Building a Great Life IV, A Life of Faith

He said this, that Northwestern University Wildcats may remember that just two years ago, they shocked the world of college football in 1995 when they made the Rose Bowl. The man behind the team's turnaround was Coach Gary Barnett, and he was determined to prove that kids at the Big Ten's smallest and most academically demanding school could play football. When the season began, he ordered a tournament of Rose's flag for the football building and kept a silk rose on his desk to remind everyone where they were headed. At the first meeting, place kicker Sam Valanzisi said, he told us we needed belief without evidence. And he asked them, do you know what that is? That's faith. And if you all recall, he made it to the Rose Bowl. Did they win that one? See, you'll forget who won the Super Bowl after this year, but we've built our whole lives around it. I think they did. Faith. Believing when you don't have the evidence in front of you. Now, the Christian walk needs an object, and I want you to put this down in your outline. It's very important. Life-changing faith has an object. That is faith in the grace of God as revealed in His promises. Faith in the grace of God as revealed in His promises. Now, I want to help us to see how this works, because, friends, I'm convinced that if we lay hold of this, our daily adventure, our walk with God, can take on a whole new tenor. We start expecting God rather than being on the defensive about what's going to go wrong in our lives. And I want us to use the famous three wise men of Scripture as sort of our model of men of faith. Because I believe, I know this congregation fairly well, most everyone in this place who is an abiding part of this church wants to be growing in things that please God. How many of you want to have more faith than 1998? Well, listen, would you, to how the wise men stand as an example to us. These three central characters have been known as different things throughout the years. They've been called the Magi, the wise men, the three kings, and so. I'll never forget, years ago now, about 14 years ago, Jonathan was just a little guy, and I carried him in with our other two kids into 31 Flavors, Baskin-Robbins down the McKnight Road. It was the Christmas season, there was quite a few people in there, and we walked in and looked at all the ice cream selections and so on. Over near the cash register, there were three men from Pakistan or India in their traditional garb, you got it, with headdresses on. Three. I mean, it was so weirdly coincidental. And at a quiet moment, you know how sometimes places can buzz off, sometimes it's just quiet? Jonathan, I'm holding him like this, he lifts up his hand and says, Look, Dad, these are three wise guys. There were some eyebrows lifted there. But anyhow, I want to talk about these three wise men for just a second, because, friends, I'm repeatedly reminded by a number of you that there seems to be, in the world in which you live, a constant tension in conversations in which you engage between people of faith and people of reason. And sometimes you're challenged in your faith as if somehow by... Hey, were you okay? So little is under my control, believe me. You're challenged that if you live by faith, that somehow you're using a crutch. You're a person that's... You can't make it in the real world, so you've got to find some way to sort of support yourself to get through. Remember that these wise men were not Jews. They were not people of the covenant. They were scholarly and wealthy people from Persia, which is present-day Iran. They had been studying the Jewish Torah, the law that had been scattered throughout all that part of the world when the Jews had been dispersed, when the Babylonians defeated them about 700 B.C. So these were people that... They were just students of truth. They wanted to know truth, like we talked about last week. Truth is critically important in that process. And so they headed out on a journey of faith to discover what the truth was about this revelation that this star had prompted them to pursue. And I wanted to share with you today that being a person of faith is not inconsistent with being a person of high academic and intellectual achievement. But rather, becoming a person of faith makes you a complete person in a way that a person without faith could never become, because you have learned to address the unprovable with truth that is outside of the empirical. And friends, there will never be satisfactory answers in the empirical realm for the deepest questions of our soul. You've got to understand that. Recently, a man by the name of Philip Johnson, who I would consider to be a wise man, a man who graduated in three years from Harvard University, went on to Chicago School of Law and got his degree, but then just didn't know what to do, so he went over to Europe for a while and kind of moped around and then took a teaching position at Berkeley, where he's been serving for 30 years as a law professor. Okay, I get it now. He's got some brains, okay? He was a law clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court. That's kind of a plumb position, knowing about law. About seven or eight years ago, Philip Johnson decided, you know, I'm spending my whole life here, and I'm not really making any difference at all. I'm just writing briefs and so on and so on. So I'm going to investigate something that really needs some insight, because God's given me this kind of brain power. And you know what he undertook? He undertook to understand Darwinian evolution. And those of you who keep getting intimidated by people who are always raising these questions, well, you've got an ally now who is brilliant, and he knows how to raise the question. I'm reading this book now called Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. And I just want to read one little excerpt from a review on his writing. Here's what it says. Scientists have become our priests, Johnson says, telling us how we came to be and what we can put our faith in. Our priests have certainly worked miracles. They put a man on the moon. They explode a nuclear bomb. I mean, you figure these people must know something. And, of course, they do know something, but they don't know everything that they say they know. I think the rest of society is perfectly justified in saying to the evolutionary biologist, go away and stop bothering me. We're not obligated to accept your dogma, and we're not obligated to provide another one in its place either. And that's really what it is. Friends, you can be a person of intellect. You can be a person of high academic achievement and still be a person of faith. Amen? I understand that. And don't be intimidated, and don't be put on the defensive by people who challenge you. The wise men came from the East. I want us to look and see what these wise men did in their journey of faith. Number one on your outline, faith in the promises of God can lead to perplexity. Now, what were these three wise men looking for? Well, they were looking for some sort of improvement of their life. They were seeking something better, some kind of promise that they found in these scriptures about a king that was to come and establish peace throughout the earth. And so the wise men were led by a prophecy of all things. A prophecy. Letter A. And that prophecy is found in the book of Numbers, chapter 24, verse 17. And I believe we have that on overhead. If not, I'll read it for you. Numbers 24, 17. This is very important. This is what drove them 700 miles from Persia. Here's what it says. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter. What's a scepter? It's like a sword. Will rise out of Israel. And he will crush the foreheads of Moab. And the skulls of all the sons of Tumal. A star will come out of Jacob. And a scepter will rise out of Israel. And that, along with some other prophecies in the book of Micah, led those wise men to search for this king. They make their way to Jerusalem in Judea. And I said last week, that's where they thought kings would be born. So they went to Jerusalem because it was the city of kings, the city of peace. But they couldn't find him there. And I want to submit to you, that was the first perplexity that they encountered. They went to the place where they thought the king would be, and he wasn't there. So they asked around, and finally they went to Herod. And the rabbi said this, and we read it here this morning. Well, it was prophesied that our Messiah would be born where? Where? In Bethlehem. And we talked about that last week. Oh, little town of Bethlehem. 500 people or so. And so the wise men troop off down toward Bethlehem. And can I suggest this? I bet they were perplexed because none of the leaders of the religion that they were seeking to pursue thought it worthwhile to go with them. Ever wonder why none of the rabbis joined with the wise men? No evidence that they did. Let me tell you what I think. Throughout history, even today, there is a sense in which religious people become immunized to truth. And unfortunately, there is a lot of this today in America. There are a lot of people who will fill churches on this day and on Christmas Eve and on Easter Sunday who think that they know the Bible, who think they have enough understanding that, well, you know, they have the God thing kind of figured out. But down in their hearts, there's no connection whatsoever. They're not hungering after truth. They are not earnestly seeking Him as Hebrews 11 verse 6 says. And I wonder today, friends, how many people you know that have Bible knowledge without faith in the promises of God's grace. Hear me well. Bible knowledge, and this is for those of you who have been Christians for a while and not just those of you who are maybe trying to understand Christianity, Bible knowledge without present-day faith is void of life. And you can be deceived to think that you're okay just because you have the knowledge, when in fact you're drifting farther and farther and farther from the promises of God. And I want to say some of you need to wake up in 1998 and begin to apply your faith on a daily basis to God's will for your life. I would praise your pastor. I would pray with all my heart that every person in the room, if I could have a lunch with you or a dinner or just a cup of coffee, you know, a piece of pie or something, that you could say to me, well, you know, Jay, in my life, I know faith is being applied in the area of, maybe it's serving or maybe it's teaching the children or maybe it's witnessing or maybe it's in your giving or maybe it's in strategizing. I had one man in his, a retired gentleman, he might be here in this service this morning, who's building a new home and a new subdivision here in the area, and he said to me, God has put it in my heart to win my subdivision for Christ. And I said, you know, I didn't say this to him, but I said to him and my heart said, there's a man who's not just going to sort of flame out and fly. He's believing God in the now. Friends, we all need to have that kind of faith. That's the kind of faith that pleases God at Christmas. And so these wise men had this perplexity going on and on in their life. They were seeing, well, I guess, you know, he's not where we thought he'd be. Nobody seems to be interested. And then who came into their life? Herod. And you talk about a perplexity. Well, secular historians describe Herod as one of the most insane leaders in all of history. And if you'll allow the analogy, I believe he is the equivalent of our modern-day Saddam Hussein. Just a man out of control. How do I know that? Because who in their right mind would just go and mercilessly kill a village full of little children? You want to believe with me that those wise men were perplexed? Because it says at the end of verse 12, which we didn't read, that God, the God of Israel, warned these wise men not to go back to Herod. Imagine that. They have a dream, a vision from God, that if they go back, harm's going to come their way. And so they go another way home. I've got to believe they were totally perplexed. And finally, when they find Jesus, he's not at all what they expected. They thought, well, this is going to be a king. And here he is, this humble little baby. At this point, he may be a year or two old. We don't know for sure. But he's living very simply. It wasn't the one that they expected. And yet it did come to them that this was the one that they were seeking. And so I just want to say for those of you who are here today, that are struggling with taking steps of faith, and your life is just a little perplexing right now. Things aren't going the way you thought they would. And I know for some of you that's really true. You need to believe God that perplexity is part of the process of walking by faith. I got this letter and one of the Christmas cards. And I want to thank all of you who have sent us cards. It's just so rich. I mean, it's so meaningful when we hear your stories of faith. And, Carolyn, I so appreciate it. Here's just a paragraph, which I obtained permission to read to you. This person thanked me for the message for last week. And they said this, We're in a Bethlehem moment now. And you've given us hope and renewed our spirit. I'll change the name just because I want to keep them anonymous. Kevin is in sales and has had his worst year ever. We're really struggling financially and have been complaining and kind of doubting and questioning. I mean, why we even moved here and left a good territory in another city. But we know this is where we're meant to be. For I do not believe that we would have found Christ otherwise. You see, they met the Lord when they came here. And your message reminded me of this truth. I was down about Christmas in my heart. But after today, I realize again that God is there for us. And we'll just await the future and enjoy the moments of His presence today. Friends, if you're going through some perplexity, believe God and keep moving. Keep moving forward. Number two, the second thing is faith needs to be focused in the promises which lead to the power of God. You see, faith has to hold on even when you don't see it, when you don't understand it, when you don't like it. Because at the end of that, the power of God is going to begin to be revealed in your life. One of the things that drove these wise guys to search for the King was the promise of His deliverance. Remember that scripture that I read? A star would come out of Jacob and a scepter would rise out of Israel. The Bible says that that drew them, that promise of this strength. You see, faith has to come when you don't know any other way, when you need the power of God. How many of you have ever had a situation where if God didn't come through, you weren't going to make it? Anybody? If you haven't had it, it is coming. Now, this may be of interest to some of you, but the greatest miracle I can remember in terms of the facility, the physical structure that we share right now isn't this building. It was in the other building. I was with some people the other day that never even knew where we had been prior to this place. But we used to occupy the old Bradley house, which is now Max Planck's and the Chadwick down there. But if you don't remember that story and never heard it, I just want to recap a time in my life when I knew that if God didn't show up, we were done. We had been asked to leave that building. We were going down to St. Teresa's Catholic Church down in the Westview area, down that way. And we came back. The building that we had been occupying went up for auction. We had offered them about $1.2 million for that building through a package of financing and so on, and they turned it down. Then we started to pray, and we prayed for four months. And to our amazement, on Easter Sunday of 1985, the building came up for auction. Well, at that point, the elders met, and they said, well, we managed to have about $800,000 to put down on this building, or to buy this building. So we showed up for this auction, and I'll never forget that. I remember that Bill James, who's here this morning, was with me, and we drove up. I think I had some kind of Chevette or something I was driving then. And a guy came, people in all these expensive cars, and a guy drove up in a Rolls-Royce convertible with the top down. It was late April. Pulled it up in the front row. I looked at Bill. I mean, we couldn't afford to buy his car, let alone the building, you know? And the auctioneer started the bidding at $800,000. I'm thinking to myself, you have to understand, my first thought is, we're done. I mean, that was our high bid. And I'm thinking, you know, at that point, we had maybe 500 people or something. What's our church going to do? If God doesn't show up now, I mean, we're not going to survive real long in this little abandoned Catholic church down there, way out of our main target zone and stuff. But nobody said $800,000. Nobody said anything. And the auctioneer went down. Well, how about $600,000? Nobody said anything. How about $500,000? He got down to $250,000. I'll offer that. And Bill and I are looking back and forth at each other. Well, the bidding went up a little bit, and a little bit, long story short, we bought that building for $600,000, which was about half of what we'd been willing to pay six months before that through financing and all the rest. And here was the miracle. Bill happened to know the gentleman that had a lot of money. I mean, he was an investor, developer kind of guy. And he later told us in conversation, Proverbs, he said, he didn't know why, but he just couldn't open his mouth and bid against the church. I don't know. All I know was that faith had to be operative. And friends, you're going to come to a time when, unless God comes through for you, it's not going to happen. Well, those are the most exciting moments in life because you know God is on the throne. And ever since that day, I've watched God supply. That's why I have no doubt He'll continue to supply. He is faithful. He is the one that we can trust in the midst of whatever we're confronting. I just want to touch on what it was that these wise men were seeking to have addressed in their lives. And this has to do with this picture of Moab. And just turn your outline over real quickly. I'll touch these very fast. Moab is a name you would read in the Bible and say, well, what is that about? Who knows about Moab? Moab is symbolic of three specific things, three word pictures. I want you to jot them down. If you do a word study, you'll find that Moab was the area where the children of Israel wandered when they were delivered from Egypt. There's the mountains of Moab. If you look at it, Deuteronomy chapter 1. Moab, number one, represents the wandering soul. The wandering soul. And there are some of us here today, that if we're really honest, we would look back on our lives and say, you know what, I'm nowhere near where I thought I would be. My life is not becoming what I thought it would be. And you're starting to wander around. You're starting to wonder, where am I going to find my ultimate purpose and my destiny? Listen, the king of Bethlehem rises up with his scepter and he smites that lie of Moab that you're just going to wander around and waste your life. Hear me well, church. God has a purpose for every one of you. Lay a hold of it today. That's what happens when you have faith in the promises of God. The second thing is this. Moab was a community of people that had come to be through the perversion of incest. And the whole nation really was built incestuously. That's why God had often said, you know, I want you to destroy the people of Moab. I guess I would have to say today, and this I know may be a difficult moment for some people, but I know there are some here today who you have fallen in unbelief, you have fallen into a sense of distance from God, a sense of faithlessness, and perhaps even a sense of total unworthiness today. You might be slinking around here wondering if you really fit because you couldn't imagine that God would accept you because of something perverse in your life. Hear me well, friends. Whether you be a person to whom something perverse was done that you had nothing to do with. Maybe you were abused as a child. I'm confident today in a room this size there are some of you who suffered at the hands of people, quietly, but deeply hurt. And there are others of you here today who if you were really honest and your secrets were known to others, you're locked in some kind of perversion of your own choosing. And perhaps you're even a little defensive about it, a little righteous about it when push comes to shove. I was really kind of stunned this week. I don't know how you felt. I was watching Bad Morning America on Thursday. And they interviewed two homosexual men who had legally adopted a two-year-old boy in the state of New Jersey. First time in the states that was allowed. And whatever the merit may be of their compassion, I'm not really questioning really their motives in that sense. The little boy had been ill, all this kind of thing. But their closing statement was something that all of us need to see as the battle line of what's going to happen in this country. When they said in the closing segment of that interview, this is the new face of the family in America and you better get used to it. You see, as long as there is truth, there's going to be tension. And the sword, the scepter of Moab, I'm sorry, the scepter of the king of Bethlehem rises against Moab and crushes the forehead of perversion. And I want you to know today, if you are in a perverse situation or you've been the victim of some perversity in your life, I want you to know God today wants to set you free. Hear me. Don't leave this place today without having someone pray for you. When we close this service, that Christmas tree area down there, I want you to be welcome to come over there for just a few moments and have some folks pray with you and share with you and help you to find a point of release in your life. The third thing that the wise men found was another thing that I wish I had time to develop. For those of you who are Bible students, you'll appreciate this. Let me just summarize it. Moab is referenced in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament. Can you recall that? About 1100 BC, it was there that Naomi went with her husband, Elimelech, to get away from the famine that was all through Judea. And they lived there about 10 years and they had two sons. And the two sons married two women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. So Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth. But then Naomi's husband passed away, and then the husbands of Orpah and Ruth passed away, and so it was just the three women left. And the famine was spreading. Nothing was going the way they had hoped. And so, Moab became known as a symbol of all that is futile and hopeless. A place of false hope, where we are promised something and it doesn't come to pass. There are some of us who have pretty much retreated into that sort of hopelessness. You thought you could escape your problem by running from it, but you found that your problem has run to capture you back into it. And the promise of a life of faith is that the God of this universe, the Lord Jesus Christ, says to you, you're never hopeless when you're in my purpose. It may be that the circumstance you fall into may not be able to change. Maybe it's irreversible. But God will work even that apparent defeat into your own well-being and your own good, according to Romans 8.28. Now, the amazing thing about that part of the story, can I just finish with this on this particular point? Naomi, Orpah and Ruth decide, well, where else can we go but back to our homeland? And if you read Ruth chapter 1, you know where Naomi and Ruth and Orpah went back to? They went back to Bethlehem. That was Naomi's hometown. And Ruth became the grandmother of a man by the name of David, the king, who was then of the line and the lineage that you could trace all the way down to who? Jesus. Friends, there's such unity in the Bible. There's such strength if you understand how God wove the Scriptures together. It's beautiful, isn't it? Finally, faith in the promises leads us to the presence of the Lord. And this is just a very quick point I want to make. There's something in the Christian life that is higher than answers to prayer that we want, greater than the power of God over wanderings and perversions and hopelessness. It's the presence of God himself. The wise men, you see, set out on a journey to discover this king, this Messiah. And they had a revelation of the Savior. When they viewed him, it says in Matthew 2, here's what happened. There's several words for seeing in the Greek. One of our brothers here at North Way is a Greek scholar and a Ph.D. now. So he always checks me on these things. There's several words for seeing, but the one that's most common is the word bleppo, which means to see, like I see that Christmas tree with my eyes, I perceive it. I see that Carol has a beige coat on, and I see this young lady with blonde hair and whatever. I can see it with my eyes. Then there's the word eidon, which is the word like, well, the best understanding would say, ah, I see, which means what? I get it. Everyone say, I get it. I get it. Okay. Well, here in Matthew 2, verse 11, look at it with me. On coming to the house, they eidon the child. They saw the child with his mother, and they bowed down and worshipped him. They got it. They had a revelation. They saw that this was the one that they were seeking. And in that moment, that moment of revelation, the Bible says this, that they bowed down before him. In fact, in the Greek, it's even more forceful than this. The Bible says that they threw themselves down and prostrated themselves before him. And friends, on Tuesday and Wednesday night, when we have our presentation, you're going to see our wise men prostrating themselves, because the only appropriate response to the presence of the Lord as you journey in faith when you encounter him is to get on your face and bow down and say, Oh, God, you are my Lord. You are the fulfillment of all my yearnings and my longings. And these wise men prostrated themselves. Remember, they're not even Jews. They're seekers of truth, and they see, they get it, and they bow down and they worship. I want to say to those of you who find it difficult to be in an environment where people worship, some of you still tell me, well, you know, it's really hard. I stand next to someone who raises their hands and I get uncomfortable, or I hear somebody that's singing like they really mean it or something, and that's hard. Can I share with you? It isn't so much a doctrine of worship. It's a matter of you just seeing it. Just pray as you go forward that God would let you see him. Have a revelation, because two things will happen. Worship will flow, and number two, under letter B, they gave their gifts to Jesus. They gave gold and what? Frankincense and myrrh. They poured out their treasures. In fact, most scholars believe that what they gave him was all the things they thought they would need to go back on their journey. They poured out their treasures. And friends, again, if you need to be motivated in your giving, you just need to see God for who he is. How do I build a life with faith that's pleasing to God? You've got to build it by walking in faith through perplexity, on into the power, and eventually into the presence of the Lord. God loves it when his children persevere in faith. And when you come, even looking foolish doing so, you believe God, you trust him. Look what it says. You trust God even when you don't see the fullness of the promise. Under conclusion, the life of faith trusts God even when you don't receive the fullness of the promise. Why? Because Hebrews 11 says sometimes you won't because God has something better planned for you. Something that you haven't even dreamed of is waiting for you. That's the way that faith often works. Chuck Swindoll writes this in his book, Above the Level of Mediocrity. On Sunday, believers arrived at a house church in the Soviet Union in small groups throughout the day so not to arouse the suspicion of KGB informers. They began to sing a hymn quietly. Suddenly, in walked two soldiers with loaded weapons at the ready. One shouted, If you wish to renounce your commitment to Jesus Christ, leave now. Two or three quickly left and then another. Then two more. This is your last chance. Either turn against your faith in Christ or stay and suffer the consequences. The soldiers barked. Two more slipped out into the night. No one else moved. Parents with children trembling beside them looked down reassuringly, fully expecting to be gunned down or imprisoned. The other soldier closed the door, looked back at those who stood against the wall and said, Keep your hands up. But this time, it's to praise the Lord Jesus Christ. We too are Christians. We were sent to another house church several weeks ago to arrest a group of believers and the other soldier interrupted, but instead we were converted. We have learned by experience, however, that unless people are willing to die for their faith, they cannot be fully trusted. How real is your faith today, friends? Let's together build a life of faith that we're willing to die for so that God can trust us with great things. Would you stand with me and pray? Lord, I thank you for your presence here today. I thank you that you are God with us, Emmanuel. And Lord, we as a congregation lay hold of that incredible truth of your presence and your power. Lord, cause the star to rise in our hearts and lift the scepter of your rule, Lord. Break out, Lord, the perversity that causes some of us to struggle. Lord, deliver us from wandering and hopelessness that we might be fully all that you purpose for us to be. Let's sing that little chorus together.