In this episode, Pastor Joe discusses the three kinds of faith found in Scripture – 

1. Faith in God (from our hearts directed towards God as the object of our faith)
2. Faith of God (God working something in us; giving us a spirit of faith) 
3. God kind of faith (expressing that faith outwardly and in the authority of Christ – the kind of faith that commands)

One of the things people sometimes do is try to operate in a mature faith – a faith that commands, or faith that receives answers to prayer – before they have learned to trust God with their whole hearts. They hear a powerful testimony from someone and then immediately shoot for the faith of God and the God kind of faith, without first establishing faith in God … and they can get discouraged. Nobody likes to be a beginner. We all want to be at a PhD level, when, if we’re being honest, many of us are barely in college yet. 

But there’s good news! God wants to make it easy to establish our relationship and trust in Him so that we can advance to bigger and better forms of faith! Tune in for four foundational principles to establish your faith in God. 

This episode is from sermon one in the Have Faith In God series newly available at empoweringgrace.org.

Additional Resources

Have Faith in God MP3 series (full or individual files available)

What To Do When The Heat’s On MP3 series (full or individual files available)

Transcript

Well, in Mark, chapter 11, Jesus has been going to Jerusalem, and in verse 12, it says, “Now the next day when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, he went to see if perhaps he would find something on it. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves for it was not the season for figs. In response, Jesus said to it, let no one eat fruit from you ever again. And his disciples heard it.” Now, the old King James says, answering it. Answering, Jesus said to it. I want to suggest something to you that the man you’re following talks to trees. You have to realize you could be laughed at following this one. Well, hello. But anyway, from verse 15 to verse 19 it talks about what happened in the city. And he takes up the story again in verse 20. “Now in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter remembering said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed, has withered away. And Jesus answered and said to them, Have faith in God.”

Now, I want to just stop tonight, we’re going to look at the rest of these verses, because they’re very important to the teaching of Jesus about the subject of faith. And this verse right here, verse 22, have faith in God is, it’s a very interesting verse in that there are a number of ways it’s been translated. And we’re going to look at some of them. But I want to start with the most basic one, the one that we’re looking at right now, have faith in God. Jesus goes on to talk about commanding faith, and receiving faith. In verses 23 and 24. In verse 23, he says, “For surely I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be removed and be cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that the things he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says. We’re talking there about commanding faith. And in verse 24, he says, “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. Here he’s talking about faith that receives from God. Verse 23 is talking about faith that speaks to the mountain. In verse 24, he’s talking about praying and receiving by faith.

And we want to look at some aspects of this tonight, but I don’t want, I’m not going to, I’m going to take my time. Let me put it that way. And I want to talk first about having faith in God, which is a foundational kind of faith. Before you can have commanding faith and before you can have faith that receives you really have to have a foundation of confidence in God Himself. And having faith in God, actually, this Greek word have means to take hold or to retain. And it’s talking about grasping hold of something, and I want us I mean, God’s will for all of us, is that we grasp hold faith in him. That we take hold of a living faith in the living God. That we don’t live in the twilight zone between faith and unbelief, but that we learn to live by faith that we learn to trust God with all our hearts.

The first thing that I want you to think about tonight, as we’re talking about faith in God, is that that God wants us to believe that it’s profitable to seek Him. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6 says, “Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. He who comes to God must believe that He is and that he becomes the rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” It’s not wrong to expect to be rewarded for seeking God, it would be wrong to expect to not be rewarded for seeking God. Now that won’t mean we get to decide on every aspect of how God rewards us. But he says that real faith pleases God and that faith must believe that God rewards those who seek Him. It pays to serve God. It pays good dividends to serve God. It’s better, the pay is better for serving God than for serving the devil. Now, obviously, we’re not talking about finances, although financial blessing is included in our covenant, yet, the primary blessing… what the world… there’s a lot of rich people that are miserable. If money could give you happiness, there’d be a lot more happy people. I mean, especially in the United States. I mean, we’re a relatively wealthy nation. So he’s not talking primarily about rewards that are revealed in dollars and cents, at least not primarily. But he’s talking about it benefiting us practically. You see, how many of you have to be told that it’s, you know, if you get a huge bonus on your job, does anyone have to tell you that that’s a benefit? Well, as you examine your Christian life do you see accruing to you benefits from serving God? You should, because God promises to reward those who diligently seek Him. And so faith in God is something that brings rewards.

Now I know and I’m sure everybody here could testify that certain areas of your life have just gone away since you’ve come to know the Lord and had faith in God. The areas that were a problem, they’ve cleaned up, they vanished, they disappeared, that you’re no longer bothered by certain things that used to bother you. Because God in His mercy has touched your life in such a way that you experience the benefits of salvation. So what I want to say to you tonight is as we talk about having faith in God, we realize you could say, well, it’s selfish to seek God. No, it’s enlightened self interest. It’s kind of like forgiveness. See, Jesus said, If you don’t forgive, you’re in the hands of the tormentors. Forgiveness is enlightened self interest. It’s a lot better than being tormented. And there’s a motivation there. See, it’s got its own little motivating factor, you see. The way of the Transgressor is hard. It’s easier to serve God. It doesn’t mean there aren’t tests and trials and problems, but in the long run, and even day by day, having peace with God makes you able to face so many things in life.

But having faith in God, we’re going to talk about in this series, we’re going to talk about having faith in God, then we’re going to talk about having the faith of God. And then we’re going to talk about having the God kind of faith. Faith in God is directed this way. Having the faith of God is God working something in me, and having that God kind of faith is expressing that faith outwardly and in the authority of Christ. The Lord quickened this to me this way, just a few weeks ago. And I’ve been thinking about this and meditating on this. Now, some extremely scholarly types would complain and say, Well, you can interpret the same phrase all three ways. Well, I understand that, but I’m going to. And the reason I’m going to is because all three aspects of faith are revealed in Scripture. If we don’t take them, even if we don’t take them from one verse, you see. There is faith in God, which is God is the object of our faith. And then there is the working in us of the spirit of faith. Paul talks about it. We having the same spirit of faith, the faith of God built into us, you see, and then there is the, as one Greek scholar suggests this should be translated have the God kind of faith, the kind of faith that commands. So we’re going to talk about all three of those. Now, you could argue that you can’t take all three of those from one Greek phrase, and I would agree with you in principle, but argue with you in overall content of the word. And so I’m going to do that whether anybody likes it or not.

Okay, so, first of all, though, one of the things people do sometimes is they try to operate in faith that commands or faith that receives answers to prayer, before they learned to trust God with their whole heart. And they get in trouble. They hear somebody else give a great testimony, how they just stood on the promises. And yet they don’t have a foundation of relationship with God, where they’ve come to have faith in God, that God is good that God is merciful, that God loves them, that God’s promises are for them. And so they try to operate in a more mature faith without establishing the basic level of faith. And I think a lot of Christians would not make the blunders they do and have the frustration they do, if they would take the time to learn to trust God. And you see we learn and grow in spiritual things. And one of the great tendencies of our human pride is that we never want to be on the basic level on any particular thing. We always want to be presenting ourselves as the advanced students, you know, “Well, I’m a PhD in faith, what’re you”. And really looking at the Bible, most of us are not even in college. You know? And, and the way to grow is find out where you are, and say, “Okay, Lord, bring me on”. You see. Now think about this. This is kind of tweak your brain a little bit. But all of the 12 were casting out demons, cleansing the lepers, even raising the dead, healing the sick, and Jesus rebuked them more than once for having little faith. What do we do with that? Well, one thing we do is realize that an anointing can cause you to do things that don’t have a lot to do with your personal faith. And developing our personal faith in God can be separate from an anointing we may walk in, or gifting that may flow through us. And we need to develop our personal faith in God, our personal trust in the living God.

Now turn with me to Proverbs chapter three. This is gonna be real simple tonight, real basic, and hopefully, comforting and encouraging, because we need a good solid foundation for our life and walk in faith. Proverbs chapter three, verse five says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. One of the truths I believe God will restore to the church with power, is the truth of the Lordship of Christ.

We’ve often had people preach a gospel of Jesus as Savior, and it’s caused people to come into Christianity, with a promise of benefit without a change of Lordship. And while I just said that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, let me say that only those who really crown Jesus as Lord will really seek Him. So the Lordship of Christ is a foundational and basic preaching issue, I believe, for the church, particularly the American church. I think, to a large degree, people have said, “Ask the Savior into your heart”. Now, that’s got truth in it, but it’s not the whole truth. You see, I do invite the Savior into my heart. But I also have to renounce my own personal Lordship and Crown King Jesus my new Lord if I want to stop serving the old Lord. You see. Becoming a Christian is a change of lords. And we want Jesus to be Lord, and our commitment. I believe, as we learn to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, the Gospel of King Jesus, and that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess and now’s your big opportunity. Avoid the rush, some will do it later by force, why not come now? Now, I’m not suggesting that we need to be brutal with people but we really do need to lay out for them very clearly, that this isn’t a new multilevel marketing plan that promises you results with little work. This is a real surrender to a real Lord who wants to really be Lord. Now he’s the best Lord you could have ever serve. He’s kind, he’s merciful, he’s compassionate. But when when Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you” and His yoke was easy, and his yoke was light, he never said it wasn’t a real yoke. And if you have a real yoke on you go with whoever you’re yoked with, because the yoke’s on you. Yes, this is deep theology now.

But it says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And most of us probably, in the initial stage of our response to Christ, gave ourselves entirely to Christ. But, you know, if you can get in the church and, and you can, you know, one of the things I learned as a young Christian after being in a Christian kind of a youth type ministry, and you know, a street ministry that lived communally, and we labored in the fields, and we came home and then we witnessed till dinnertime, then we ate dinner, and we had a Bible study every night. And you know, I mean, it was a hard, dedicated life. But one of the things I learned when I left there and came to church in America, regular, regular good charismatic church, is I found out, you didn’t need to work so hard. That God would accept you without nearly the dedication. And over time, I learned to go to sleep. Now, I went to church. Yeah. But I mean, I went to, you know, I went to church, and it wasn’t a bad church at all. It’s just that, about nine years later, I figured out God wasn’t going to come and get me and make me do my calling. That I was going to have to take some steps of commitment and dedication and moving in that direction. I was waiting for God to do all the things he told me that he was going to do. And I finally had to make some radical changes in my life to get into the will of God for my life. God would have let me live my life out and die in middle class American Christian mediocrity. I mean, he’ll let you.

But you see, when I first got saved, it was all or nothing. I left everything to follow Jesus, you know, and it wasn’t because I was so noble. It was because that’s the way I figured it should be. And when when Christ was presented to me and the price he paid for my sins, and I made him Lord in my life. I mean, I knew that this was kind of either, you know, I mean, we say, facetiously, sometimes turn or burn, but I, that’s how I felt. I felt like, Wow, if I don’t make him, Lord, this is going to be really serious. And so I did you know, and what I’m trying to say is that trusting in the Lord with all your heart, is the foundation where the life of faith comes from. And we have to give up all for Jesus. That doesn’t mean give away all. It just means give up ownership. See. We become the stewards of everything we have because another Lord owns them. And the foundation of trust comes, you see, what if Jesus really loved me enough to die for me, why wouldn’t I trust him with everything? That’s so irrational. Say, “Well, he might take something from me.” Looks kind of like he’s on the giving end to me. Yeah, he might take your sin, he might take your sorrow, he might take your grief. He might take your problems, but it doesn’t look like he’s gonna take away anything from you you need. See. But we get deceived, we get to thinking that, you know, if I surrender to the Lord, He’s gonna send me to Africa. Or I have to go to Russia with a Baumsgard. Maybe the Lord will make me hike with John Decker, into Thailand. You know. See, we get these fears that God is going to call you to do something you really don’t want to do. Let me just tell you a secret that will really surprise you. You don’t know what you want to do.

When the Spirit of God gets a hold of us, we all of a sudden find out we want to do all kinds of things we never thought we wanted to do before. In fact, we’re delighted to do them because they’re exciting because they’re God. What I’m saying is, it’s logical to give all to the Lord and trust Him with all your Heart not holding back any of your heart, because he’s for us. What’s he going to take away from you that you really need? Anything that you think you need, I like something Kenyon said. He said, God asks us to give up the toys of the flesh for the riches of the kingdom. Toys of the senses for the riches of the kingdom. And anything God asks you to give up, although God would have every right to demand anything of us, he’ll pay you better for what you give up than you could imagine deserving. He says if, you know, to those who give up homes and all of this a hundred fold in this life, plus eternal life, a hundred fold in this life, that’s not a bad deal. Try to find a bank that’s offering a hundred on the dollar. Now, I know people can abuse that and say, “Well, you know, every every dollar you give, you’re gonna get a hundred back”. But you see, we have to be careful when you say, you know, some people get critical of teachings. But I’d be real careful of criticizing any teaching that came out of the mouth of Jesus. Even if somebody abuses it. It was Jesus that said, if you give for the gospel’s sake, you’ll get a hundred fold. So I’d be real careful to be too critical of criticizing that hundred fold thing. See, because those are the words of Jesus. Now, everything Jesus has ever said has been twisted and used carnally by somebody. So don’t be surprised if somebody abuses the thing, but don’t throw out the truth if it came from the lips of Jesus. I heard somebody one dayy say, “Well, you know, they’re into that you can have what you say stuff”. Jesus said you could have what you say if you believe in your heart and doubt not, that’s the words of Jesus. Now, somebody may take it to an extreme, but if it’s the words of Jesus, you better walk a little, you know, it’s kind of like the burning bush, you know, take your shoes off when you start throwing around the words of Jesus. Because Jesus is the one that said that. Now there are conditions and it has to do with a lifestyle that’s pleasing to God. It’s not something for people’s flesh to indulge themselves in. But it is in the Bible.

All right, so he says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. The first rule of the life of faith and trust is trading in, or let me put it this way, take King reason off the throne. And put King Bible on the throne. You don’t want to throw away your mind. You just want to take away its kingship, and admit before God that all your reasoning has reasoned you into a ditch, when you’ve reasoned apart from the Scriptures. And if you really think about this, reasoning immediately goes away from God, when you don’t reason from the scriptures. You’ll reason into unbelief every time. Fear will dominate the mind if the word doesn’t. And so you have to say… I like the Jerusalem Bible says, “Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, put no faith in your own perception.” I’ll just give you an example of somebody who did that, and it worked pretty well. You remember Jesus? The Bible says that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. And it says one of the seven fold spirits of the Lord that was upon him was the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He did not judge by what his eyes saw or what his ears heard, but he judged righteous judgment. And his delight was in the fear of the Lord. See? So there’s a submitting of our… something will rule you. Either the Holy Spirit and the Word will be enshrined in you, and you’ll learn to be led by the Spirit through the Word, or your intellect, or your emotions will rule, or your fleshly desires. See, everybody has something on the throne.

Now, like I say, use your mind. But humble your mind, and be teachable to the truths of scripture. Be willing to make adjustments when new light comes. God is forever opening up the Bible to us and applying it to our lives. And when light comes, bow. Bow your reasoning. Say, “Lord, I’m not going to lean on my own understanding. But if your word says a thing, and I can see it in the word”… somebody made a statement to me recently, they said, “Well, I’m willing to change if you can show it to me in the Bible”. And I said, that’s a good statement. The person was saying, you know, “I think I’m right about this situation, but you can show me in the Bible where I’m wrong, I’ll change”. I think that’s the attitude we all ought to have. See, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it”. So. It’s kind of like saying, “I’ve never seen people fall on the ground and laugh before, it can’t be God”. How do you know? “Well, I’ve never seen it”. Ah, now we know what’s on the throne. What you’ve seen. Well, it’s outside the range of my immediate experience. Okay, fine. So your immediate experience is god. You see. What’s on the throne. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. We want to let the word inform us of what truth is.

All right. So he says trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean on, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways, acknowledge Him. The word acknowledged there is the Hebrew word for know. In all your ways, in other words, when you’re making decisions and choices, know Him, seek Him, find out what he wants. Why? Because he’s Lord, and he’s smart. And you don’t have to waste a lot of time going down the wrong road if you learn to know Him in your direction. See. Some people get so afraid of missing God, they won’t do anything. Being so afraid of missing God that you don’t do anything is missing God. It’s a form of missing God. See? What do I do? To the best of your ability, humble yourself, tell the Lord you want him to direct you and guide you, and prayerfully make the best choice you know how to make and go in that direction. And if you lose your peace, when you start out, guess what? Time to adjust. But some people are always waiting for a neon sign or an angel to visit. Doesn’t always happen.

Alright, so trusting the Lord with all your heart, lean, not your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him or know Him and He shall direct your path. He’ll make your path straight. That’s a tremendous promise. Now one of the great things about the promises of God is they have conditions which if you meet, you get to claim the benefit. Right? So if… and it is given according to what a man has not according to what he has not. So all I have to do is be sincere and wholehearted up to the light I presently have. See, some people will say trust in the Lord with all your heart, and as far as they’re concerned, they’ll never trust the Lord with all their heart, because “Well, I don’t always know what my heart thinks, you know, I mean”. It’s like there’s this you know, what if the Lord shows me next year that I wasn’t trusting him with all my heart, well, trust Him with all that you can find. Trust Him with all you can currently locate. If he shows you some undedicated consecrated area later, well turn that over. You see? What you have to, I mean, you can only meet the condition in your condition. Presently. Right? But what you have to know is that God accepts that level of your consecrate, you can only, you see, this is the deal. You’re only human and he figured that out. Why don’t you? He knows our frame that we are but dust. Right? So it says he’s merciful, because he knows our frame. Aren’t you glad he’s merciful. But you see, to claim the promise, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean, not to your understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he’ll direct your paths, all you got to do is say, “Well, Lord, to the best of my knowledge, I’m yours. I belong to you. So I can claim this promise, Lord, you promised to direct my path, so I’m looking and expecting you to direct my path. You can’t give God what you don’t have. So all you can give him is what you do. And you can know, if you know if there’s some area of your life, “Well, I don’t want to give up this”, you know, you know if there’s something there because the Holy Spirit’s always convicting you of it. Now, all you got to do is say yes and give it to God and he’ll work it out.

Now, let me tell you, this is another thing that the Lord was saying to me personally out of this teaching that I’m sharing with you and that is that one of the great ways say, “Well, how do I know if I’m trusting the Lord”? Can you cast your cares on Him? Turn to Philippians. See, if you can trust the Lord, you can trust him with the cares of life. Now one of the things that really helped me some time back like about 15 years. I mean, I really do mean that. And it was actually more than that. And it was a real challenge to me it was actually in the late 70s. And the Lord, I received some teaching about casting my cares on the Lord. And I thought, Lord, I’ve always lived totally anxious, anxious and riddled with care and anxiety. I mean, this will be really a miracle if I can live without anxiety. And I was challenged by the word of God that God said I could. And the teaching that I was reading, the brother said, “Well, God didn’t put this in here for the special ones who could do it. He put it in there for his kids, that means all can do it”. “Well, I have a hard time casting my cares.” Well, you probably do, you’re probably human. But this stuff is made for humans. And being human is no excuse. It’s designed for humans. So you can by the grace of God, you can cast your cares on the Lord, you can learn it. But see, here’s the thing. It’s kind of like the person who first, how many knows somebody who computers absolutely intimidate them. Well, now let me use somebody in our church here. I won’t mention any names. But her initials are Barb Breiwick. She would share with you that computers used to really intimidate her. And what was it that Jeff got one at home, and then you started playing with it. And now she does our newsletter, our monthly update, and she just I think he probably has to pull her off the computer so he can play with it. But you see, something new that we don’t yet understand how it works is intimidating. And for a lot of people learning to cast your cares on the Lord is like looking at a computer for the first time. “I don’t think I can do it”. But you see if God designed it to be user friendly. The promises of God are user friendly. And anything that tells you that they’re not, is not from God. It’s something contrary to God because learning to believe the promises and receive the benefits of them is not something for super saints. It’s something for every believer. So I can learn to trust in the Lord with all my heart. I can learn to cast all my cares on God. So he says in chapter four, verse six of Philippians, he says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding”, remember, Proverbs said, lean not to your own understanding. Now he’s telling you, there he told you to trust in the Lord and lean not to your understanding. Here He says, let your requests or the things that you’re tempted to be anxious for, he says, let those be made known to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving and the peace of God, now Part One are the user friendly instructions Part Two are the promised benefits. You know, we understand what user friendly means. Designed to meet simple folks who don’t know a bunch. Right? Now, is God is smart as Microsoft? Well, that that may be true. Apple then.

But you see God knows our frame, right? So when he designs a program. I’m stuck in a computer right here. It just gets the printout just keeps coming at us. But you see God promises. God tells you how to deal with your anxiety. He promises you the benefit of his peace, guarding your heart and mind in Christ. He promises you that. And learning, see this is, there’s a story that was told about some folks who had a mentally deficient son, and they are out in the field on the farm. And they saw a tornado coming and all of a sudden they started praying, and the boy said, “Ma, scared prayers don’t do nothing”. And it’s a profound truth. When you pray full of anxiety, you don’t pray in faith, you pray in fear. So you have to lay a foundation of dealing with your anxiety before you pray and request. So you start by praying off your anxieties, giving your cares to God. Because you get your prayers answered in the peace of God. So you have to first of all cast your care. Lord gave me a message some years ago called What To Do When the Heat’s On, and it was out of First Peter. And the first step was recognize that your fiery trial is not some strange thing. Because you know what the first thing we do when we have a free trial is think what strange thing is this ? So first of all, you have to realize it’s not strange. And then the second thing was to humble yourself, acknowledge that you need God. Third thing was cast your cares on the Lord, then resist the devil. But when you try to resist the devil all full of anxiety, and it’s kind of like, it’s kind of like trying to box with a bag over your head. You’re swinging and fighting the air, and you don’t even ever land a punch. But so, the peace of God, the place where faith begins to operate in our life is, George Mueller said something, this isn’t an exact quote, but it’s close. He said, When anxiety enters, faith leaves. When faith enters, anxiety leaves. And the way we get out of anxiety is learning to cast the cares on the Lord. What’s your care tonight? What’s your care this month? What’s your care this year? What’s your care this life? What is it that weighs on you? Well, I’m just concerned about this situation? Well, you’re going to have to give that to God.

Let me tell you what I’ve discovered over 16 years in the ministry, what I’ve discovered to be one of the main cares people have, it’s the care of their spiritual life. Jesus said, which one of you by taking anxious thought can add one cubit to your stature. You cannot do anything about your spiritual growth, but humble yourself, give the care of it to God and let Him work in your life. And your anxiety will choke out the life of the seed. You remember what Jesus said in the parable of the sower that cares of this world choke the seed? Well, the care of you can choke the seed from working. So you have to cast the care of you on the Lord. That’s really great. One day, some years ago, and the Lord was teaching me about this, I had a praise session where I praise God for every bad thing that had ever happened in my life. everything that was ever wrong with my family, everything that was ever wrong with my schooling, my upbringing, my lack of this, my this or that. I went through a, see where everything I could think of about my life that I’d ever groaned about. I praised God about because it dawned on me not one thing was left out when God designed his plan for my life. He knew about everything that ever happened to me, so none of it can count on the negative side of the ledger, because God made every bit of that to work to bring me to him. Surely he included all of that in making me fulfill His will for my life. So I began to see that nothing that ever touched my life can possibly hinder me unless I believe it can. “Well, you don’t understand. I had a poor child.” Gee. I wonder if God ever figured anybody would when he designed the plan of redemption? “Well, you don’t understand I had this happen to me.” Well, I understand. I wonder if God knew that was going to happen to you. I wonder if he made any provision in the apportionment of grace that He set aside from eternity past for your life? I wonder if he included anything that would resolve that? Or after he saved you? He said, Oh, wow, if I would have known their childhood, I would have left I would have prepared more for them. You see what I mean? It’s our thinking about our lives that really trips us up. We think well, you know, poor God, he didn’t know what I’d been through. You know, I mean, it’s, we don’t think of it in those terms. But we let the past haunt us into unbelief and doubt and fear. When I was first learning about faith and the study of the Word, and learning to take God at His promises, one of the things that the devil brought up for me was, well, you know, brother so and so that you admire so much of, was such a strong man of God and you’d like to be like him, he was always really disciplined. You unfortunately, your parents didn’t discipline you, you didn’t develop self discipline and see so you really have a disadvantage here. And I said, Yeah, you’re right. That’s really true. You know, as if God didn’t know where I’d been.

See, the gospel is designed for people who were affected by the fall. “Well, I come from a dysfunctional family.” I know Addams, the Addams Family. Realize we all came from the same stuff. No matter how much sin is done, the cross proves the devil loses. I mean, there’s just no way that you can biblically justify wallowing in self pity and staying there. I mean, the Bible calls us up to the mercy and grace of God. And so one of the things that God began to teach me to do was to celebrate my weaknesses. See, my weakness is only a liability as long as I believe it is. It becomes an asset the minute I began to thank God for the opportunity that presents to Him for His grace to be manifested, because His power, His grace is sufficient for me, his power is perfected in weakness. So as I commit my, the care of this weakness to God, as I say, Well, Lord, this thing has tripped me up for years. And I commit that care to him. And I lift my eyes. Grace comes into my weakness, and where I was weak, I become strong. That’s the purpose of God for your weaknesses. But you and I and every one of us need to learn to give God our cares. Anxiety will eat your faith up. It’s like those little Pac Man deals, they just eat, they eat your faith.

So God is a rewarder. If we will seek Him, He promises to reward us with good things. He’s trustworthy, I can trust him with my life. And he cares about me. And the fourth thing I want to just mention to you tonight is, this is theologically profound now, so you need to pay close attention. He’s big. You know, that sounds funny. But But whatever you focus on, you magnify. If you focus on your weakness, it gets bigger. You focus on the circumstances, they get bigger. If you focus on what the devil is saying to you, it gets bigger. If you focus on your need and your lack, it gets bigger. But if you focus on God, what he did in Christ, and all the promises, and the fact that you’re a new creation, that you’re indwelt by the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, if your focus is on the good things of redemption, they get bigger. Now, Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose”. Now, I think that can be misused. And people can just have a passive attitude and well, whatever happens, it’s going to work together for good. Well, the Bible tells us to resist the devil. There’s never a time when you’re supposed to be passive and expect all things to work together for the good while you don’t obey the Bible. And the Bible says submit to God, resist the devil, and people have twisted that into God is good. God works all things together for the good. So whatever comes just accept it. I don’t find that to be Biblically sound teaching. But having said that, My God is so big, everything that touches my life he’s able to turn for the good no matter where it came from.

Not all things are from God and not all things are good, but God is able to make all things work together for the good. One of the things that helped me about this, how many of you, let me see the hands of you who’ve never fallen into any kind of sin. Phew, I’m talking to the right people.
You were pushed, yeah. Reluctantly dragged, right? I knew that. Me too. But I didn’t want to raise my hand and embarrass everybody else. Yeah. Right. James, you know, says count it all joy, my beloved brethren, listen to this now, when you fall into various trials. You know what that word Fall means? Trip and fall. In other words, through your own blunder, mistake, lack of diligence, lack of discipline. When you’re the one who caused the problem, and you fell into it counted all joy. Why? Because the trial of your faith still works patience, and if yo’ll get up and approach God and go on, it’ll still be turned to work for your good. It’s good news, isn’t it? See, even my blunders can be made to help me if I’ll respond to God. You know, you caught the message here, respond to God? Trust God, he’s good. He loves you for you. And you’re human, and he already knew. And he’s trying to deliver you from it. By making you a partaker, of the divine nature, escaping the corruption that’s in the world through lust. I mean, he really isn’t leaving us in our human condition. He’s filling us with himself. But he’s made a plan that meets us where we are whenever we’re there. Now, you know, I mean, that sounds funny, but see, many times you’ve not pressed back to God because of where you got to. Because you said it’s my fault that I got here. I don’t deserve. Listen, if you ever got what you deserved, it’d be all over. That’s why when the glory fell at the Temple of Solomon, they all said the Lord is good and His mercy endures forever, because they never got to that glorious Church on their own good behavior. When the glory came, they said, The Lord is good. And his mercy endures forever. They didn’t say, we are good, and he finally rewarded us.

Now, let me just tell you something. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. You want to change? The goodness of God will lead you to repentance. One of the strongest motivations I ever have found in my life for repentance is when I know I’ve rebelled, done the wrong thing and I crawl back to God, and he hits me with mercy and love. The conviction is there. Oh God. The godly sorrow is there I should say, but godly sorrow then comes. Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry. Genuine. I’m not trying to, I’m not sorry, I got caught. I’m not sorry for the consequences. I’m sorry, I forgot the word of God. That’s true repentance. you see. A lot of people get remorseful about the effects of their sin on their family on themselves on their life, you know, whatever. But conviction, or let me put it this way, or the right term is godly sorrow comes, you can repent without any feelings. You can turn and confess your sin without any feelings and you should. But when the mercy of God comes when the goodness of God comes, godly sorrow oftentimes shows up. Oh, Lord, why did I do that? I’m sorry. You see.

The goodness of God, the foundation for the life of faith for believing the promises and using the authority of Christ is becoming established in trusting the God whom we serve, that he’s good, that he’s merciful, that He knows our frame, yet he’s still merciful and loves us. And that his plan, this is one of the things I think this renewal has really made me see in a fresh way, God could have come with judgment, but he came in mercy and it’s producing the fruit of repentance. People are turning toward God, and it isn’t the kind of thing we, you know, there have been revivals. Like if you ever read about the revivals under Charles Finney, or if you ever read Charles Finney. I wear gloves. His sermons are a little hot. Now you can benefit really from some, I mean, I’ve read some of Finney’s stuff and got real cleaned up real quick. Oh, God, you know. And there are times and seasons when God sends a repentance to a people where it is a strong prophetic warning that brings repentance. There are other seasons like we’re in right now, where there’s this outpouring of love. And God meets us in our rebellion, our half lukewarm, half heartedness, and he touches us with such love that we fall in love with Him. And we change. And the fruit is repentance, because repentance means to change your mind and change your direction. And people are changing their minds and they’re changing their directions, because God’s coming with mercy. And there may come a time later down the road in this revival, where the Finney type preaching is going forth. It may be another aspect of what God’s doing. But right now there’s this just the tender outpouring of the heart of the Father. And people are being healed. Not so much in the physical sense, but in their relationship with God. Father issues are being resolved in the hearts of God’s people. People are coming to know God as Father as never before. When Jerry returned from Toronto, back in, was it June or July, July of 94. His testimony was he turned in God as a boss, and came home with God as a father. When he prayed for me, shortly after he got back, one of the first things the Lord did was bring up some family issues, show me how they’d affected my life and then take them away. And we saw God do some really tremendous things. I believe this renewal is about the heart of the Father being revealed to the church. So that’s the foundation of the faith life. And without the foundation, the second story is going to be wobbly. If you try to put a third story on that you might just have the whole thing fall in. So in upcoming weeks, we’ll talk about the the faith of God operating in us and the God kind of faith operating through us and some of the aspects of that, but we need to let God speak to our hearts to lay the foundation that I can trust my God. He’s for me, and he’ll see me through. I can give him my cares. It will benefit me to serve him and he can teach me to give him every care. Amen?