40 Days of Faith I

Bill was going to share that testimony last weekend, and because of the change of direction on his 10th anniversary of sobriety, he felt one week it would be fine to wait, but what a wonderful trophy for God's grace he is. Would you take your outline out of your notes, return to your Bibles to Hebrews 11, and we're going to begin this morning in a new series that I'm very excited about, and more so after the last two services. Forty days of faith, we're calling it. You know, if you were to ask me to summarize North Way in two words, I could say Bill and Susie, because they represent what those two words are. It's changed lives. That's what this church is about. It really isn't about buildings and programs and property and numbers, and I know that those things are essential because they provide a platform so that we can see the power of God at work to change lives. And friends, no one changes lives like Jesus. I love that. I don't have to change your life. It's not my job. It's not Scott's. It's not Susie's. It's not Pastor John's or anyone else's. It's the job of Jesus, and he does a very good job at changing our lives. Now, a few weeks ago, I was praying about these upcoming holidays. There's so much planning that goes into it, and as you know, if you've been here any time at all, you know I'm pretty much a fanatic about celebrating holidays. You'll see we're going to get the trees up and the lights up and the shed down this week and some other things. It's looking like a... Yeah, you like it the way it is? Yeah, it has a certain... It's a picture of our lives when we come in here sometime. And I was praying about the holidays, and the Lord just reminded me. He said, you know, look up the word holiday and find out some things about it. And the etymology of the word is that it comes from the word... Think about it. Holiday comes from what? Holy days. That's right. It's not that big of a leap. Holy days. When this period of time was first inaugurated, it was to celebrate holy days. Boy, have we moved away from that, haven't we? But God said to us and said to my spirit, I want to say for those of you who are newer to these kinds of things, it doesn't mean that he hand-delivered a letter or wrote on a wall or some smoke machine started and God appeared. It wasn't that. It's just he nudged my spirit that these were to be days we set apart to be holy. Days of faith. Days when we would commit ourselves to growing and not just going through the routine of celebrating the holidays. Forty days of believing God for changing lives. Forty days when we can maybe reach another level of faith. And I want you to know, friends, I don't care how mature you are, and I know some of you are quite mature, you can go to another level of faith. God wants to take us all up a notch. And I'm excited about that because I need that. I need to go up a notch. I need to believe God for some things that I haven't seen happen in my life. And there's lots of different ways this is going to play out. I don't even want to begin to pretend to know them all. But I do know that God wants this church to be expectant. He wants us to be anticipating that he's going to move. It's not going to happen. And listen, if we just sort of say, well, you know, it's just going to be another busy season with cantatas and shoeboxes and Advent services, we'll miss it, friends. Because look what the Bible says. Second verse. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. I'm here to say Christmas trees don't please God. Shoeboxes don't please God. Parties don't please God. God's not against any of those things. But without faith, it's impossible to please him. And so may I just suggest to you that if we do nothing else, let's agree that during these holy days, we're going to grow in faith and be pleasing to God. That's what's in my heart. People will have their lives changed if we'll do that. Now, Hebrews 11, if you would turn in there in your Bible, you'd see the very first verse says this. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Let me give you a working definition. You might want to fill the blank in on this. It's going to be for six weeks we're going to use this. Here's a working definition. It's believing and obeying God's word whatever the circumstances. And that's the tough part. It's easy to believe and obey God's word when you see things happening the way you want them to. It's a whole other deal when you're expecting things to go one way and they go an entirely different way. It's a whole other thing to believe and obey God's word when the circumstances are not favorable. But we're going to look at that at some length. And if you continue through Hebrews 11, which is called by many scholars the Hall of Faith, that is where the faith of God's saints through the ages is most attested to, the name that appears at the top of the list in terms of exposure of number of verses is Abraham. We're going to look at his life today and learn from him about his faith because he's called the father of our faith in the scriptures. For some of us, it's going to be an eye-opener. For some of us, it's going to be a challenge. And for many of us, it's going to be an encouragement that we too can grow because we're going to learn some things about him. He was not perfect even though he was the father of our faith. So how does God grow faith? Well, let me give you five phases. And by the way, this is generally the exact pattern which I see happening every time. The first way you begin to grow in faith is God presents you with a crisis. Everyone say hallelujah. You're lying about that. A crisis reveals your faith. We're not excited when crises come into our lives, are we? And they can be little crises or big crises. But they shake us up. And what is true personally, by the way, is also very true corporately. What better illustration do I need than this last 10 days in our national landscape? I said last week, I've been asked, are we in a crisis? I don't know. The more we go along, the more I'm not sure. Because I will say this, the election that we have witnessed did not create a crisis. But I will tell you what it did do. It did reveal a huge divide in our nation. I feel strongly about that. It's a heartbreak. There is a huge gap in our nation, friends. That's why we're praying every night. That's why we're going to keep praying. In fact, I will tell you this. I believe more Christians have prayed sincerely for our nation in the last 10 days than in the last 10 years. There's prayer going up everywhere. I hear from pastors. You know, on the internet and television. People are concerned. And it's not because of Al Gore or George W. Bush. It's because the nation is in trouble. And people sense that. It's a crisis. Now, why does God use crisis? Well, because fundamentally, we all want to be in control. We all love to be kind of in control. Now, how many of you would admit to me this morning that you're a control freak? Look in the back again. How many of you admit to being in control? Let me see in the back. I made this observation in every service. I asked that question. Of course, we have a few people who never put their hand up for anything. And we have a few people who put their hand up for everything. So I just put those two on the side. But I also noticed, every service, that there were husbands and wives who kind of looked at each other to see which one was going to put their hand up. And where both husband and wife put their hand up, I knew there was a marriage counseling in progress right there. But the bottom line is, almost all of us have areas of our lives where we want to be in control. And here's the difficult thing. God says early on, when you come to Christ, he says, wait, that's my job. I will be Lord, L-O-R-D, which Greek word, kyrgios, means to be ruler or boss or in control. So God says, it's not your job to be in control of your life. It's my job. Your job is to trust me to be in control of your life. And that is a very difficult thing. So the Lord says, I will show you that you're not in control because I will bring things into your life that you cannot control, even though you want to control them. Whether that be that little spouse whose hand just went up, or a child that you just can't seem to control, or a job that's out of control, or a relationship that's out of control, something that you just can't control anymore. So to introduce you to a gentleman that's been in our services this weekend who, for a number of years, was doing very, very well in controlling his life. Top of his game. Leading a very successful corporation. Traveling the country, making quite a bit of money, net worth going way up. Everything seemed to be in control for him. Until he got a knock at his door and some law enforcement officials came to tell him that they had been watching his son in high school for the last several months, not just using illegal drugs, but also selling them selectively to other students. And his world came crashing down because he realized he had a situation that he couldn't fix, couldn't manipulate, and could not control. Couldn't buy his way out of it, couldn't debate his way out of it. His son was in deep trouble and had to face the consequences. God will send a crisis. Now, I want you to understand, He doesn't cause them, He doesn't, like, make you miserable. Here's what He does, and I've come to believe this is my theology of it. Crises are simply God lifting His hand of protection and allowing what's going to happen in your life, if He hadn't intervened, to go ahead and happen. Now, let's look at Abram, because if you take a look at your outline, the Lord said to Abram, and it's A-B-R-A-M, not Abraham yet, it's Abram, that's his name. That name, by the way, means exalted father. And just for the purposes of being a little more comfortable, I want to call him Big Daddy. Big Daddy Abram. He's sort of the top dog in his area. He's with his family and household, hanging out in Mesopotamia. And here's what the Lord said to him, He said, Abram, leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. Now, believing all of your familiarity, that's one thing, but I'm going to take you someplace and not tell you where. How many of you know that is not a very comfortable thing to do? How many of you would like to be told you're going to go somewhere, but not know where it is? No one likes that. We all want to have an idea. Abram, suddenly, he's in this crisis. He didn't, listen, he wasn't looking to change, he wasn't seeking God. The Lord just said, it's time for you to exit your comfort zone. And by the way, these things that God puts us in are rarely easy. They usually come in places we would least want or expect them. But they almost invariably show us that we must trust the Lord. And then God is very faithful, secondly, to give us a covenant or a promise that establishes our faith. The good news is, not just calling us out and just saying, go do this. He said, I'm going to provide some things for you. Look at the next verse. Well, let's skip down a verse, actually. Let's do this. He says, I'm sorry, Genesis 12, 7. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I will give this land. I'm going to provide something for you. I'm going to give you, I'm going to provide for you a promise that you can build your faith upon. All of us need an assurance if we're to trust the Lord. Now, I need a volunteer right now because I just want to demonstrate how this happens sort of day to day. So, let me look around here and just find someone. All right. Sir, if you'll stand up. This is totally unrehearsed. Come on down. You may not be as happy when you get down here, but I appreciate your willingness to volunteer with enthusiasm. Now, we've done this in each service and we've had different responses because people have different levels of faith and trust. And this is totally unrehearsed, so we'll have to go with this a little bit. Hey there. You're? Josh Carmichael. I know Josh, but I just wanted to know. Turn it up again, please. This is? Josh Carmichael. There he is. Hey, Josh. You're a student, right? Yes. Okay. You're a pretty big guy. Now, you don't know a lot about me. Actually, you know enough about me to know that I used to be strong like you, but now I'm just, I've had back surgery. I'm not quite as in shape as I used to be, kind of like you are. You got it all hanging over. Don't sell yourself short. Don't sell myself short. I appreciate that affirmation. I need that right now. You'll need it more in a moment. Now, what I'm going to ask you to do, Josh, is I'm going to ask you to do something where you're going to lose control for just a little bit. Is that all right? Yes. Cool. All right. Now, to help you do this, Susie's going to come and she's going to just blindfold you. Is that all right? Because you see, part of what faith is about is not being able to see. Not being able to see what's going to happen. And I know this is a little uncomfortable, but this is part of what we have to do. I'm going to put this microphone back out of the way. Now, Josh, I'm going to ask you to trust me here. I'm going to ask you to fall backwards. You're just so willing. I appreciate this. But I want you to do it without any preparation for you to hold yourself. Okay? Now, when you fall, I want to make sure that you don't just sort of slowly bend your knees down and touch one knee and sort of crumble. You understand? I want you to fall. Just like totally fall straight back. No problem, right? No problem. That's good. All right. And you're going to totally trust me. I'm not going to let you fall, Josh. But you have to go all the way down. You will trust me, won't you? I won't let you fall, Josh. Trust me. All right? Go ahead and fall, Josh. All right. Good job. Excellent. Thank you. Now, just before you sit down, was there a moment when you wondered, no, wait, did you hear anything going on? I heard you over there. You heard me going that way. And you had to be thinking, well, somebody better be back there. Is that what you were thinking? I still trust you. You still trust me. All right. That's a good answer. Thank you very much. Okay. Now, that's a basic illustration. Most of you have seen something like that. But when we were talking about it this week in preparation for the service, it does capture what God requires of us many times. Have you noticed that? The Lord will give you a promise, and you know it's him, and he says, trust me. But everything in you sees the Lord and hears the Lord walking away. And you say, where's God? I don't understand. Or his voice gets very faint. And you're thinking, well, how can he be there? And he's saying, trust him. And now, interestingly, Joshua, of the three folks that we had over the three services, he was the most trusting. He was the youngest, by the way, by about 15 years, which has something to do with it. The oldest person fell halfway back and caught themselves because they just couldn't believe that I could get back up here in time. You see, we're that way with God, though, because we want to know that he's there. We want to know that his promises are going to come through. And sometimes we just can't see him, and we sense, we hear his voice just sort of moving away, and we wonder, can I really trust God? And at that time, friends, that's specifically when we need to understand the essence of covenant. Here's what the Lord says. Go to the next verse. The Lord came to Abram in a vision. Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. He took him outside and said, Look up to the heavens and count the stars. If indeed you can count them, he said, so shall your offspring be. You see, he established this promise. The covenant of God has three parts to it. People, protection, and place. You might want to write that down. It's on your notes. People, protection, and place. If you're part of God's covenant people, you'll be part of a group of people. You'll have the protection of God, and you'll have a place in which to dwell. That's the promise of God, old and new. That is his covenant with you. And Abram's response, by the way, is simple. Look at the rest of verse 7. Back up just a little bit. He said, And so he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Abram's response to the covenant of God was to worship, to build an altar. And loved ones, I just want to say this with clarity and simplicity this morning. Worship is central to the believer's lifestyle because it refocuses the basis of why you say you believe and trust. Worship puts God back in your thoughts on the throne where he belongs. Worship reestablishes that God is in control. When you worship, you are saying, You are Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, Lord of all things, Lord of my life. You're singing, Oh, hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all. You're saying, Beautiful Savior, Wonderful Counselor. You're the risen one, heaven's champion. And you reign. You reign forevermore. Folks frequently say to me, This happened last Sunday at the new member's luncheon. They said, You know, I liked North Way at first, but I was just a little put off. Some say I was a little frightened. Some say I was a little overcome. The worship, because they say frequently, I wasn't used to that. I wasn't used to seeing people expressive. I wasn't used to seeing people lift up their hands. I wasn't used to seeing people, you know, singing with some enthusiasm. It just seemed like, Wow, that's not me. And I want you to know that we don't just worship that way because we kind of, you know, did a survey of all the different styles and thought that was the coolest one. We don't worship that way because, you know, it's just sort of how we inherited things. We made decisions based on God's word. When we started this church 19 and a half years ago, we just made a decision that we would worship the way God said to be worshipped. And he says things like, Get ready for this. Shout for joy to the Lord. All the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. I wish we could play back for you some days how glad you are when you worship. You need to realize that when you come before the Lord, it's a privilege that should be expressed even in your countenance before God. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise him. And this goes on, and I could list hundreds of scriptures. Psalm 134, Lift up your hands in a sanctuary and bless the Lord. Now, some people selectively look at scriptures like that and they say to me things like, You know, Pastor, I'm just not that kind of person. And I appreciate that, and I hear that, and believe me, I am not putting anyone down who struggles with this, because remember, I was born and spent some years in a Catholic church and ordained in the United Presbyterian Church, neither of which are known to be particularly wild. And so I had to deal with what kind of person I am. And here's the thing, friends. I am a person in progress. And God can make me be just the kind of worshipper he wants me to be. And all through the Bible, I realized that he took normal men and women like you and me and he just changed our affections a little bit. And he just took who we were and made us to be pleasing to him. And here's the great news. As I read the end of the book, when I get to the book of Revelation, I don't see a quiet time going on. I don't see people just sort of hanging around, you know, popping bonbons. It says here in Revelation 5, I looked up and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000. And they encircled the throne, that's the throne of Jesus, and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice, they sang, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. And then I heard every creature on heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them singing to him who sits on the throne. Be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever. And on and on it goes. Heaven. There's somebody who's just not going to like it there. Because your kind of people aren't going to be there. Oh, they probably will be. There's going to be a remedial zone, I think. Remedial worship on the way. Not to be confused with purgatory, which I do not believe exists. What am I saying? I'm saying this. God built an altar. Abraham built an altar to God to confirm that he trusted God. That the vision that he received was from God. And I just want to say that's an important dimension that all of us need to add to our lives and to cultivate. Because worship and obedience bring about release. Now listen, they don't guarantee it because number three in your outline, there is oftentimes following the giving of a promise a time of confusion. How many of you have gone through this experience? You've sensed God allowing something to happen in your life. You claim a promise and you pray with all your heart. And then what happens? Nothing. Right? Nothing happens. In fact, you get up for weeks and say, God, where are you? You're not listening to me. I'm praying my heart out here. Abraham tried I keep saying Abraham, but at this point it's Abram. He's still trying to get through to God. He's still trying to be heard. And he's wondering, well, why aren't things happening? He's getting older. He doesn't have a son or an heir to come up and take his place. He has opposition on all sides. What's happening inside of him is very strange. He makes the common mistake that most of us make when we get into situations of delay. He makes the two common errors. Number one, he accepts bad counsel. He accepts bad counsel. Now, who did the counsel come from that he accepted? His wife, Sarah. Don't take that personally. There's a little too much chuckling going on there. Remember, Abram had not been real stellar in his treatment of Sarah. In fact, a few chapters earlier, he'd taken Sarah when he got out of Mesopotamia and on into Egypt. He said, hey, look, just tell me you're my sister. You're kind of good looking, and maybe if they think you're my sister, they won't hassle me and try to take you away. So he's already treating her and kind of setting some bad boundaries there. But then when, years later, Sarah still has not had a child, she says to him, look, if it's not working with me, why don't you take my maidservant, Hagar? And you can help make it happen. That's the second bad thing that he does. He acts on his own wisdom after calculating this counsel. And so he goes in and has a son by Hagar, whose name is Ishmael, who was the first, if you will, of the Arabs. And so, by his own disobedience and his own efforts to help God along, Abram creates what we now know today, 4,000 years later, is the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews. It's not a good idea to take God's promises and make them happen on your own. And yet we all do this, don't we, to some degree? How many of you, for example, let's make it 21st century, how many of you have purchased something that you felt God was promising you, you purchased it before you really knew it was time to do so? How many of you struck up a relationship with someone when you really didn't have God's peace? How many of you made a move, career-wise, or physically speaking, to another location before you had confirmation from God? How many of you told someone about their need to change a particular part of their character instead of trusting God just to get the message through to them? Inevitably, you see, this kind of acting on your own or seeking counsel that fits what you need will give rise to a battle for control. And God will say, well, you know what, if you're going to keep taking control, I'll let you do it, but you're going to make a mess. On the other side of things, what happens if God would answer? The moment you whipped up a prayer, God answered it. What would you become? Boy, you'd be really pretty obnoxious, wouldn't you? Like, look at me, I can zap out a prayer and just make things happen. You'd become selfish, spoiled, sort of put in a quarter prayer and pull out whatever answer you wanted. God has a lot more at stake, friends. What is happening when nothing seems to happen? What is happening during these times of delay? I'll tell you what's happening. God is often allowing pain to grow because change is so difficult. I'll say that again. God is often allowing pain to grow because change is so difficult that we won't change until we can no longer tolerate the pain. And He's at the same time letting you know His heart, letting you shape your character after Him, bringing you to a place where you'll have a greater depth of capacity to be used as you go forward from there. That's what's happening. And what finally brings on the change, number four, is our confession. Our confession of what we're really like releases faith. Telling God what we're really like. Look what Abram did. When he was 99 years old, this is now 25 years after the promise was first received, the Lord appeared to him and said, I'll put this in. Are you done yet? Are you done trying to make this happen? He said, I am God Almighty, El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless. And I will confirm my covenant between you and me and will greatly increase your numbers. And then look what it says. Abram, Big Daddy, fell down. He gave it up. Sign of complete surrender. Now it's very important you understand. Look, it's Genesis 17. Now it's five chapters and 25 years since the first revelation. And now he finally admits who he is. I can't do it. And he falls face down. Remember, in the Old Testament, names were very important. Names always revealed character. The names of God and the names of people. We've already said Abram's name means exalted father. Which in a sense is saying, look, I'm in control here. How many of you would like to be called by your primary character flaw? How would you like to know? Hi, I'm judgmental. Nice to meet you. Greedy, how are you? Oh, there's lustful over here. There's gossip over here. Nice to see you. I'm perfect. And on we go. I'm addict. Nice to see you here. I'm indifferent. Whatever it is, we will not change until we can admit our flaw to God, to ourselves, and to someone else. It's called living in denial. Until you first do that, you will not change. Amazingly, once we begin this, I have to remind you of something. The most amazing thing is, it's this big leap for us, but it's no great wake up to God. I mean, he's not surprised when you finally say, you know what, Lord, I'm an addict. Lord, I am very critical of people all the time. That's my character flaw. God doesn't say, well, how'd that get by me? I'm not surprised. I didn't know that. The Lord knows us, dear ones. He knows us. He's just waiting for us to come to terms and confess who we are because that releases then the opportunity for faith to work. If you follow Abraham on out and you see Isaac's son, who he named Jacob, he wrestled with God about who he was. If you read Genesis 35, Jacob wrestled, and it's interesting, the Lord said, what is your name? And he said, Jacob, which means what? Deceiver, manipulator. That's what Jacob was. And the Lord said, and he wrestled, you remember, until he dislocated his hip and then he walked with the limp and he said to him, you're no longer going to be called Jacob, you're going to be called Israel, which means prince of God. He changed his name. And God, you see, delights, number five, in our conversion because then He can change our name. We admit who we are and accept His help. God changes us. And He changed Abram, Big Daddy, to Abraham, which means father of many nations. What a wonderful thing. He took him out of the role of being just on top of the pile of his own little world to being the father of many nations. God changed many people and changed their names. Sarai to Sarah. Jacob to Israel. Cephas to Peter in the New Testament. Saul, the persecutor, to Paul, the apostle. Abram to Abraham, father of many nations. And Abraham had more tests of his faith, more issues with God to work out. It doesn't stop just because you get through one or two. I want you to just think for a moment. Look at your life now. What in these 40 days of faith would God want to change about each of you? I know what He wants to work on in me and I know He wants to do some work in you. He wants to release faith and I've asked John to come and sing a song for us about what we have to know about what's going on in our hearts. You see, we can trust God if we look to His heart. Listen as John sings this and ask God to show you what in your life can change in these 40 days of faith. What difference can God make? Let's listen as John sings. God only knows.