Could you do from the last line of the chorus really quick into the verse again? I was not super confident on that. Yep, that would be cool. I feel like that's most natural. You're still my God and my salvation. you and keep the opportunity to come and worship you today with your saints. I ask that you be with everyone leading today, Pastor Kimmel Sunday School and Pastor Josh during the service. Be with them, speak through them, be with us as we lead in song. I ask that you make a joyful noise unto the Lord. I ask you to be with everyone doing Sunday school and nursery as well. I'm asking you to heal all the sick kids and families today as you touch and heal them. We thank you, love you, and GSD. OK, I'm just checking because we had to discuss that when we switched over. If you know any different, please tell me, OK, if you find out any different. Good morning. I'm going to get some water. th th This isn't the answer. Test, test. Oh yeah, it works. Test, test, test, test, test, test. Okay. Okay. Okay. th th and to worship you soon. Lord, may we even be worshiping in our hearts now. Lord, I pray that you would open up your word to us, Lord, that you would even show me things I haven't seen in studying this passage and show us all something from your word that would encourage us in our walk, that we might walk closer with you. Father, be with us now, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So what you're going to find today is our lesson may start kind of the way I usually start something, but it's going to end differently. Just because, I don't know, this passage seems to lend itself differently to me. The title of this lesson is How Faith Behaves. And I want you to think about this before we start. So we we act by faith every day, right? You set your alarm clock the night before and. You and it's. You believe that it will sound. You open packaged goods that you buy at the grocery store and you don't look and inspect it before you start eating it, you just shovel it in your mouth. You sat down in a chair today. How did you know that chair was going to hold you, right? So we, why do you have that level of trust? Because we repeat these things over and over and over and get the same results, right? So we have this non-thinking about it level of trust. You just sit, right? You just sit in the chair. And what I want to ask us, Is is it possible to get to a point where faith in an unseen god and his promises is so natural? You don't have to work through every scenario. You just trust you just have faith This is where we want to be to have a resolved trust in our God. My main idea today is that faith has an object, faith is tested, faith has a character, and faith has a home. We read in verse 1 of Hebrews 11 that faith is assured of things unseen. And in verse 6, we read that faith pleases God It believes God is who he says he is. And so what we're going to witness in the lives of these real people is how faith behaves. Real faith, saving faith, everyone who knows the Lord is given faith. And so in each of these, they saw they saw God. They were persuaded that God is who he says he is. And then they acted. So we're going to read Hebrews 11 and we're going to start with verses eight through 19. And then we'll break from there and come back. So Hebrews 11, starting in verse 8. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking their homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. And so now we're gonna look at some details of some of the people mentioned already, and then we're gonna make some comments about them. So Abraham, in Genesis 12, God said to him, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. So Abraham went as the Lord had told him. This was the beginning of his journey. But what was life like for Abraham? So he lived in tents all his life now. He fought battles and he never owned any land in Canaan. And of course, we remember his greatest test was to sacrifice his son Isaac. And so we, like Abraham, don't write our own ticket. More on him later. Sarah received faith. She tried to fulfill the promise in Hagar, right? A son to Abraham. with Ishmael. And it's interesting if you look for Sarah's comment when she hears that she's going to have a child. She doesn't make any comment. Abraham's the one that comments. And he says, well, Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? But in the end, they were both convinced of it, and they acted, and God gave them Isaac. Isaac is mentioned. Isaac continued the faith, and God met him once and reiterated the promise. But he's mentioned in Hebrews for invoking the blessings on Jacob and Esau. Jacob is mentioned in Hebrews for blessing Joseph's sons. And then he blessed the tribes after that, but Hebrews mentions he blessed Joseph's sons. And Joseph is mentioned, he made mention of the Exodus in his blessing of his children, of the tribes. Being fully convinced of the future blessing he gave instruction for his bones That's that's an interesting commentary that Joseph gets when you think about all of his life That he that we read about and God mentions that he mentions his bones back to Abraham Abraham committed himself to the goodness and faithfulness of God no matter what and It's dangerous to live in tents. There's no protection. There's protection in cities. In cities, you have walls. You have organized groups of people. With a walled city, anybody who lives outside that city would run to the city if there was an attack. But Abraham was vulnerable living in tents. He had to continually trust in God. to walk in his steps is to trust in all circumstances because of promise. Abraham trusted in promise. And so faith is able to carry us through all the difficulties to the full enjoyment of the promise. Where did he look? He looked beyond the earthly. Did Abraham ever? Did he ever receive the promise, the physical promise by settling in Canaan? No. He just lived in tents. Why did Abraham... How do we know that Abraham believed that God was going to raise Isaac besides the commentary that we read in Hebrews? We read when Abraham went to sacrifice him, he said, we're going to go and we're going to come back. That's one. But he also knew that God couldn't break his word, right? God said through Isaac, you will become a great nation as the stars and as the stand right through Isaac. So he knew it had to be through Isaac. This is Abraham's faith living out. Why does he get credit for sacrificing Isaac? Though it was not actually carried out, the will is accepted for the deed. His will to do so was accepted for the deed. So he had obedience that begun in faith without any reserves, without any reservations, I should say, but in a sincere intention to fulfill the whole work of it. Sarah received strength to bear Isaac because she considered God faithful. She trembled at first at the possibility, right? You know, 90 years old. Come on. But she took her focus off the impossibility and put her focus on the God who makes anything possible that he orders, that he commands, right? It's not appropriate for a person to imagine they could have a child unless God commanded that, right? Unless God said, this is going to happen. The object of her faith was not a child, but God himself. And so this reminds me of Isaiah chapter 40, a couple of verses, 29 to 31. And it's a very familiar passage to all of us. He gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They should run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Isaac should have paid more attention to his sons. He should have known Esau a little bit better, right? That's all I have to say about Isaac. Jacob is commended. Listen to his faith from this, I think it's Genesis 48. the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life, You know, if Jacob merely looked to the land of Canaan for promise, what is he doing blessing his sons at the end of his life? Why is he still carrying faith? Because he's looking beyond, isn't he? I think you've maybe heard this before, that God gives special mercies on the deathbed. And it just occurs to me that we ought to remember and give God glory on our deathbed and near our deathbed. for how He has blessed us all our lives, and how He has kept us all our lives. When we think about that, it's a great testimony to go out with, but it's also a way to pass on the faith, right? Because young people, they see someone older dying, and they, you know, we have much more fear of dying when we're young. And as we get older, we get used to the idea, I would say. So he gave glory to God on his deathbed. Joseph now is on his deathbed. And he's what is he saying? And Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die. But God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob. This is just before the new pharaoh comes and they get they come into bondage, which was promised to Abraham that they would be in bondage 400 years. And this is this is what he's leaving them with. This is the kind of the last word of the patriarch. Why did he want his bones carried up? Amen. Amen. Exactly that. He wanted to be with the people of God as best he could, but he didn't want a monument. Joseph was a famous man in Egypt, and there could have been a statue that might still be here there today if he had not had his bones carried out. So he wanted to be removed from that possibility. And so he gave them an expectation as to the certainty of their future of deliverance. So let's read now verses 23 through 31. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful. and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who was invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. By faith, the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient. because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. Moses' parents were featured because they took great risk, right? They could have gotten in a lot of trouble if they would have been discovered, besides just losing Moses. But I don't have a comment on him being beautiful. There's different opinions whether that people saw something in him or just the fact that he was a child created in the image of God and they were going to protect him. But when they could no longer hide them, because, you know, about three months in, the baby makes sure that you can't hide them. They sent him off in his little boat, and they gave him to God. But what did Moses do about the time he turned 40? So he grew up in Pharaoh's court, he got educated, he lived in luxury, but he chose to be with the people of God over Pharaoh's court, didn't he? Imagine the luxury that he lived in. Imagine what he was leaving. You didn't even dress yourself. You don't even bathe yourself. Everything is done for you. I learned that they have a very busy day if you're a prince in pharaoh's court. A lot of things to do. I'm sure the recreation, the hunting was there. There was just a lot of luxury that he lived under. And you know, if we are left to our fleshly affections, we'll never make the right choice. This is where Moses' faith shines. Faith enables the soul to look beyond the present and make a right judgment based on the ends. And so he could either cleaved to the treasures of Egypt and renounced the people of God, but he joined himself to the people of God and renounced his interest in Egypt. So it's a good quote. When the heart and mind are fixed on things spiritual and heavenly, it will be taken off from an inordinate affection for things otherwise greatly desirable. He kept the Passover. What did Moses know when they did the first Passover? He just knew, you know, bring the lamb in, slay it, put the blood on the doorpost, and the angel of death will pass you by. He obeyed. He kept the Passover. And we see so much in the Passover. But could he have seen something in that? Could he have seen that God was pointing that blood was going to rescue God's people, that shed blood would be something that rescued God's people? Moses saw a lot of trouble in his life. Oh, my goodness. Maybe he could look back on those early days of luxury and say, well, at least I had that. Because what happened, right? 40 years in Midian, a sheep herder. come back and when we read of his life from 80 to 120 years old, a lot of miracles but a lot of grief, right? He watched every single adult die. He oversaw a lot of funerals and you know He saw a lot of opposition didn't he a lot of people were complaining about God, but they directed their complaints to him The author reminds us that he considered the reproach of Christ greater greater riches he was experiencing the reproach of Christ being their leader and And I found this interesting verse in Isaiah, also in 63, 9. So Israel crosses the Red Sea. So imagine. If we didn't have these bridges going across the Chesapeake Bay. And God parted the waters. There would be a wall of what, 30 feet in many places, 30 feet. Walls to both of your sides. And and God says, OK, now walk through it. And you're looking at that, and you're just saying, gulp, right? They'd seen a lot of signs already. But still, to walk through that water took some amazing faith. But where were they? They were trapped, right? Death was imminent. The Egyptian army was bearing on them. And remember, they don't have any weapons. What did they have? They were slaves marching out of Egypt. So here they are. Death is imminent. God rescues them, and the next day, it's all gone. Egyptians are all gone. Don't we get like that sometimes? Or don't we experience that sometimes? Don't we get so worked up over something that there's just no way out of it? There's nothing that's gonna fix this, we might say to ourselves. And the next day, or very soon, there's peace again. Because God gets us through it, doesn't he? I heard this, and I wanted to put it somewhere, and I'm going to say it now. If we really knew how great it was on the other side, we probably wouldn't look both ways before we crossed the street. Why would the Egyptians pursue them afterwards? Sounds so stupid to do. Why would they trust in the parted waters? Well, I have a theory. The devil hates God, and the devil is the god of unbelievers of this world. And so men hate God, and they hate his people. And they lose their minds and hatred and this is how persecutions happen persecutions don't come from That don't come from an individual it's a group of people deciding that these Christians are really bad people we need to get rid of them and So they come in numbers and persecutions and they lose their minds and hatred and they do awful sometimes awful things and Rage over reason. Author of Hebrews doesn't mention the 40 years in the desert at all. Skips right to Jericho. Jericho is an outpost city. It's not far from the Jordan, which they had crossed in entering the land. It's small enough for an army to walk around seven times in one day. So I was considering, there's a loop, a couple of streets around my house, and I could probably walk around that loop in maybe a three mile. It's not small, but you could walk around it in seven times in a day. So it's not huge. and their great defense. Why didn't the people of Jericho go to meet Israel as they were coming with no weapons? Why didn't they come out and meet them? Why did they stay inside their walled city? Rahab gives us the reason. But they were trusting in their walled city, weren't they? Right? So what do they do? Here come the Israelites, no real weapons, marching around the city. So they're watching them from the wall, marching around the city. What are these guys doing? They're mocking them, right? The army is, whatever they have, they're vulnerable. They could, I don't know, they could have been throwing stones or arrows, shooting arrows down around them. I don't know if they wanted to. The Ark was vulnerable. They had the Ark with them. And they're mocking them. But God loves to do things by small and contemptible means. that his own power be made glorious. It seems ridiculous, but God said to do it, right? This is how the world mocks us for praying. This sounds, seems ridiculous. Go ahead and go to your relative's house who is unbelieving. And oftentimes, sometimes they ask us to pray, but sometimes they don't. And you feel funny, don't you? You feel like your prayer is going to be, you want your prayer to be evangelistic. You want your prayer to point them to God and to point them to faith in God. And they're oftentimes sitting there twiddling their thumbs, opening their eyes, thinking about something else, what they're going to eat, whatever. They think you're ridiculous. But does God direct us to pray? Right? Faith makes use and embraces divinely prescribed means. Sometimes when like the Israelites were probably being mocked as they marched around Jericho Sometimes you have to shut your ears to these things It is faith and only faith that will carry us through all difficulties and oppositions that we need it is faith and only faith and And it says the walls fell down another way, that the word means that they fell violently. It's a word for laying prostrate, all except Rahab's wall. I hope you see that these examples that the author is giving us are becoming more practical as they go. None of us, like Abraham, were told to move to a place and dwell in tents. We don't have stone walls or cities to destroy, but the same faith is necessary of us, as Joshua, to battle strongholds, principalities, angry people, daily needs. I want us to go to Joshua chapter 2 and read Rahab's account. Starting with verse 1. And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies saying, Go view the land, especially Jericho. And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land. Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab saying, Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out the land. But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, true, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. First lie. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. Second lie. I do not know where the men went pursue them quickly for you will overtake them misleading but she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stocks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof so the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords and the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone up before the men lay down she came up to them on the roof and said to the men I know that the Lord has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen upon us. That's why they didn't come out of Jericho. And that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan. So to Sihon and Og whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted. And there was no spirit left in any man because of you." Now listen to her profession. For the Lord your God, he is the God in the heavens above and on the earth. She had believed before they even got there. One believer in the city of Jericho. She professed her faith as she had opportunity. Now, all the people of Jericho heard these things that she mentioned, but only she came to faith, and she risked all and left all. She is the first non-Jew mentioned here. To Rahab's house? To Rahab's house? Yeah. Well, they went to a convert. They went to the only convert in the land And what a prime example of the mercy of God coming to a sinner, to a prostitute. Well, let's read verses 32 through 38. What more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, and David, and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves. You see the progression here? From from Abraham, you see God delivers him. So I'm going to bless you. He dies a ripe old age and many others successively. I also found it very interesting that after Abraham's big test to sacrifice Isaac, there's no more tests. They come to his life or recorded. They stood for God in the face of martyrdom and in things in between All of these people had flaws in their lives they had sins in their lives, but if you notice God doesn't mention any of them In this chapter, they're not mentioned The only negative connotation would be the Rahab still called a harlot So what about Gideon? The Midianites were oppressing Israel, and Gideon is out there beating wheat. God comes to him. He says, the Lord is with you. And Gideon says, but I'm weak. God says, go save Israel by your hand. Show me a sign. He was reluctant, but he obeyed, and he destroyed. First of all, he destroyed his father's idols. But when did he do it? He did it at night, right? Then he calls Israel out to fight the Midianites. And he says to God, can you show me one more sign? Can you give me the fleece sign? And so what does God do with him? Does he allow him to take the whole army of Israel to fight the Midianites? No. He pairs them down to 300. And then he says, go be victorious with 300. But he still had to go and spy on the camp to be assured. He still went and had to go listen and hear that they were afraid of him, right? Does this comfort you that Gideon had all these... He was worried, he needed reassurance all the time. Does this not comfort you? Does it remind you of yourself? Barack said to Deborah, if you'll go with me, I'll go. But if you will not go with me, I will not go. So he went, and he was victorious, but Deborah got the credit. And Samson, our most unlikely judge, right? You know, if you read the account of Samson, we all know what he did, right? First, he's, let's see, what's the order? First, he took a wife from the Philistines, which was a no-no. lost her then he then he takes a harlot and then he's hanging with Delilah right I don't think did he marry Delilah I don't think so so Samson Samson he's mentioned here in this hall of faith he's carnal he's rash he's he's impetuous And the only thing you read of his account is two prayers. You know, he's mighty in battle, but the only things that he does is he, once he prays, he says, God, I've fought this great battle. I'm going to die if I don't get some water. So he prays for asking for something to drink. And then he prays for God to avenge him when he tears down the pillars and kills how many thousand? 20,000? Those were his prayers. Yeah. He is called a man of faith. I have this quote. God approves of faith so much that he even blots out sin. God sees the cup is half full. But whatever is in the cup is grace anyway. Grace often finds the most unlikely people and does great things by them. Think of John Newton, the slave trader. Jephthah was the son of a prostitute. He was a Gileadite from the tribe of Manasseh. And because he was the son of a prostitute, he had no inheritance. And he fled. He fled his people. But the Ammonites came and made war on Israel. And so they called Jephthah. Jephthah was the known best warrior they could think of. And they say, come help us. And it was the conversation between the the representative of the media night the Ammonites. He's saying, you guys took our land. So what happens was the Ammonites, Israel was passing through, and they weren't going to do battle with them. But the Ammonites says, no, we're going to fight you. So they destroyed them, and they took their land. And so Jephthah stands up to them. He says, you took our land. He says, God gave it to us when you attacked us. But then he makes that foolish vow and ends up sacrificing his daughter after the victory. In every saint, there's always to be found something reprehensible. Nevertheless, through faith, though faith be imperfect and incomplete, it doesn't cease to be approved by God. Calvin. David's life is too long to talk about. It's a lesson in itself. But David, was he not an unlikely person to be called, right? The last son to be called? What, this guy, the sheep herder? David is a blazing example of the zeal of God. But we see his faults, too, don't we? We see his adultery, his murder, his counting. of the army, his many wives and concubines. Samuel, can you find anything wrong with Samuel? He was faithful, wasn't he? And he's mentioned here. But he wasn't such a great dad, was he? His sons didn't come to the top. We ask ourselves, how can God use me when I'm such a sin? And we get comfort when we read these. All these people are mentioned, have glaring faults. Abraham and Isaac, they lied about their wives. Jacob stole his brother's birthright. Joseph was just ornery, bragging of his dreams. Moses is a murderer, and other things. Rahab's prostitution, Gideon's doubts. Jacob and Rebekah are not to be justified for their deceiving Isaac, but God worked anyway. And I even heard somebody say, and I don't know if I agree with this, that Rahab shouldn't have lied. But you know what? If you're hiding somebody that people want to kill and you lie, I could live with that. I could live with that. So many areas of life, this is true. You were afraid and you were apprehensive to fill in the blank. But afterwards, it became old hat. When I considered trusting Christ, I remember I remember the days leading up to becoming a Christian to to confessing my faith in Christ to say, I want him to be my savior. I remember thinking about what will he have me do? Where will he have me go? What will I be giving up? I thought of all those things. My point is it's our duty to be reasoning down our doubts and fears by the consideration of the power of God. We have to go to faith. If these men and women can demonstrate that faith pleases God, then such faith is within our reach also. God could use even you. God uses the weak to highlight His own might, and faith embraces this. This is an interesting thought. Faith is not always about what God will do, but often in what He might do, right? We pray, we don't know how God is going to answer, but we know that He can. It's about what He might do. Jonathan illustrates this for us in 1 Samuel. Oh, I'm sorry, this is... I guess I must have given this the wrong reference. This is Shadrach. If this be so, if we're going to go in the furnace, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace. And he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Another good quote, true faith gives truest courage and patience as it discerns the strength of God and thereby the weakness of his enemies. Though we cannot see or understand the way whereby God might accomplish what he promised, this can often be the very thing that faith requires of us that instant. I've got a lot of quotes, and I'm going to read them to you. I'm going to continue. Psalm 105. When they were few in number of little account and sojourners in it, wandering from nation to nation from one kingdom to another people, he allowed no one to oppress them. He rebuked kings on their account, saying, touch not my anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm. Nobody can harm you unless God allows that. And here's Jonathan's quote. He said to the young man with him carrying his armor, So these are some thoughts on faith. Faith is imperfect. We don't necessarily expect perfect faith. We're human. We're flesh, right? Faith is imperfect, just as we see in these examples. Our faith is imperfect. Faith expects little from the world. Think about Abraham, right? Faith trusts God for the outcome. Faith has to be patient. Faith steadfastly clings to God under life's discouragements. Faith may necessarily take you to martyrdom. Faith is a gift. It's a gift for Jacob, we read in Romans 9, and it's a gift for everyone else. Faith resigns one's own will. The grace of faith is the strength of the soul for great service. So the church continues to live on promises, just like these people mentioned. We continue to look on promises and when we look beyond this world, that promise of of being with God face to face. Faith looks on heaven as the country of believers. Heaven is at the bottom of the size and grounds of all believers. It is the glory of faith to compose the soul in the midst of swans and worship. I have a quote from Romans chapter 4, which is like a commentary on this. In hope he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. And that is why faith was counted to him as righteousness, because he fully believed, was fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised. but the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. The world was not worthy of them, and the world is not worthy of you, Christian. I have some questions for you. Does your faith inspire you to obey even when it seems you are throwing everything away? Young people, boyfriend or girlfriend, who is unbelieving. Does your faith inspire you to obey even when it seems you're throwing everything away? Does your faith push you to trust what he says will happen even when it seems impossible? Is there anything so great or difficult, any discouragement from our unworthiness by sin or opposition against us that should hinder us from exercising faith in all things that come our way? And back to my opening question, is it possible to get to a point where faith in the unseen God and his promises is so natural that you don't have to work through every scenario? I'm going to open it up for any comments you'd like to make. Because you're all people of faith, I'm sure you have many stories. which you already said, but I think it's a pretty remarkable comment that Moses, which of course I can't, oh, there it is, verse 26, is that he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. So just look at it, the scripture tells us that Moses was considering the reproach of Christ, you know, what, hundreds, thousands of years before Christ. Obviously, maybe in the sense of the Messiah, I've just been in a season maybe it's since I got out of the military because the military you know your paycheck is within a penny the same every two weeks. You don't have to decide to move they tell you you're moving. So a lot of those big life decisions and kind of things were just there and since I've gotten out. All that to say, I feel like I'm more in a phase of worrying about the future that I don't remember that I used to as much. Also, maybe just with trials and things that have been happening with my kids, I feel like we kind of had a sweet season with our kids where everything's just clicking along. And then there's been so all that to say is, you know, if Moses can consider the reproach of Christ with no New Testament. You know, I feel I'm thankful for this because I feel like I do have weak faith. But I'm not able to even in a scenario where I can see 8 to 12 possible OK outcomes. I still worry about it. Just little stuff right during the day during the week. And part of that maybe is because I'm more worried about it coming out the way I want than trusting the Lord too. So there's kind of two facets there, right? Do I trust the Lord for the outcome that he wants? And do I just trust the Lord at all for, you know, like you said, the not even looking before I cross the street? to die is game, so. Just, yeah. There's a man in the crucible. I just cobbled together some thoughts. Great, great topic and a great part of scripture. on a central theme, probably the central theme of the New Covenant faith. But we walk by faith, but sight helps. You were speaking about how they're looking at walls of water, like I have to walk into that. And some of us have greater faith than others, right? I think that the ones that were first to step foot probably had great faith. Yeah, but then they start to see them walking through. And it probably was an encouragement to them. And that's a good thing, right? God was giving those examples. And then we see in the next chapter, we will see in the next chapter, we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. So we have this to build our faiths. And it's not like cheating. It's not a bad thing. He's given us these examples to build our faith. So wherever our faith is, look at the ones that have gone before us and follow them. rambling points, but like I said, I had cobbled together some things. Your thing on Rahab lying, yeah, I absolutely believe it was justified because it was impossible for her to not lie, right? They came to her and they asked her, so the only thing that she could have done, like, do you know where they are? Well, she really hadn't asked me that. Yeah, I do. So she had to, and she did it in faith, and she knew that the Lord was God, so I absolutely believe that was righteous. And great thought that you gave us about while what we're doing, it looks foolish in the eyes of the world. Yeah, army just marching around a city. Do these guys have any idea what warfare is? I mean, what are you doing, right? But I think that is, tied into, I think it was like Proverbs 29 or something, but the fear of man brings a snare. If you're looking at what people are thinking, your eyes are off Christ, and you're looking at the problem, you're looking at what the thoughts are from an unbelieving world. Why would we esteem what they value as any bearing on what we're doing? We're following divine orders from our sovereign. And so I think that if we keep our eyes on Christ, we're seeing that we're doing the most honorable thing that we can be doing. Who cares what it looks like? We're following orders from them. And I would say we redirect our eyes on Christ because we actually do have to work through that. You know, we don't start with extremely bold faith. We have some faith. And Pastor Boone used to say, faith is like a muscle. You have to use it to keep it or to strengthen it. And then we have, as we live and he proves himself over and over again in our lives, we have our own personal great cloud witness, don't we? We can remember what he's done. We've got a cloud of witnesses right here. Amen And the last point was faith that faith without works is dead you had mentioned Abraham and Isaac Abraham absolutely was willing to follow through with it and when we look at the world's idea of what faith is like Oh, well, you just believe and that's it. Yeah. No, he believed to the point of raising a knife to his son's heart and I when you actually believe you are going to follow through. And in this case, he stayed his hand. And yeah, pop reference. So Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. on the faith of, the bridge of faith, I think is what it was, right? I mean, you gotta have faith in order to step out on something where normally your experiences, your knowledge of physics, you're gonna die, right? But if he didn't actually believe, he wouldn't have stepped forward. But yeah, that's hopefully relevant. Good thoughts. My comment is similar. I also wanted to bring a defense of Rahab and her telling a lie because I think that we tend to look at things, especially in the free and safe society that we live in, that we're not fighting evil and wickedness and life and death on a daily basis. And I think that's kind of like a first country, first world problem. When the Lord calls us to be warriors, then when we say, how can the Lord save us from this? And then he provides the means. Sometimes the means are to do in obedience and in faith that thing that is the fighting evil, where it is. So that reminds me of Gideon when he was choosing his 300 and he chose, he said, don't choose the ones that are putting their head down in the water to get a drink but lifting the water up to their mouth so that they could keep their eyes up, you know, to be alert. And also the girls and I are reading through Judges and J.L. who lies to Cicera and convinces him to come into her tent and she kills him by driving a stake through his head. I think that in some ways, life is not like a movie. There's not this magical, perfect way that we're going to fight evil and it's all going to get buttoned up in the end. I'm sure there are people undercover across the world that are lying and doing deceitful things that out of context would look bad and maybe they're trying to get somebody out of human trafficking. Maybe they're trying to save somebody. So, but if you, you know if you're doing something wrong. You know if you're doing it for the glory of God in order to do God's purpose or if you're doing it for bad. And God knows. Now, other people in context, you know, sometimes warriors just, they have to be strong and they have to be like, you can't understand this right now, but this is, this is what I'm doing. and so anyway I just thought that sometimes we can fall into a it's almost like the Pharisees calling out Jesus on performing miracles on the Sabbath it's it's like okay you know legalism can or nitpicking and everything can go too far when there's a greater evil that you're fighting so I just want to say that in contrast Rahab lied to protect others Jacob and Rebecca lied for personal gain. So I read The Hiding Place when I was young and was really influenced by the tin booms. And I think it was Betsy, or Betty, she was very much like, never, never, never tell a lie. So when the Nazis came looking for the Jews, they were hidden in a potato cellar underneath the floor. And she would not lie. And so they came and asked her and she said, they're under the table. And the Nazis got so frustrated. They just thought she was messing around with them. And that, growing up, I was like, see, you never, never, never tell a lie. And then as Josh had a different perspective, especially when we look at the midwives, and they lie to Pharaoh, and it says God bless them for that. After you become a parent, or if you really honestly look at yourself, if you tend towards a pharisaical, righteous mindset like I do, you can tell the truth and still try to deceive your parents. And so that kind of, I remember a mother of a middle schooler told me, my kids can tell me the truth, but they know they're not giving me the information I'm looking for, and that's not honest. And it just made me realize, like, that's what Betsy was doing. And yet... I think behind that was, her heart was to do the right thing before the Lord, right? And so was Rahab. So God looks at the heart, and whether we come down on the side like Betsy, or we come down on the side like Rahab or the midwives, we have a sovereign God over all of that, right? Which is really what you were getting at in Sunday school. So, anyway. Secondly, I was just gonna say, you were talking about Gideon, and one thing, that has stood out to me about Gideon that I've been telling Josh over the last few years is We usually don't look at this, but the first thing God calls Gideon to do is to tear down the idols of his father. And he has to, and he's so afraid to do this that in the middle of the night, he gets up and he obliterates these idols. And his dad was like a big, I mean, this is the town altar. But before Gideon stood up against the enemies of God, he had to stand up against his own family. And I would submit that that was more terrifying. That once you can stand up and draw the lines in your own family, then everybody else can come at you and let them do their worst because it's already hit you at the hardest spot. And I think if you step back and look, you see that even with Jesus. I mean, there's a point where Jesus's mother and brothers come and they're like, you have lost your mind. You have to come home. And he just looks around and he says, this is my mother and sister and brother, whoever hears the will of God and does it. You know for us we want to do great things and I think a lot of time the Lord's just saying just Just right where you are. It was a good reminder for me this morning my unbelieving brother called me last night and he's gonna come to our house and it's just gonna be the little things the tension over praying at meals which you know, we had to have a conversation about that a few years back and that was hard and but those are the things where we draw a line and in hope, against hope, that they'll see the line and eventually say, I want to go over there with you. I want to go on the other side. You reminded me how God has not only given us faith, but he gives us opportunities to exercise it. And he wants us to. He absolutely wants us to. and not try to put it on cruise control and just cruise on out. He always gives us opportunities, instances where he calls us to faith. Yeah, why is God doing this to me? I want you to exercise faith in him He wants to show you how good a God and how great a God he is And you wouldn't understand that you wouldn't you wouldn't even know of your faith unless it was tested You wouldn't you wouldn't know how strong your faith is has to be tested All right, let's close. We're a little bit over. Father, we thank you again for this time. We thank you for your wonderful word. And Lord, thank you for our discussion online. That was an interesting turn. Lord, we just bless your name for that knowing that though you give us trials, though you allow things to come into our lives that we would not particularly ask for, Lord, you are also the God who saves us from these things and ultimately saves us completely. We thank you for your loving kindness, your steadfast love to your people. And thank you for this time. In Jesus name. Amen.