So Romans 1, verses 16 and 17. Let us pray. Father, we thank you and praise you, God, for all that you do. We pray that your watch over us helps serve you, Lord. Thank you for your goodness and your blessings. Pray that you just help us, Father, through this message, Lord, to be stirred, Father, to trust you more in our lives, to have the faith that we ought to, Lord, when putting our trust in you. And bother to live by that faith we thank you God for all these things we ask in your son Jesus name All right, JP. I don't know if those speakers own but maybe we can drop those out It's not too much of a headache on you because I got some kind of feedback here, but it's not this one I don't think if it is you can just mute the monitor you can try that But Romans chapter 1 verse number 17 is one of many verses that quotes Habakkuk where we're told that the just shall live by his faith. It's actually one of your more quoted verses going into the New Testament. Now, truth be told, many verses from the Old Testament are quoted that you don't even realize it. There's many, many verses wherein Jesus is quoting directly from someone like Jeremiah For example, when he says that they made God's house into a den of thieves, he's directly quoting Jeremiah in that passage. You have most of what Paul writes as quotes from the Old Testament. However, this one I think is more commonly known probably because of the fact that it's presented to you like a quote many times, that he's taking from what is said that the just shall live by his faith. So, saying that, I want to go back and give you slightly what we've talked about as a refresher before we get into this, that verse 16 was Paul talking about not being ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God and the salvation. And then we begin the idea of verse 17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. So the idea of where the righteousness of God is revealed to us is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. You're okay at this point. I don't want you back there panicking and worrying the whole time. But where the Gospel is revealed to us, the place where we have the ability, I'm sorry, the place where we have the ability to see the righteousness of God revealed to us is the Gospel. And to simplify the message we last preached on that, what that looks like is this. that if you want to see God's righteousness, look at God who refused to break His own law, who refused to ignore His own commandments, and took the punishment upon Himself so that He could pay for our sins, that He might be just and the justifier of those who believe. That's where you can see more than anywhere else God's righteousness. Because he could have been an unjust judge and said, well, we're just going to look past this one and let you go, and we're not going to punish it. He could have said, well, you know, if it's going to cost my son his life, then maybe we can dial back the punishment a little bit. Maybe lying is not worth the lake of fire after all. But God said that's how evil sin is to Him, and that's how much it deserves to be punished. And even if He has to take the punishment for it, it's still worth that much. And He wasn't willing to budge or change it in any way. He wasn't willing to twist the rules for Himself. But instead, He did what was right, even when it meant taking the ultimate level of punishment upon Himself to pay for our sins. So the righteousness of God is revealed to us through the gospel, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the scriptures. It also shows you His righteousness because it allows you to see that God fulfills His promises all the way back from the Old Testament through to the New. He's never missed a promise. He's never lied about one. So when you start looking at the gospel a little more deeply, you start to see just how righteous our God really is, how that He will never do that which is wrong. So then what's introduced to us in the last half of the verse, which is where we are now, is the idea of faith and living by faith. And I'll be honest, we've talked about faith so much in the past year that I know that when I announce the title of a message has something to do with faith, that there's going to be some of you who feel like, okay, well, I've heard everything there is to say about that. I mean, we spent, again, a year of study. I mean, it was from March till the end of the year, but a year for our study in Hebrews 11 talking about faith. So I do understand that for some of you who are part of those services that you feel like you've heard what is there to be said. But I still believe that there's some things here left to challenge you. And I'll admit that some of what I say in the beginning will be simplistic. But I'm laying that foundation so we get to the things that can challenge you. So don't tune me out just because you feel like you've heard some of this stuff already before. I'll be honest, some of this stuff I didn't even write down the full verse reference on my paper because I've heard a lot of this before. I've preached it a lot myself. So I'll try to keep it going forward on that part. So when he mentions to us going from faith to faith, let's look at verse 17 again. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. So he says that through the gospel we see God's righteousness and that righteousness takes us from faith to faith. Now, in Romans, we're given a glimpse of what that looks like. In fact, I think we read this passage when we preached on the first half of Romans 117. But if you'll look with me to Romans 3, verse number 21, I want you to see something. It says, But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. So this is very clearly referencing the same idea of verse 17. He's talking about how God's righteousness is brought to us by faith in Christ and revealed to us by faith in Christ. So if I can take this idea, someone who doesn't really believe God, who comes to the Bible as skeptic, they're going to hear the story of the cross and see a very cruel God who's punishing His Son for no reason. But those of us who know the Bible, who see the Bible, we can see the righteousness of God in the cross because we see again that there is no double standard with God, there's no hypocrisy in His judgment. But we also see His righteousness in that He's willing to save just as He said He would, whosoever will call upon Him. But you also see an introduction here to the fact that there are different types of faith. And I explained this the other week when we were talking about faith as part of the whole armor of God, that you can put your faith in a lot of things. So that's one idea of what can be meant by this. I mean, the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So we know where faith comes from, that faith is given to us because we read God's Word and we trust it. And the more we read it, the more we trust it, the more we have faith in Him. It's natural. Saving faith comes from the Bible because where else would you get it from? Like, what other book has the ability to teach you how to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ other than the Bible or some book that is quoting directly from the Bible? You understand that it's natural that saving faith would come from the Word of God. And not to try to go back over something we just preached a few weeks ago all over again, but just to make sure you understand that principle that anything you believe that you have not seen with your eyes, you believe it because you got it from some book. You got it from somewhere, somebody. Nowadays, it's not necessarily a book. Maybe you got it from a post on Facebook where they told you that, well, you know, they're lying to you about all this stuff, and this is the truth, and you chose to believe them, that everybody else is lying, because obviously, that person on the Internet's not lying. It's everybody else on the Internet that's lying. You understand that you're choosing to believe one liar or the other. When you open your Facebook and you open YouTube, you open whatever websites you go to and you pick which theory you want to subscribe to, you're just picking which one you want to put your faith in. And the more you study it and the more they give you their evidence, and of course you're getting their side of the story, you're not getting another one, you start to believe it because, oh, yeah, I noticed that that doesn't look right. And you start to buy into it and you start to subscribe to all of that stuff more and more. Because your faith in that comes by hearing, and it comes by hearing what they're teaching, their word, not the word of God, but their word. And so that's the way it works for anything. The people who are in this country are fully subscribed to evolution, and that's their religion, that's their theology, that's what they give to every day. They base their view of the world upon that. It's because they learned it in a book. There is no observable evidence of it in the world around them. They've never seen it with their eyes. It's entirely believed by faith. They just assumed that the scientists who wrote stuff down in a book actually were telling the truth and did their research, and that as men, they did not corrupt or twist anything to promote their personal agendas. There's people who believe every cult in the world do the same thing. They pick up the Book of Mormon and this guy who was a professional con artist and trickster and charlatan and all this stuff for his entire life who suddenly says that an angel gave me a golden tablet but nobody's allowed to see it. And you're not allowed to ask me questions about it either. You just have to let me marry all of your daughters and not just one and all this other crazy stuff I want to do. But don't ask me any questions now. They just assumed that person was telling them the truth, when any normal-brained person could obviously tell that he was still a con artist and a trickster. He just failed in his other places, so he picked another method. It's also ironic that when you look at what Joseph Smith did with the Mormons, it's almost identical to what Muhammad did with the Muslims. And really, the story of how they got their tablets and stuff and how they got everything, it's almost identical. Two parts of the world very far apart from each other, time difference not dramatically far apart. And yet they have pretty much the same lie sold to different people and people buy it. Why? Because they read it and they assumed that whoever wrote that down was telling the truth and they believed them. Now, they tell you that you're foolish because you believe your Bible because somebody wrote it down, you take them at the word, you believe them. But the difference between the Bible and what I'm talking about is that I can put mine to the test and I cannot find anything wrong with it. I can pick up my Bible and I won't find a contradiction. I can pick up any other religious text in the entire world and I will find a multitude of contradictions. In fact, in the Quran I will find a verse explaining to me that it's allowed to have contradictions because that's because you weren't smart enough to understand so he told you it wrong the first time and then corrected it later because now you can understand better. Or maybe he just didn't understand it himself at that time, so he had to change it later on. But my point is that the Bible stands separate from them as the book that we choose to put our faith in, because unlike those texts, the Bible can be tested and found faithful. The same book you learn from in school, you cannot test it and find it faithful now. Like, I mean, all of you who are out of high school, you've went on in your life, you're studying university, or you're in your field of work, the book that you were educated from is no longer in print, it is thrown away, rotting away somewhere, being recycled for paper again, because they realized a great portion of what was in there is not true, or they just realized that we need to sell another book, we need more money, and so we need to change something and make a new edition so that we can get some more money. And so they took your tax dollars to buy another book that was pretty much the same as the other one. One way or the other, you understand that the agenda was not the truth, and it's not testable or observable or can it be found to be faithful because so much of what's in it we've known to be lies, especially in regards to evolution. So much of what you know, and I'm setting this because next month we'll get back into some of these ideas very strongly. because that's where the chapter is going. But you understand that so much of what is taught to you throughout school concerning evolution is, we've known it to be a lie for more than a hundred years. Like that picture that you've seen over and over again of how that the embryo of a human, the baby in the womb, looks just like the embryo of a horse, you know, the baby horse in the womb. And they tell you that, see, we all start off the same and there's gills here on the neck and all of that. We've known for a very, very long time, about a hundred years, that that was false. We've known that that's not true, that those are not gills. Those are fat pockets on the neck that are used to develop your ear as things spread out and go in place. And it has nothing to do with breathing water in the womb because you're a descendant of a fish. But yet, that's still in most science books in the world today. And so is that picture, even though the man who drew the picture admitted that he intentionally drew the baby, the human baby, to look like the horse baby. It's not what they actually look like. He just drew it that way because it further proved his belief that we were closely related to them. So he admitted he's a liar. We know he's a liar, but it helps sell the lie, so we keep it in the books. So my point to you, and I don't want to get, again, sidetracked on this, because it's not really the point of my message, that stuff, but my point is that everybody believes something. They've chosen to put their faith in it, and it's not something that they have seen. Again, if you've seen it, it's not faith. It's something you've observed it with your eyes. It's not faith anymore. But everybody has religious systems they subscribe to that they, by faith, believe this to be true. Whether it's the belief that all this is here by accident, whether it's the belief that Muhammad actually was a genuine guy and he wasn't just trying to manipulate people, whether it's the belief that the Catholic Church is actually right and they're not a perversion of the truth, but they actually are the Church. Whatever it is you believe, everybody believes something, whether it's found in fact or whether it's testable or found faithful or not, they believe it. The difference between you and them is you choose to put your faith in a book that, for as long as it has existed, nobody can find any fault in it and nobody can find any contradictions. It has proven faithful at every test it has ever been put to. There's nothing like it. And so we get our faith in God from there. We have the Word of God, we read it, and the more we read it, the more we see just how amazing it is, and through it we see how amazing our God is. And so we learn to trust Him more. And while you may not have a moment in your life wherein you have stood before a giant in the valley and hit him in the head with a rock and he fell down dead, you may not have had the Red Sea open in part for you to cross over, you may not have had such high highs as what we see some people having in the Bible, you have seen God's evident fingerprints at work in your life. You've seen Him doing things, and you believe it's Him doing those things, and so through the Bible, through His work in your life, your faith increases. And that's where you have to understand that there are different kinds of faith. That's actually the point of James chapter 2, which I won't turn to read. You know the passage. It's where he's talking about the difference between a faith without works and a faith with works, the difference between a living faith and a dead faith. And one of the most amazing statements in the passage is when he says, "...thou believest thou doest well, so do the devils believe and tremble." So he's talking about those fallen angels, and he says they also believe that there's a God. They just don't believe that He's the God that He says He is. And what I mean by that is if you truly within your heart believe that He is the all-powerful, self-existing Creator that no one could ever rival or be equal with Him, you would not look at Him and say, I will ascend and be as the Most High. You will not look at Him and say that I could lead an army of angels and overtake Him and I can be as a God myself. You see, Lucifer, who stood in His presence, who saw the full glory of God, who knew He existed, so it wasn't a matter of faith. obviously didn't have much faith in who He really was as God. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to be so lifted up in pride that you would think that I can be Him. You see, there was a lack of faith there. So it's a type of faith, but it's not the kind of faith that would have you serve God or the kind of faith that would have you live for God. And that's where I say that you have to understand with people the same thing can be true. You know people who believe that there is a God somewhere in like their heart. Like if you ask them, you see this all the time with door knocking. You'll ask somebody, are you a Christian? They'll say, yeah, yeah, I'm a Christian. And you say, okay, well, do you know you're going to heaven? Well, no, I don't really know that. They say, well, do you believe there's a God? Because that should have been included in the first question, but most people when they say they're Christian, they mean they were baptized as a baby. So, you have to get there. You don't want to be rude and just jump straight to that conclusion, but you have to get there. And so, when you ask them, do you believe there's a God, they'll say, well, you know, I don't know that I believe the Bible, but I believe that there's probably some kind of greater power out there. There's some kind of, you know, power in the universe of some kind. And when you begin talking to that person, you realize that they have some degree of faith within them. It's not a faith that can save them. It's not a faith that's going to take them to heaven. It's not a faith that's going to make them trust Christ as Savior. It's just enough for them to realize that, yeah, this doesn't make sense unless there's some kind of creator out there, so there must have been somebody governing everything. And the alternative to that is you have the people who believe that aliens who also, they can't answer where they come from, but they believe aliens come and did it because they understand scientifically there has to be a mastermind behind it because it cannot happen by accident. So that's their way is, well, there's not a God, but there's more powerful natural beings that do it. And then you have other really crazy stuff wherein we have multiple universes and we just happen to be in the one where it all got right because again, possibility can never get there by itself. So, my point is that even in those crowds, you have one belief or the other. Either you believe that we just happen to be in the one possibility where it all got right, or you believe that there's aliens who then you have to explain where they come from who did it, or you believe that there is some power out there, I just don't know who he is. Or you're like us, and you know who the power is, you know him personally, you see him working in your life every day, and you put your faith in him. But my point is that everybody has some spectrum of faith there. But for us who come to the Bible, we go from the point of believing that, okay, maybe there's a God out there, to coming to a knowledge of who He is and putting our faith in Him. But here's where I say you have to understand, there's people who know what the Bible says. Intellectually, they know that Jesus Christ died for their sins. Intellectually, they know that there is no other way to heaven. Intellectually, they know that Jesus Christ is God. They know all that stuff in their mind. but they're not willing to put their trust in that or truly believe that because they're not willing to accept the consequences that would come with it. They're not willing to accept the consequences that if Jesus Christ is God, then I have to answer to Him and I have to trust Him as my Savior, and so part of them is rejecting that. And so the point James is making in the chapter is that Yeah, I understand that maybe you believe God exists, but how much do you believe that God exists? Have you went from this faith to the next faith? What kind of faith do you have? Do you just have the kind of faith where you believe that, yeah, maybe there's a God? Or do you have the kind of faith that you believe that the Bible is true? Do you have the kind of faith that you're willing to put your trust in Jesus Christ to save you from your sins? What kind of faith do you have today? Because those are not all the same thing. There is a difference between knowing that there is a God and putting your trust in Him to save you from your sins. And the question I'm asking you right now to ask yourself is that, what kind of faith do you have? And that's the challenge James makes. In fact, the whole point of James 2 in that passage is to say that, that's fine, if you say you have faith, that's good, that's great. But I can't see it if you're not living by it. It's not evident to me if it's not being lived out within your life. All you are giving me are empty words. It'd be like a man who says that he believes God and then goes and also worships Allah and also worships all these other gods. His actions, his words say one thing, but his actions say another. And as a Christian, when you say you love God, and you believe God, and you put your trust in Christ, and yet your life is ungodly, wicked, sinful, whatever it may be, or maybe it's just half-hearted and you're not serving God the way you ought to, your actions say one thing and your words say another. And James is not saying that he's Lord over your salvation and he's going to choose based on your actions. He's just asking you to prove it to him without Him. He's asking you to show Him something that He can see that He would say, oh yeah, I see it. It's very clear that you trust God. Now, the thing is, you have to understand, you don't have to prove anything to me. You don't have to prove anything to James. James is just wanting you to take in consideration that the devils can say they believe because they believe that there's a God. They believe all of that stuff. They tremble in fear before Him. I mean, you understand that they begged Jesus to cast them into the swine because they were afraid of Him. So they know who He is, but they don't believe Him enough to bow down before Him and not rebel. And he's saying just because you believe there's a God doesn't mean you believe Him enough to bow down before Him and call on Him to save you from your sins and mean it. You have to look at yourself, and that's what James is wanting you to consider, because he's talking about mature Christianity. And he's saying a mature Christian should have the kind of faith in their life that it's lived out, that you're working outward your salvation, that your salvation is being seen evident to those around you so that they can see that, oh yeah, I believe so-and-so is saved, and not just have to say, I really have my questions about them. I really have my doubts about them. I mean, they give the right answer, but I just don't see any evidence in their life. I'm going to tell you, it's a very sad thing as a pastor that every pastor I know has a list of people who said in their church that if you were to ask them, do I believe that person is saved, they could not say yes to that question. And as people who go to their church, who sit there faithfully, some of them have made professions in the past. Some of them have been baptized and are technically members of the church. But that pastor, if you ask him, after years of watching them, has never seen any growth, never seen God do anything in their life beyond that first initial moment of saying, hey, I would like to be saved. to where he starts to doubt them because going from faith to faith should mean that you get from the point of not just a saving faith but the kind of faith you can live by. In fact, that's part of study. If you were to take the term, the just shall live by his faith and run it through the Bible and look at the different times it's being used, in Galatians when he's using it he seems to be saying that the way you have life, the way you get eternal life is by faith. So he's using it in a very different sense than how everybody else uses it. Because pretty much everybody else is saying, you just have to trust God. You just have to, you know, if you're going to go and live in this world, you're going to have to trust God as you do it. But in Galatians, Paul seems to be using it in a completely different aspect, wherein he is saying that if you are going to have life. If you're going to be given life and no longer be spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, you're going to get there by faith. And that makes sense because that's what the Bible teaches. It's just interesting that he would use this quote in a completely different light that way. Because it's truth. To get from the kind of faith wherein maybe there's a God, to where I believe the Bible's probably true, to I'm willing to put my faith in Jesus Christ You get there by growing in your faith to where you're willing to trust in Him. But the same way you had to come from the place of, I don't know if there's a God, to Jesus Christ is God and I'm willing to put my faith in Him. God expects that it doesn't just stop there. That you would continue to grow in Him and that that salvation that has been wrought within you would be lived out within your life. God expects you to not just get life by faith, but to live by faith. So that your life and everything that's in it is affected by your trust in God. First of all, by the relationship you have with him as a saved person, but then by the fact that you trust him every day. The first time that phrase is ever used is back in Habakkuk. And in Habakkuk, where it comes from is Habakkuk is struggling. He wants to believe God, but his idea of God is not lining up with what God is saying to him. And what I mean by that is Habakkuk's idea of God is that God is so holy, so righteous, that when it comes to sin, he can't even look at it. And God is talking to Habakkuk and telling him that I'm getting ready to take Nebuchadnezzar, who is an ungodly pagan king, who would have people to worship himself, and I'm going to let him march over top of Jerusalem and destroy that city to make a havoc of my people, put them in bondage, and carry them away in chains because of their sin against me. And Habakkuk is saying, God, you're too holy to look at them. How can you do that? Like, how could you use Nebuchadnezzar when you're so holy you can't even look at sin? Like, if you can't look at sin, how could you use a sinful man? And God's answer is more or less that, for me, He's a hammer, and I'll pick up a hammer even if it's dirty, and I'll swing it, and I'll use it, and when I'm done with it, I'll deal with the hammer too. He says that Nebuchadnezzar, I'm going to let him do it because I've given him the authority to run over top of my people, but when it's done and he's carried out his task, he's going to answer to me too. And you see that because Nebuchadnezzar is made to bow down for many years as an ox eating grass. You see that his son has the kingdom stripped away from him and given to the Persians. You see all of that, that God does exactly what He told Habakkuk He would do. And that's why we can trust Him. But Habakkuk in that moment was having a hard time with the kind of faith where I believe God's holy, I believe He wants to do what's right, to believing that if God says He'll do something, He'll do it. to take God at His word, the kind of faith where whatever God says, that's the truth and I will follow it wherever it leads me, where I'm willing to trust God that even if I'm getting ready to lose my land and my family is going to be put in bondage and so many of my friends may be killed, the things I loved are going to be destroyed around me. that I'm willing to trust God that He knows what's best and He's doing what's right. That's a whole different kind of faith than saying, I believe that there's a God in heaven and He's holy. We sit in churches and we sing praises about the God who sits in heaven who's holy, holy, holy, and that's wonderful. But for many people, that's about the maximum level of faith you may ever possibly attain, because we're not willing to get to the place where we believe that if God is going to march our people bound in chain into Babylon as captives, that He's still a holy, righteous God who's doing what's right. He's holy when He's judging sin. He's holy when He's taking care of us and providing for us. He's holy when everything's going well and good in our lives and there's no problem and no persecution and no pain. But the moment the trials come, we start to doubt Him. We start to have fears and questions, and we're not so sure how holy He is anymore. You understand that's the kind of faith Habakkuk was struggling with. And for many, that's the kind of faith you struggle with today is that it's no problem to trust God when everything's going well. Yes, he's holy. He's righteous. He would never do anything wrong until you get a bad diagnosis, until you lose your job, until someone in your family passes away that you are depending on, until something that you are praying very hard about. He says no to it until you get some form of bad news. And then suddenly You're not so sure if He's as holy as you thought He was. You're not so sure that all things work together for good for them that love God. You know, you start to doubt and waver in those things because you don't have the kind of faith you probably think you have. Now, I'm not questioning if you have a saving faith because that's much more simple. Honestly, the kind of faith that's necessary to save you is a lot easier to attain than the one that you have to live by. Because you understand, to be saved, you just have to believe that you're a sinner and that Jesus Christ died for your sins. You have to come to Him believing that you cannot save yourself and put your faith in Him to save you. I mean, being saved is easy. It's very simple. Somebody else already did all the work. All you have to do is trust Him as the payment for your sins. So it doesn't take a great deal of faith to be saved. He says it's childlike faith. But the issue most people struggle with is not necessarily – I'm talking about for Christians, obviously – is not necessarily getting to the point where they can trust Christ. Now, Paul – I believe Paul wrote Hebrews, so let me say Paul, but if you don't believe that, that's fine. Whoever wrote Hebrews? makes the comment that when you came to your faith for salvation that it was a battle for you. That's the way he describes it I believe in Hebrews 10, I'm sorry, in the early part of the chapter. He describes it as being like a battle for you, as being like a fight for you to get to the place where you could put your trust in God. So I'm not saying that it's so easy that I don't understand why people struggle. I do understand why people struggle because it's easy for you to believe something that has no consequences on your soul. If you believe that this life is all there is and when we die it's over, then it's easy for you to believe that because then you can hide your eyes to the light. You understand that men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And the reason why saving faith is hard for anyone is because they don't want to look at the light and anything else is good for them. Christians are always accused of believing in fairy tales, but you understand every atheist, every false religion, everybody out there, their fairy tale that they're clinging to is some excuse to not have to look at the light. That's all it is for them. So I understand why they struggle with that because they don't want to look at the light, and they have the fairy tale that they cling to because they're afraid of the light. And so they won't come to the saving faith of Christ because of that. Now they think you're afraid of the dark and that's why you trust God, but the truth is they're afraid of the light, that's why they reject Him. And that's every religion, every atheism, all that out there. But honestly, the amount of faith needed to trust Christ as your Savior is not very big. It's not much. It's not a well-refined and purified faith that takes a lot of trying to get there. It cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It's a very easy faith to develop if you just open your ears to God's Word and let Him speak. The problem is they've shut their ears before He ever spoke. But when it comes to you, once you've gotten saved, to get from the place to where I believe there's a God, I believe He'll save me, I believe He's a holy God who sits in heaven and He's right and all of this, to actually taking that faith and living by it, it's a whole other step for you. And sadly, most people sitting in churches will never even try to reach it. They're not going to trust God to take care of them. They have a big enough bank account to do that. They're not going to trust God to take care of them. They're still young and healthy. They're not going to trust God to take care of them. They know how to work and provide. Their cabinets are full of food. Why on earth would they ask God to give them their daily bread? You understand that the average person sitting in a church doesn't know what it is to live by faith. They've never done it. Because they've never faced the opposition where they had to ask God to help them. They've never been in need where they had to ask God to provide. They've had everything hand-delivered on them to the point where we're spoiled. I mean, you understand, as a parent, that's one of my fears for my children, is that I come from a family where we didn't have everything, and we did go through some trials and some persecution, and we went through some hard times where we didn't always have everything that we needed, much less what we wanted, no matter how hard my parents worked. And so for me, I understand a little bit of what it is to have to trust in someone and lean on someone and not be able to help yourself. Some of you have come from far worse things than what I come from and know that even better. My wife is one of the greatest examples of that. My kids marvel at her. It's like they're hearing stories from like a fairy tale or something to them when they hear her talk about her childhood because they can't imagine what she grew up in because they've never been in a world where that exists. They've never had a taste of that. They've never tasted poverty. They've never tasted what it is to not know where your next meal is coming from. Every day of their life, they've had food on the table. And too much to the point where we have to fight with them because they're almost getting to the point of being spoiled about what they like to eat. And you realize that while I'm talking about my children, it's true for most of us sitting in this room. That we don't know, and maybe you one time in your life did know what poverty is, but you lost the taste of it so long ago you forgot about it. You've not had any major distresses in your life where you've had to call on God and trust Him to take care of you, and your faith has never been put to the test. And when it comes to living by faith tomorrow, you're probably not going to do it. You're probably going to go home to a bank account that has enough money to pay for everything you need, to cabinets that are completely full, to a life that's pretty well taken care of, being mostly healthy to where, you know, you trust the doctors to take care of the things that you can't take care of. You've got medicine for that. And you don't have to ask God to help you because you have the right pills, you have the right food, you have the right connections, you have everything you need. And you've not stopped to pray and ask God to help you because you don't need to anymore. So when did you ever learn to live by faith? And that's the problem of living in a country like this where you do have such a high standard of living, is it's wonderful. It's great that people can do that. But the downside is you live an entire lifetime never learning how to live by faith because you've never had to trust God for anything. You trust Him for salvation, but that's about all you've ever had to trust for. And I'll be honest, that's part of why it's hard for people in this country to trust Him for salvation. They don't think they need Him. Why would I need Him for a Savior if I didn't need Him for anything else is the mindset. But I'm telling you the same problem they have, that they don't see why they need a Savior because they have everything they need. Even after you're saved, you struggle with that because you've had God take care of your needs for so long, we've got spoiled and we forget that it's every breath we breathe is a gift of God. I mean, you understand that you live in a world that is borrowed from Him. Everything you have in this life is His creation. You didn't make any of it, and nobody else made it for you. They took His materials, His resources, and repurposed them to give you whatever comfort you have. There is nothing in this world created that God didn't create. I understand people can repurpose, they can use it, they can innovate and all that stuff, they can invent things, but God's the only creator. And if you're using something, you borrowed it from Him, you just forget to give Him credit for it many times. And I'm saying all of that because I want you to understand that as God's people, we are expected to live by faith. And many times it's not necessarily the size of your faith, it's just what type of faith you have. That's why when His disciples ask Him, Lord, to increase our faith. In Luke chapter 17, verse 5 and 6, they say for the Master, increase our faith. And he goes on to explain to them that if you had faith as a grain of a mustard seed, you could pray and God would move that mountain. And he goes into that parable, that idea for them to get them to understand that mustard seed is not big, it's just powerful. I mean, you understand a mustard seed is something so small that you can put it in anything and it immediately affects the flavor of it because it's not big, it's just strong. And God's saying it's not necessarily the size of your faith that's holding you back as much as it is what kind of faith that you have. Do you have the faith that can save you? That's great. You need that. That's the most important thing in this universe. But have you ever went beyond that to the kind of faith that you can live by? Because it's one thing to trust God to save you from your sins. It's another thing to wake up every day putting your life in His hands, trusting Him to take care of you, trusting Him to guide you, trusting Him to provide for you. It's one thing to say, okay, I trust you with eternity and the things beyond this life. It's another thing to say, I trust Him with the things of this life. You understand it takes a different kind of faith to do that. Now, I won't say that size of faith has nothing to do with anything because Jesus Himself references that many times. Jesus says in Matthew 8.26, as the disciples are coming to Him, He's sleeping in the bottom of the boat. They awake Him because they're afraid and say, "'Master, carest thou not that we perish?' And He says, "'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?' Can you imagine Jesus Himself being in the boat, God Himself being in the boat, and you're afraid that the boat's going to sink? I mean, just think of it. I mean, it's a ship at this point, I guess. It's bigger than a boat, but can you imagine being in any vessel wherein God Himself is laying there asleep, resting in the midst of whatever you're going through, and you're afraid that it's going to sink while God's on board? I mean, that's the strangest thing I can imagine in some ways. Like, if you believe He's God, if you believe He's who He says He is, you've seen the things He can do, why on earth do you think any storm could sink a ship that He's in? Or maybe the next time when He comes walking to them on the sea, and they're afraid, and when He comes to them in the ship, He says, again, why are you… I'm sorry, He says, "'O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou fear?' or, "'Wherefore didst thou doubt?' So two times His disciples are in a storm. One time they have His physical presence to comfort them, and the other time they have His commandment. You see, who told them to get into the boat? He did. In fact, the Bible says He constrained them. He made them get in the boat because they didn't want to. He constrained them to get in the boat, and He commanded them to go to the other side. If Jesus Christ said, go to the other side, there is not a storm upon the face of this earth that could stop them from going to the other side. but their faith wasn't big enough to understand that. If Jesus Christ was in the boat with them, there was not a storm upon the face of this earth that could sink that boat, but their faith was not big enough to understand that. They had enough faith to leave house and land and home and friend and careers, all this stuff, and follow Him, but not enough faith to trust Him when the winds were blowing and the rain was falling. That's what I'm trying to get you to understand is I don't question if you believe God today. You're sitting in a church for a reason. Now, some of you may be here because you were drug kicking and screaming. There may be some of you here who don't trust God because you're here without choice. But in this service, I highly doubt that to be the case for most anybody here. If you're here, it's because you trust God at least some portion, at least enough to ask Him to save you and at least enough to want to be in His house on a Sunday. But that's not what I'm asking you today when I talk about having the kind of faith you can live by. I'm asking you, do you have enough faith to not just leave house and land and friends and dear one and all this stuff behind to follow Him, but to not be afraid when the storms come? To not be afraid when the ship is being rocked in the midst of the sea because God gave a commandment and there is no storm that can violate His command. Because His presence is here with me and if His presence is here, I'm as safe as I'll ever be. You understand, the will of God is not the easiest place to be, but it is certainly the best place to be. God may actually be leading you to the final steps of your life. I'm not saying because you're in the center of God's will that it means that nothing bad is going to happen, that you're not going to lose something you care about, or even that you won't die. There's been a whole lot of people who followed God to the cross and were crucified. There's been a whole lot of people who followed Christ to a stake and were burned alive for their faith. So I'm not telling you that God's not going to take you places you don't want to go and places that are hard to go. For sure God will take you to those places. I'm asking you, do you trust Him that if He takes you there that that's where you need to be? Do you trust Him enough that if He says go through the storm, through the storm is where you're supposed to be? Trust Him enough that He knows what is best, the best use of your life, whether that be dying in a fire on a stake so that religious freedom can be granted to a world and the gospel can spread like a wildfire because of your sacrifice helped to provide that. Or does that mean that you get to be the missionary who carries the gospel across the world? Or does that mean that you simply get to just live for Him here in the country where everything's comfortable and easy for you? He just wants you to stop forgetting Him and trust Him tomorrow, to trust Him every day, to trust Him to take care of you. In fact, one of the other times where this ye of little faith comes up is Matthew 6 verse 30. We had it in our verse list this morning where he's talking about how God provides for the grass and the field and all these things and said that God provides for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, greater than Solomon, the wealthiest man who ever lived could provide for himself. And ask you, why are you of such little faith? Why is your faith so small that God who can clothe the flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow better than you could ever clothe yourself, God who could feed every bird upon the face of the earth, and He doesn't even feel like it's touched His bank account, God who can do all those things, and yet you're afraid because you don't know how you're going to pay for something. Now, understand, it's hard. Like, when the deadline's coming down and you don't know how you're going to do it, it's stressful. It takes years off your life sometimes going through it. I get that. But He's asking you, not me. I understand you because I'm in the same boat with you. That's why I'm not asking you, He's asking you. Why are you of little faith? Why is your faith so small that just because you don't see where the provision's coming from tomorrow, you can't trust God anymore? Why is your faith so small that just because you don't understand how the boat's getting to the other side, you can't trust God anymore? Why is it so small that even though He's here with you, He's riding with you across the sea, you're afraid that the ship is going down? Didn't you say you believe that all things work together for good for them that love God, those that He called according to His purpose? When everything was going good, you said it. You said amen to it. You probably hung it up on your wall, posted it on Facebook, all this stuff. Why is it not still true when the persecutions and the trials and the heartaches and the pains and the sickness and the suffering and all this stuff comes into your life? Why is it only true when everything is going the way you want it to? Because we don't believe God the way we think we do. That's why He asked us, why are you of such little faith? There's more, there's Matthew 16, 8, but I won't get into those. God tells us that without faith, it is impossible to please Him. You understand, you can live a life that's good by my standards and by everybody else's, but if you're not going to live by faith, you will not live a life that pleases God. He'll save your soul, He'll take care of you, but I'm asking you to consider, are you living a life that will please Him or not? Because He says without faith you cannot do that. In fact, He says anything that's not a faith is sin. As I'm quoting Hebrews 11, 6 and Romans 14, 23, but when He says anything that's not a faith is sin, the context is this. If you're doing something and you don't believe that God would have you to do that, then it's sin because you're in your heart rebelling against God. Now, what he's talking about is somebody who, let's say they're eating meat, but they don't think they have the right to eat meat. They think it would be a sin to do that, but they're doing it because the preacher said, I'm supposed to do this because it's what other Christians do. But they don't have the conscious or conviction for that. So every bite they're taking is a bite of rebellion because they don't really believe God said they can do it. And the truth is God said they can do it, but because they don't understand that and they don't know that, and they're not doing it with faith, they're doing it with doubt, they're doing it then in rebellion, it's a sin. So something that itself is not a sin became a sin to them because they didn't trust God that they were allowed to do that. What I'm saying to you is in your life, whatever you're doing, God may not be directly disappointed with the way you're living your life, but if you're doing it without faith, He is. You could be doing everything right. You're coming to church, you're reading your Bible, you're saying your prayers, you're having your devotions, you're going soul winning. I mean, the whole list, you're checking it off perfect and everything's right, but you're not trusting God and you don't believe that God's leading you and guiding you and going to take care of you and that He's going to make things work the way they are supposed to and that His will is better than your will. You don't believe all of that. And so you may be doing everything right, and there's nothing I can point out that's wrong with your life, but God says He's not pleased with it and possibly even says that it's sin because you're not doing it by faith. So what I'm telling to you today is this. You have no problem trusting doctors. Whatever advice they give you, you'll follow it. You have no problem trusting people giving you financial advice because they claim that they made money. You don't realize that they made money selling their scheme to people like you, but they claim they made money, so you trust them. You trust people on the internet because they're marketing their channel, and they're promoting their agenda, and you're just one of their cons. But hey, man, that sounded good what they said, so I trust them. You have no problem trusting any of these things. When the pilot tells you that your airplane's going to land at a certain time in a certain place, you're pretty confident that he's telling you the truth, because to the best of his knowledge, he probably is. The thing is, you're trusting men every day of your life to tell you the truth. You're trusting men to fulfill promises that they have no power to fulfill. That pilot may be amazing. He may be the best one in the whole company, but there are things that are way beyond his control that he can't really make that promise to you. If he is honest, all he can say is, I'll do my best to have you there at that time. But at the end of the day, there's things that he has no power over. But you trust him. Because after all, He hasn't crashed yet, otherwise He wouldn't be here. So you trust Him. But you understand something. You have a God who's proven faithful over and over again. There's not one thing you can find in His Word that's unfaithful, one promise that has not been kept. You cannot find one example where He was cruel or unkind. You can't find any place where what He did was not what was right. You have things you struggle with because when you read that, your human nature says, why would He do that? But then when you start looking, you'll see why He did it very plainly. And the more you read, the more trustworthy you find Him to be. And yet we struggle to trust Him from day to day to take care of us. We struggle from day to day to trust Him with our lives, to put it in His hands and let Him lead us and guide us and provide. And many times the real answer is this. We know what we want and we're afraid that what He wants isn't what we want. We know what we want. And we're afraid that if I trust it fully in His hands, He may say no to what I'm wanting. He may not lead me the direction I want to go. See, many times it's as simple as that. It's not necessarily that we don't trust Him, it's that we don't trust Him to give us what we want. But one way or another, we're struggling somewhere to trust God or else we would live by faith a lot better than what we do. So my challenge for you today is first ask yourself what kind of faith do you have? Is it the kind you can live by or is it just simply enough to get you out of hell? Now, I'm not making light of that. It's a big thing to have the saving faith. It's the most important thing you can have. But it sure would be nice if you can grow beyond that. It sure would be nice if you'd learn how to trust God from day to day with your life. But once you've asked the question what kind of faith do you have, the question is simple. It's are you living by it? Just because it's the kind of faith you can live by doesn't mean you're using it, doesn't mean you're employing it and trusting God from day to day. Are you trusting God with your life? That's the question I want you to ask. Father, we thank You and praise You, God, for all that You do. We pray that Your watch over us helps to serve You. I pray, God, that You take what's been said and done here today and use it in order to speak to the hearts of each person. I pray, Father, that you would help us, Lord, to put our faith in you and trust you, Lord, until the day where faith is made sight and we'll see you face to face. I pray, God, until then, you'd help us learn how to walk by faith and trust you with everything we have. We thank you, God, for all that you do. We ask it in your son Jesus' name. Amen.