quote

because it's powerful, and then I found out it's a guy named Pastor Adamasa

who once said that you see you see there is a person who's an atheist

who believes there's no God. There's no one up there. A faithless Christian

believes there's someone up there. He just has no involvement in this. I

believe in Jesus, I just don't believe Jesus can do something right now.

I believe in the Holy Spirit. I just believe the Holy Spirit kept move

in my situation. I believe in God, I just don't think he can

be involved in my marriage. I believe in God, I just don't believe

he could be in my finances. I believe in God, I don't think

think you could be involved in my life and my home and my budget and

everything that I think I'm trying to control of my own hands. And so

therefore there are people who say, Pastor, I'm coming to church. I

went to growth track. I did this. I did that. There is

no system in the world that the church can put in place for you that

if you do not have faith, it cannot make that up. And so

a pursuit in God to fix things in your circumstance is not a matter of

checking boxes. It's a matter of where is your heart and how are you

being transformed in your mind, because you can still come to church and still

grip everything tightly, you can still hold everything intently. And so you're here

and you're saying, God, if you want to do something with it,

you're gonna have to pry it out of my cold hands. And then God

gets the one to blame when there's no peace, when there's no blessing,

when there's no favor in that area. And like we even seen what the

forefathers is. They are doing this and building this for the next generations.

These are all general. A lot of these are generational promises that God begins

to fulfill. And many of us are the start of something in your generation.

You are the beginning point in your generation in some regards. And so

what happens is faith begins to enable us to trust God in difficult circumstances.

There was a time during COVID in about twenty twenty, and so you may

be newer in our church, and you may not know that, but let

me share with you something that happened during COVID. We're about we're about three

weeks into quarantine, and it just so happened that someone We don't know how

it happened. We don't think it was a particular person, but somehow a

virus got attached to our domain, abundant family dot org. And so we

had a domain where you could visit us. It's one we had for over

ten years. It was abundant family dot org. And so what happened was

a virus got attached to that domain, and so overnight, one night,

pornographic materials starts showing up on our website. In Appropriate music started showing up

on our website, and it'd be like, you go to our website and

then it would just switch to all this inappropriate stuff, and so we start

kind of freaking out. So we talked to an IT company and they said,

here's the thing. We've looked into it. We can There's two things.

The virus is attached to the current website, so if we navigate that

somewhere else, the virus is gonna chase it. It's also attached to your

domain, So we could build a new website and it's still gonna chase that

domain, and it's gonna happen all over again. So we're like, well,

what's the fix. They said, you gotta get a whole new domain,

a whole new website. This us three weeks into COVID. Everybody's online

right now. At this point, we don't got no website, we don't

got no way people could come in on our website to jump online. We

are freaking out. We're like, we gotta fix this. So just so

happens, there was a company that owned there's something that's known as domain squatting.

So people buy domains and they try to resell them back to companies or

churches or whatever that is. And so someone owned alefc dot church. So

we reached out to them and said, hey, we'll only give it to

you if you become a line of ours for twelve months. We like,

beggars can't be choosers. We said, okay, that's fine. So we

make this little dummy website. Some of you guys may remember it. It

was this dummy website that we had for over a year and all it said

was home about give and watch online. So four buttons that was it home

give about watch online. And people would come and tell us like, your

website sucks, and I'll be like, yeah, I know, you tell

me nothing I don't know, and so I'm a new People would come and

be like, man, this church is so cool, is so mady?

You read it's young people, Well, what's up with your website? It's

like from nineteen eighty. I'm like, I know, I know it is.

So we build this thing all while the company is working on a whole

new website for us, a whole new website for us. And so what

happens is is we get to that year and we're about to go live on

the new website. We're exited and we got a new domain. It's alefc

dot chart. Was so excited, blah blah blah blah, all these things

like that. We started moving staff emails to all that stuff and everything like

that. And then the company hits us back and they say, they say,

hey, website's ready to go live. We're ready to transfer you the

domain, everything like that. That will just cost one hundred and sixty thousand

dollars. We said, I'm sorry, what we got this contract is like

it definitely wasn't costing anywhere near that. What's going on? They said,

if you don't pay it by tomorrow, we will shut everything down. We

said, you're bluffing, you're bluffing. So the next day we didn't pay

it. They shut everything down everything. They shut our current website down,

the dummy one. They shut down all of our domains. None of our

staff could email for weeks. They shut it. They shut our website down,

They took all of our domains from us. Everything we stripped because they

were our domain manager. They church stripped it all until they said until we

pay that bill, which we again, we didn't owe it. This was

a new bill out of nowhere, and so we said, this is robbery.

We have no website, we have no way for people to give we

have no way for people to find us, we have no way for people

to get directions, we have no way for anyone to email us or contact

us. And then guess what. Over the course of this season. But

in this moment, I called Pastor Diego. So you remember that Mexican gray

haired guy talked about in the last story. I called Pastor Diego. I'm

like, I'm scared because I'm like, he gonna kill me. We got

nothing. We got no website, no nothing. So I'm like, I'm

like, hey, Dad, I just want to give your heads up.

The team had nothing to do with it. You know, we cross our

teas, dotted our eyes. This company just stole everything from us. We

have no access to this, no acces to that. Blah blah blah blah

blah, he said, because he was on vacation at this time too.

And he said, okay, so are the church doors still open? I

said, yes they are. He said, we still got a YouTube page.

I said, yes, we still got a YouTube page. He said,

call me when there's an emergency, and he hung up. I had

some leaders in the room. I looked at him and I was like,

hey, guy, I guess we got I guess we got nothing to worry

about. I guess because I'm living off a borrowed faith right now. I'm

living with someone that been to him. He like, listen, I've been

in the room when not one person showed up to church. We still got

our church stores, we still got some things people can connect with us.

He's like, I'm not worried about that. So sometimes you gotta borrow someone

else's faith and know that if God has called you to it, he will

get you through it. Know that God will give you what you need when

you need it. Know that God is faithful above all things. God is

gracious above all things. God is merciful above all things. God is joyful

above all things. Where you can't see it, God's in the middle of

it, where you can't taste it. God's doing something new. You just

gotta trust God. God is in it's You may not be able to sive

it, you may not be able to perceive it, but God is there.

Don't walk away, don't give up. Trust God. I walked away

and I lift off a borrow face in that moment because I couldn't see it.

I didn't know how it was gonna make sense. Over that course of

that year, our church grew. Our giving was stable, but it was

contrary to everyone says. We gotta have a marketing plan, you gotta have

a dolt website, you gotta have a perfect this and a perfect that.

Well that's all nice, but if God's not in it, then none of

those things matter. And so in our case, we didn't have none of

that stuff. And I talk to my pastor friends, they go, it

makes no sense, makes no sense. All I get is service times and

about page. But you got people coming to your church. How's your money?

Not taking a fifty percent diet? People can't even find how to give,

but they're giving. They're giving because it's a word from God that we

stay faithful and true. We could have gone in a closet and said woe

is me all day, but what was gonna happen? We couldn't control anything.

I'm happy to say today that also God is a just God because one

year later, the judge, because we had to go to a new company

and build a website, we had to do it fast, so we had

to pay a company double to build us a website in ninety days. And

so what happened was is the judge not only made them give us everything back

that they took from us, they made us pay the other company. They

made that company pay for the other company to build our website. So not

only that we had no dollars invested to not only get our money back,

get our domains back, get our emails back, but they also had to

pay the other guy to make us a website. That's the one you see

today. Because God is faithful, God is just. I don't have to

take justice in my honed hands all the time. Sometimes I can take some

steps of justice. Say God is all in your hands. It's all in

your hands God. Sometimes you gotta look at God's word and be inspired by

other faith. You got to be inspired by their faith. Timothy Keller said

it like this, and I love it if you say I believed in God.

I trusted God, and he didn't come through You only trusted God to

meet your agenda. Just because it ain't the way that we planned it in

solid doesn't mean that God isn't in it. See this last thought. This

last point is this is God then begins to supply us and encourage us to

have faith for eternity. Faith free eternity. Faith free eternity looks like this.

And Hebrews chapter eleven, verse thirteen says all these people were still living

by faith when they died. This is important because he's saying they didn't give

up, they didn't live in it. They didn't live in faith and you

know, in their salvation years for two years and then walk away because it

didn't come the way they had planned it. Moses had every intention to walk

into the Promised Land, but he didn't. He had every intention for that,

and so what happens is is because God had a different plan. God

knew Moses. I want to take you to heaven because there's about to be

some nasty battles fought in Israel over Canaan, and you're just too old for

I want to bring you up to Heaven right now, so you can celebrate

everything that you've done, everything that I've done in you, and let a

new generation go fight those battles. He like, Moses, why you want

to go in the promise line and fight those battles? Give that to the

young uns. You led faithfully in your life, so why don't you come

on home. That's what this is is they lived their faith out faithfully.

Moses didn't have the energy to fight wars. He fought a little bit,

but not the ones that would take when they stepped into Canaan. And so

what happens is is they lived by faith he until they died. They did

not receive the things promised, so the promise was the total fulfillment of each

of their promises. They didn't all see everything at the end of the line,

and so it says they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,

admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such

things, so they they're looking for a country of their own. If they

had been thinking of a country they had left they would have opportunity to return,

and so instead they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their god, for he

has prepared a city for them. What does that mean? Why would God

even be ashamed of first place? Because what naturally someone would do is you

would read the lives of these characters and say, but the promises they had,

they'd never saw him to fulfillment, So is God really good? And

then the scripture says, no, God's not ashamed that they didn't see the

fullness of their promises, because what happened was is their children's children saw the

fulfillment of their promises. And then God took them and gave them a new

heavenly city, one greater than the one that he called them. So God

did fulfill his promise. He fulfilled his promise through their children. And then

He fulfilled a promise by giving them a heavenly ambassadorship, a heavenly citizenship,

a place that they could call home for eternity. And so therefore their faith

was filled for eternity, something that was not just for a moment. And

I wonder for ourselves is would you begin to take steps of victory, even

though if you knew that your children and your children's children would not see the

fullness of that victory. Would you do that? Would you do that?

I talk to men a lot of times who have a lot of trouble from

their fathers and fatherhood, and they just say, man, I just want

to get over this. I want to have victory over this. And what

I talk to them about is, well, we can work on victory for

you, But would you begin to find healing so that your children don't precipitate

the same issue. How about we get to a place where your children don't

have to experience that. I'm sorry that may be a battle you're fighting for

a very long time, but you can reroute that for your children. You

can teach your children what it means to have a healthy father. You can

teach your children what it means to have a healthy mother. You can teach

your children what it means to own a home. You may come from a

generation of poverty, but they know I gotta stay that way. You don't

have to live in that. You don't have to stay in that area.

You could begin to say, well, listen, I'm gonna get a thousand

square foot home. So one day my children could get a three thousand square

foot home, and they may one day, because it's not about the material,

but it is about the investment in the next generation. You and I

are standing here today because there was a generation who decided to pay and put

some walls around this building. You and I sit here today because there were

members of a Fund of Living Family Church in two thousand and three and two

thousand and four that were like, we should build a building in this place.

You and I don't ever have to pay the bills for the side of

the walls. Someone paid those. But what we do do is we get

a remodel the carpet. We remodel carpet. We gonna put some new chairs.

See another generation, there are generation. Just a couple of weeks ago,

we had a homegoing ceremony for one of our original members, Mother Mackie.

Mother Mackie up until last year, would sit in that chair every Sunday

and she would always say, baby, I'm so proud of what we all

build, what we all build, and what we've all done. As she

says, there's people that I see that respond to the altar that I knew

I had a hard to play since nineteen ninety four. Man, would you

do something if it meant that another generation was going to read that harvest?

Would you do something if you've brought in your perspective and said, God,

I'm gonna start taking steps towards healthiness, and God, I'd love for you

to fix it overnight, But God, if there isn't that moment, I'm

gonna take those continued steps of healthiness, continued steps of deliverance, so that

my children and my children's children can see it. I sure love. My

grandparents would always tell me my great grandfather was embarrassed to be a mechanic for

the Sheriff's department in the thirties and forties. My grandpa would tell me that

he was always just really embarrassed by it, and so whenever he wasn't wearing

his jumper and stuff like that, he would come home, take a shower,

and he'd wear a suit everywhere that he went. He wasn't happy about

his occupation. There's nothing wrong with it. I wish I could tell him

there was nothing wrong with it, but he felt like there was something wrong.

But I wonder if he knew that since him all of his children have

entrepreneurs and they own their own businesses, and they don't live the life that

he lived, and they don't have the jobs that he had. I wonder

what would happen if we began to extend and say I can broad in the

circumstance, if I'd be able to teach my children and my grandchildren something new,

maybe I'll see the fullness of something that's greater than ourselves. And it

starts right now. That's what the fathers of the faith showed us. As

you can take a stop. Abraham was old by time. He already said

yes to God. He started making steps. God didn't meet him at fifteen

and say, hey, follow me. Dude already had a family, had

a village, had children, had crops. He was already a wealthy man.

And God said, Abraham, leave it all, leave your nice penthouse

home, lead all the things you got, Come follow me, and I'm

gonna take you to a new land to have a new generation. Don't matter

what age we are, but we can start saying yes to God and say

God, I'm brought into my faith with you because I'm gonna live a faith

filled life in Jesus name. Let's pray. God, we thank you so

much for this word today. Lord, I pray that you encourage every person

in this place. If there's anyone in here today, and maybe you're struggling

with faith, and you're struggling with some things that you're believing God for that

you don't know how it's gonna happen. You don't see how it's gonna happen,

but you're here ready to trust God. I just want you to lift

up your hands in the air so that I could pray for you. If

you're trusting God for some things, if you have some faith in some areas

that you're saying, God, I need you to do some things in these

areas. God, You've given me a word, but I need your hand

to be on this. I need your DNA and your imprit just want you

to lift your hand up. I just want to pray for you right now,

God, with every hand that's lifted, whether in the courtyard, in

the cafe, or in this room. Lord, right now, I pray

for every person hands that's raid. Lord. Now you begin to fill them

with confidence, Lord, not confidence in theirselves, not confidence in what they

can accomplish or what they need to do to make this happen. But God,

may you begin to give them favor and blessing like you did Marry God

when the Angel of the Lord said, Mary, you are surely blessed and

highly favored. I pray God that every person in this room is blessed and

highly favored. That everywhere that they go, the anointing of God goes with

them, Father God, every step that they take, the shadow of God

is with them everywhere that they go. Father God, I pray you begin

to fill them with their purpose and fill them with their calling. Lords,

if you called them to it, God, we know that you can see

them through it, Father God. So may they begin to trust you in

greater depths of the water. Lords. May we go from a place where

we're no longer snarkling with you, God, but we begin to scuba die

with you. We go into deeper waters, deeper territory. God. We

pray for deeper moments of deliverance in this church, Lord, deeper moments a

breakthrough in this church. Father God, we pray for testimonies of God's goodness

in this place. Today. A man first service told me Lord that he

was in poverty just four months ago. But God has given him a job,

and he's no longer in poverty. And he said it came at the

same time he gave his life to Christ. God, I pray that you

feel some people's faith as they choose you. They can begin to see you

faithful in their life. Lord, and God, I pray we begin to

expand our eyes to have faith for eternity, not just to have freedom in

our life, but past that freedom on and Lord, to see our children

and our children's children walk in healing and fullness and favor and deliverance. And

Lord, we know that you can do this because if you are forest,

then who be against us? Lord? So be with every person today in

Jesus name, Amen, and Amen, Praise God. Hey, we're gonna

be here for just two more minutes. If you if you'd hang out with

me for a second. It's most important part of our services, what we

call our altar call moment. It's where we give an opportunity for those who

don't know Jesus as their personal Lord and savior, an opportunity to respond yes

to Jesus Christ. So, if you're here today, if you'd never given

your life to Jesus Christ, here's what it looks like as every single day

people do die. It's the reality of our day. We know that people

pass away and tomorrow's I'll promise for any of us. And so the Bible

says that everybody will stand before God one day, every man, every woman

will stand before God, and you will hear two things from the Lord.

One thing will be well done, good and faithful servant. It's the person

who said yes to Jesus, who believed in his message, and then the

other person. He may say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity.

I never knew you. I don't say that to scare you. I

say that to say that if you don't want to know Jesus here on earth,

then you definitely don't want to know him in heaven. And the reality

is God doesn't want anyone to go to hell. But if you're not in

heaven, you have to go somewhere. And so the reality is today is

God has given us an opportunity to see the fullness of heaven, to receive

Jesus as Lord and Savior, to say yes to the gospel. Not because

we live in fear of hell. It's because we live in love with God.

God. I want to see you face to face. I want to

worship you one day. I want to live in fullness of your glory.

That's what a yes looks like today. Sometimes I talk to people out in

the street, maybe sometimes they visit in the church, and they say,

I have a conversation with God when I get up there. Well, there's

no conversations being had in heaven like that. Those are being had here on

earth. You can have those conversations all day here on earth. Where is

He? Who is he? How do I know he exists? You could

do that all here on earth right now. But in heaven, no more

questions like that, No more questions like that. Only answers well done,

good and faithful servant, or I never knew you. So it's my hope

today that every person in this room would leave this place knowing with a surety

that when you stand before Jesus one day, you will hear well done,

good and faithful servant. How does that look like? What it does is

it means that I repent of my sins. I turn away from my own

ways, I turn away from my own shortcomings, I turn away from my

own sins, and I respond to God's word. I respond to God's message

for my life. I respond to God's purpose in God's calling, and it's

first found in Jesus Christ, the one who died on the cross for our

sins and rose three days later in victory. And so today when we say

yes to those things, the Bible says that your name will be written in

the Lamb's book of life. It's a book that no one can ever change,

no one can ever race, no one can ever scratch out. Yes

to Jesus means that you are secure for eternity in the hands of the Savior,

and that ought to give you some joy for the rest of your life

to know that one day I'll stand before God as friend, not foe,

as one who loves him and serves him, not one who's denied him.

And so, family, if you're here today, whether you're in the courtyard,

cafe or in this room, would you repeat this prayer after me,

because there's gonna be some people that either say this for the first time or

rededicate their life for the first time. And the prayer is not the thing

that saves us by any means. What we're doing is we're affirming the work

of the Holy Spirit right now that the spirit of God is already ministering to

you and talking to you. This prayer basically acknowledged to say, God,

I know you're doing a work in my life right now. So family,

would you join me in saying this Right now, Dear Lord Jesus, in

this moment, I confess my sins. I believe in my heart that you

died on the cross and you rose three days later. From this day forward,

I make you my Lord and my savior, and I commit to follow

you for the rest of my days in Jesus name. Amen. We really

hope you enjoyed the message, and if you said yes to Jesus, we

just want to say congratulations and give you a free devotional to help you walk

out your faith. Click the link in the description or head over to grow

dot Faith to download your devotional. Oh and be sure to subscribe and share

this podcast with your friends. Thanks for listening to ALC podcasts and you hope

you tune in again.