Foundations of Leadership VI, Faith, The Key to Pleasing God

Well, After that news we had at the beginning of the meeting, I don't think we can get any better praise. I just think we probably had to go and that's all. Right. But. But, yeah, we better not allow the spirit of levity to get in here and ruin this holy people. Sorry. I tell you, brothers and sisters, leadership team. I don't know what to call you mob. We are just increasingly excited as we wait on the Lord and spend time together before him and share and discuss. We just know that God's fashioning new things for us and hopefully, in fact, almost assuredly before our last or in our last meeting, which is what? I guess two weeks. I don't hear any hallelujahs out there. I heard someone two weeks, Hallelujah. We want to share with you some very specific parts of that vision. And we want you to be able to enter in with us in faith for what we believe the Lord's calling us to in 1985. Can you believe we're thinking ahead instead of wondering what to do with what's all around us? We're looking ahead. And that's just such a blessing. And it's just a great time of opportunity that God's. You know, people everywhere have been saying that the Lord is going to be moving in a powerful wave of salvation. One of the families that recently have been coming to North Way from down in the Swickley area are connected with cbn and they were sharing how in a visit that they just had with the Board of Regents, that a powerful wave of God is just beginning to be registered in this country and around the world. And they just see it sweeping through the nation. And we just believe the Lord to be part of it. Just as you were about to pray here a moment ago, Gene, I saw a picture in my own spirit of the Lord with his arms outstretched, but not in a crucified way. It was. It was different. It was almost in like a brooding way, his arms outstretched over the land. And. It was with a profound love in his heart. And I sensed that there was yet a tear in his eye for those many, many, many thousands, and I guess we could say millions, who have yet to respond to that grace that he has so freely given. And yet those arms to me signified his pull, his gathering unto Himself as he said he would to those in Jerusalem. How many times I would have gathered you to myself as a hen. I believe that's what we're going to see the Lord doing. We're going to be part of that Isn't that exciting? We're going to be part of it, not just watching it. I think that's exciting tonight. All right. We're going to address the subject tonight that I think you're going to find helpful. I know it's challenging and it's something. Excuse me. That I know we all need to get a handle on because probably no other single area is more confused and abused than this area that we're going to address tonight. So that's the area of faith. And I'm going to give you an outline and we're going to zip through it and be out of here by 8:15. Ron. Can I say, while they're passing out the sheets and no one hears anything anyhow, can I talk to some of you who. None of you would ever do this, but if you ever are seated next to a person that has the terminal yawns on a Sunday morning, you can help them to receive grace. And not. Not rejection. Just when they rear back and contort their face with one of those 30 second yawns. Just stretch your elbows out. That'll get their breath. I have a better method. You have a better method? I used to come down the aisle and somebody be asleep and that would be the time that I'd stop. Of course we had Florida stomp a foot and shake the pew and say, isn't that right, brother? They wouldn't dare fall asleep. No, there's nothing worse than being shocked out of a nice little respite. Well, anyhow, evenings you can yawn all you want. It's Sunday mornings that are the tough ones to handle. Oh, and evenings you can yawn all you want. Yeah, go right ahead, Barbara. Well, hallelujah. Let's pray. Our Father, as we just attend to the word tonight, it's with expectation that I believe. Lord, we all come. We want these minutes together to be marked with the presence of the Holy Spirit and effectual in our own hearts, Lord, for unto fruitfulness in the kingdom, Lord, I pray for responsiveness, Lord, for ears to hear for each brother and sister here. And Lord, I pray for you to anoint that which has been prepared on my part, Lord, and that which you've given Fred, that we together, all of us, Lord, might collectively grow in grace tonight. In Jesus name. Early in the summer, might have even been the spring. I can't remember. It was probably May. One of the brothers here in the community said to me when I asked him if he wouldn't mind giving me a tennis lesson I shared some time ago that I play A little bit of tennis. He reluctantly at first agreed, because it's pretty boring for someone that's good, you know, to play with someone that's not. But when he went out, he did say that, I can tell you I can teach you one thing that will significantly alter your game. It will help you very substantially. He said that without this one ingredient, I probably wouldn't progress very much at all with it. I had a good chance of improving quite a bit and enjoying the game a whole lot more. And so I was prepared for this new technique that he was going to show me. I was prepared for some adjustment in the grip that made the racket head swing faster, Something in my stance that enabled me to keep a better balance, something in the stroke that enabled the ball to go over the net with more authority. Something perhaps in the spin ingredient, just something that was really dramatic or in the placement of the ball. And it wasn't any of those things. In fact, it had nothing to do with the racket or the way that the game was played, mechanically speaking. He just simply said, I want you to picture yourself hitting the ball over the net right where you want it to go. He said, I want you to see the shot before you're going to make it, and picture in your mind that shot going low over the net with a lot of spin into the corner. Well, at first, you know, I said, well, that's a big deal. I mean, I'd like to be able to do that. But do you know what I found? After he persevered with me for about 20 or 30 minutes, he said, the only other part of this that you've got to do is you have to hit the ball the way you think you want it to go. You can't hold back and try to just, you know, direct it over the net. You've got to really let go and not even worry. If you knock a few of them over the fence, which I did, I had to hit it with full authority. And do you know that within 30 minutes, probably three out of four balls that I was hitting back were really just a vast improvement going in a straight line over the net, and, you know, just a much better tennis shot than I'd ever hit before. Now, anybody that's. There's a few brothers here that I play with on occasion know now how radically improved my game is. But the truth really was that he was right. The ability then to, you know, to persevere in doing that is what makes for great tennis players, those who can persevere and have you Ever experienced that? Have you experienced that in other disciplines where you see yourself? I don't know. They teach salesmen the same thing, you know. Yeah. See yourself, you know, closing the deal and see the cake coming out of the oven. I don't know. It was very significant and it worked in this area particularly. Now, listen. Particularly where I didn't think I could do it. I just knew I didn't have the ability or the. I just didn't have the training or whatever you want to call it to be able to do what he was saying. I since learned that there's a whole book written on this subject. I can't remember the name of it, and I don't. What is it? Inner Tennis and the whole. You want to tell us about it? Just picked it up one day. She just was reading it. Well, anyhow, it's a. All right. Praise the Lord. Well, The whole principle has been developed into a book, rather, and made into just a way of training, you see, and this is a way of playing tennis and learning tennis. It's really different from what you'll go to a lot of tennis places and they'll teach you do this and then do this, and you get real mechanical and you lose part of the flow. Now, that same principle. Beloved, I wouldn't spend five minutes on an illustration like that unless it was relevant to the subject tonight, which is that of faith. Because, you see, I think that as I perceive so much of what binds us up in our Christian walk, it has to do with this thing of learning a lot of mechanics, trying to be careful not to make mistakes, and yet never really getting into the flow of what God wants us to be doing. And I have a real conviction tonight that what we're going to talk about and interact over and pray about and so on this evening for the next 45 minutes or so, will substantially encourage many of you, because it's going to be a specific point that you can apply to specific situations that you're facing in your ministries and in your personal lives. I have no doubt that this is an area where I personally want to grow an awful lot more. Let me make a couple of observations about what we've called the faith message. How many of you have at some point in your Christian walk gone to what. What was called a faith teaching church? Okay, you want to slip down out of the chair there, brother? Thank you, brother. A faith teaching church. Okay. Many of us have, because such a powerful truth was really unleashed early in this decade that was lost for a long time. Maybe it was earlier than that, huh? Okay, well, in a lot of places it was, but. But really in a widespread way. It was in the late 60s and early 70s that faith teaching as an emphasis, that's what I'm talking about as a focus, came alive. Now, this was centered in the word of God. And so you have a lot of churches that are called Word churches. And a Word church is a place that teaches faith in the Word as sort of the central thrust of their orientation and ministry, and marvelously successful in many, many ways, winning people and so on. There was, in my estimation, a reaction to that because what happened when the faith message got wound up in personal ambition and so on, it was used, wasn't it? Instead of the word of God speaking to people and directing them, people were speaking to the word of God and making it kind of fit into their plans and purposes, as we'll see later. That's a fundamental mistake. So we got it all. There was. Number one. Here's my two observations. Number one, this isn't on your outline. There was hefty disagreement about whether or not it was right. How many of you remember Charles Fair writing the book on the pinnacle of the temple, where we got into a big discussion about faith and presumption? And that became a very important book in addressing the. What I would call the imbalance in the faith teaching, which was name it and claim it or I believe God for the biggest house in my neighborhood, whatever it might, the excesses were. The second observation about this rising of the faith movement was that many solid Bible teaching fellowships then reacted to the faith message to the point where they threw the whole thing out and didn't teach about it at all. And the church lost something there. I think, for the most part, A lot of fellowships that God would have desired to bless got bogged down in trying to work things through in the natural rather than moving ahead in the supernatural. And the reason was they threw out of fear, they threw out this whole message of faith and the word of God. And so I just want to say to you this evening that I feel that that balance is very necessary here at North Way. And I feel that we need as leadership tonight to give ourselves to some important, important truth in that. I'm not talking tonight about faith in the name such as faith in. Well, I believe the doctrines of God's Word or I believe that God came in the person of Jesus. I'm talking about operative faith, day to day faith. Faith that knows how to take that which is unseen and bring it into the scene, into the Real world, that which is invisible and bring it into the visible, that which is out there in the realm of God's kingdom, and bring it into the realm of the here and now. Turn in your scripture to Hebrews, chapter 11. All right, Verse one. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That's the definition. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Let's read on. For by it the men of old received divine approval. By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear by faith. Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received approval as righteous God. Bearing witness. By accepting his gifts, he died. But through his faith he is still speaking. Faith speaks on. You see, by faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. And he was not found because God had taken him. Now, before he was taken, he was attested as having pleased God. And without faith, it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. I want you to do something right now. Let's bring this right down to where you live. Share in twos, not your spouse. If you came with your husband and wife, Sharon, 2's the answer to the first question on your sheet. Would you. The top paragraph. Give some illustrations or observations from your own life as to how faith has been operative in a day to day basis in your life. Give some illustrations about how circumstance or situation or relationship have been changed. Talk about the way in which you've learned that without faith it's impossible to please God. All right, go ahead and do it. Talk about it. Give some illustrations, turn in twos, Some of our observations about the truth of this scripture. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. What were you talking about? You were right. Let's have some illustrations of operative faith. Day to day faith that someone shared. Either you yourself or you want to speak for someone that shared with you. That's usually a nice way to share a testimony. How have you learned that without faith it's impossible to please God? Or the inverse of that which was with faith. You see these things happening. Okay, how did that work? They're looking right now, but they're believing. I think God's going to send them to where they're supposed to be. Okay, all right. Trusting the Lord for a house, a place to live, certainly an area where I think God has an Interest. Now you. Let's have a couple other illustrations. What else did you talk about? Vic just talked about a really neat experience with believing God to carry out salvation. And a person that she had had speak with her a year ago, and all of a sudden she had seen him and really had to believe God that the spirit was working in him. And here he comes back this year and says, remember all that stuff you told me last year while I've been thinking on it? And I really believe that I should. A year of seeing that seed watered and fertilized, some not yet sprouting, but going to. All right, what else did you talk about? You know, the Lord's going to conquer this. Receive well again. All right. Isn't it difficult when you feel all that junk coming on you to believe the word and stand there and say, you know, as God ministers faith to your heart, how many of you found that it's sort of futile to just start standing and shouting if God hasn't placed that faith in there? You know, you got to get with the Lord and get in the Word and let faith begin to come up. But then is when you stand and see the Lord break through. All right. Jane shared how the Lord had met a need when she was going to have her utility shut off many years ago. And I just think the neatest part of that was that before she prayed, he had laid that burden on somebody's heart in many states away, traveled, took a week traveling to her and had the exact amount to meet that need. And I think the Lord knows the faith in our heart before we even exercise it. And before we speak, he hears. He knows he's already worked to honor that faith. Okay, Any men have any success with faith? 1. Carl. My wife and I right now are experiencing a tremendous sense of joy in our hearts after coming into a decision to send our one daughter to Eden Christian Academy. The battle was in finding out whether she was to go or not. And after God continually showed us. Today was second day. We owe $161 by the 10th of this month. And every day since we made our decision, God has opened up another small channel for financial blessings. You see, it's trusting when you don't know. That's where pleasing God by faith comes in. That's what he just said about this whole situation here. Okay, one more, brother. Oh, now they're coming out. You see, they just hang back. Okay. Hal? Yeah. Why don't you tell us about that? Just a. There it is. Okay. Well, hallelujah. All right, Jack, go Ahead, speak up. Because of the Peter. The thing that I really like to sit here was that years ago the Lord spoke to my heart and it would be employed where I am, where I was, where I was. And. It took two and a half years. But this past week, the Lord has. These past two weeks, the Lord has made it clear to my heart. And the thing that Power and I talked about was confirmation. We have a long confirmation of brothers and sisters here, that God was moving me, the place that he wanted me to be. And I started to jump on my name. Praise God. I just like to do the opposite. I find that you have a lot of faith when you have something that's constantly impressive. Like my ears ring and sometimes they are ringing so loud that I can't even constantly. And this word promises heal you. Where is it? God says he's who he is and he'll give you his son. Why won't he give you. So you have to say, well, you have faith. What is it that you're not pleasing God that He won't give you for something that is a need to have a clear head. So it has to be faith, keep believing. Prophecy. You have something going on. Who can you think of in the scripture that had that same problem? I think of Paul. I also think of Paul as possibly the brethren. I don't think. Well, okay, that's one. Who else had the problem? We also had a problem of believing that God had spoken to them and promised them something and it didn't happen. But see, on the other hand, I do have a promise in the crib. Well, I think you have a promise for the healing, too. I'm using that as faith. You have to keep believing and faithfully believing God will do it. Okay, well, we're going to talk a little bit tonight about ways in which you can press in on that word. Okay. See, one thing that I feel needs to be said, because I've picked this up in a few of the testimonies, that there is a difference between just generally believing God that something's going to happen and a posture of active faith. And it's something that we don't know a whole lot about. And we're going to hopefully tonight get a chance to look at it and feedback. Okay. Dan, can you do this? Interesting is I go back four years. God has prospered our business so far beyond that which I had walking by faith, not by sight. Yet I stayed there. I think I still. Okay, Yeah. Can you. I got to say it because I know halfway in the river it was pretty deep. And it wasn't an overnight. It wasn't, you know, God didn't just pull him one day from sight and the other day to the glories of faith, but there was that long. And brothers and sisters, it happens all the time. There was the gap between when he took the step and when the foot reached the other side. And there was a lot of water in there that was kicking up. And we were standing with Dan for months, you know, when things weren't glorious. How many of you have experienced, maybe you're there right now that you felt like you obeyed God and you're, you know, your toes and now you feel like your knees are getting wet. And that river just doesn't seem to be parting. Nancy, I could. Maybe I will as we go through, because I have a couple illustrations in here. All right, I told you this is something I needed. So. Look at your yellow sheet, would you? Why does leadership need to understand and to move in the realm of faith? Why is it so important for effective leadership? Well, without faith, I believe that we end up functioning almost exclusively in the realm of the natural. We get organizational, we get all of our committees going and all the things that we have learned to equip with ministry, and it just gets to be an ongoing mechanical functioning. I've often wondered if you took faith out of your ministry folks, right now. Take faith out. Would anything change? That's my question. You see, if you took faith out. Oh, yes, it would change. I hope. I hope it would change. I mean, I. All right, okay. We're trusting that there's an ingredient between reality where you are and the ideal that you're believing God for. And that's where faith wins the battle. We should be believing God for the supernatural in the people. Now, this is. I think Fred's going to bring us around to this point at the end. But, folks, we need to be believing God for the supernatural in the lives of the people that we are caring for. And I really grieve when I feel, or I look back in periods in my own ministry where all I really wanted to do is just get people to a Bible study. I had no goals in the supernatural. I had no eye of faith toward their lives as the Lord would have desired. And I look around and I know numbers of you home group leaders and so on that are. You've got 15 people that need the supernatural dimension in their life and need to see changing in their lives that will only come through supernatural dimensions. And that's what Faith does. Number two, remember or letter B. Mark 9:23 says, Jot that scripture down that with God, nothing is impossible. No situation is going to come upon you that's going to overwhelm you. Nothing is going to rise up and be such an obstacle that you're going to. You're going to go under. How many of you feel that there's a person that you're ministering to now for whom you have no answer, that they've just been a chronic problem for years, or maybe just as long as you've known them. Or perhaps the situation that they face is so bleak that in the natural you don't have an answer for them. You don't have any way out. You're tired of comforting them or assuring them. You're tired of trying to just be there. You're weary and you know that God's going to have to break through. Well, you see, without faith, we don't have any place to go. And you know, hope, beloved, comes from faith. Hope is built really on faith. Letter C. Faith is a key to transformation. You can't tell me that Jesus didn't see the those disciples through the eyes of faith. He had to see Peter in Luke 5. I was just thinking when Peter sort of defiantly threw his net back out there and caught that big haul of fish and brought it in the boat, and what did he say to the Lord? Depart from me for I'm a sinful man. And Jesus looked over at him. He didn't say it, but you know, he was saying, no, you're right, Peter. You got that right. Yeah, But I'm going to make you a fisher of men. And it was the eye of faith. You see, I challenge you tonight as leadership. See the people that God's given you, not as they are, but as what they could be in Jesus. See them for their potential. I'm really yearning to learn what it means to take a ministry and see it in all of its limitations, to see it as a fallen, sinful group of people, but infused with the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, to see that ministry become what God wants it to be by faith. And we have illustrations of that all around us, so we can't say that we're hurting for illustrations. But. But beloved, what I'm talking about tonight is for you. I'm talking about you counselors and you in youth ministry, and you deacons, home group leaders in music and so on. Letter D. Faith. The reason why I believe it's such an essential thing is because the scriptures go out of their way to speak of the quality of faith in the life of the men and women of God. Hebrews 11 is a unique chapter. We don't have time to read through it. But it is unique because what it says about the people all the way through it isn't just sort of a passing statement that the writer of the book kind of added on as an afterthought. He is making a statement that covers the entire course of redemptive history. Do you understand that? Right back to creation, he goes by faith. We believe that the worlds were created from nothing. See, he goes right back there and he weaves faith all the way through redemptive history, right down to the looking ahead to the return of Jesus Christ. And he talks about faith. And who does he name? He names them all, doesn't he? All the great men and women of God. He virtually names them all. And he says that this is the way. Well, look, we have to turn there. I just want you to see this and maybe it'll help to reinforce it. Okay? Praise the Lord. Let's look down at verse 32. Here is a key. What more shall I say for time would family to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice. Hallelujah, beloved. That's what we've been doing in prayer. We've been enforcing the justice of God. As I talked about on Sunday, received promises. Paul and all the rest of us that are waiting on the Lord for answers to prayer. Stop. The mouths of lions quenched raging fire. You see, to me, these are stories that this writer knows about. And in an event. Now, you see, you don't like work. How do I want to say this? Stopping the mouth of a lion isn't something you just sort of generally believe God for. Do you know what I'm saying? Well, I'm just kind of trusting here. I see it as being an event where things are poised and right on the line. You receive the rhema and the mouth of the line just doesn't go. I mean, it just doesn't work. You know what I'm saying? I'm talking about this is the key. Specific events of faith. Would you write that down in your notes there? Specific events of faith. This is what I'm yearning to see us grow in, beloved, that home group leaders will be able to define growth in specific events of faith. We met a challenge in our home group by faith. I don't even know what it is. I'm not telling you what it is. But I'm saying I want to see that. I want to see that in all of our ministries and all of our personal relationships that we accomplished an event by faith escaped the edge of the two edged sword. One strength out of weakness became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. I want to say to you that's something that we're doing right here and now as we speak. Praise to the Lord. And I just have a sense that there's been such an outpouring of God and in the heavenly realm over this nation toward this whole thing. In the last, when you perceive how much has happened to begin to shift the nation back, I really see the fulfillment of that scripture and it goes on and I won't take any more time with it. But please do see that faith is for specific situations. That's what I'm talking about, not just general well being. Although it's good to, to wake up and say, lord, I just trust you for all my material needs and all of my friends and all of my family, that's fine. But let's talk about specific faith for specific events. And that's what we want to get to. All right. Finally, faith is the key to partnering with God. This is a whole ingredient of teaching in itself. But I'll just say this. You've all been here long enough to know now that we see ourselves as sons and daughters of God here on earth for the purpose of being agents of the kingdom of God, enforcing what God has done through Jesus Christ in Calvary, establishing the kingdom until he comes back to rule and reign here in his resurrected and glorious body. We are the agents of the establishment of the kingdom. You affirm that, okay? And the way in which that happens isn't by our works. It's not by all the good things we want to do. It's through prayer with faith. You might want to write that down. It's through prayer with faith. Prayer is only effectual if it's with faith. If you're getting up 6:30 tomorrow to go over to Route 8 and pray, Paul holds his house and you don't have faith. Take that extra hour. A lot of amens going on over there. Really. It's prayer with faith now. Faith. We had an elders meeting last night and I shared, I had my own little story of sadness and weariness that I guess we all feel every once in a while. How many of you have animals that don't make the shift very well to the time change? I mean, somehow their biological clocks don't, you know, move the clock back an hour. So anyhow, our dog is sort of goofy early in the morning, and I've been just getting up early when he didn't even have to get up real super early. And I know some of you say, well, that's God. He's just using that dog to get you up for quite a. But I thought about that. But, you know, Balaam got the donkey and I've got the dog. But last night we went awful late. Well, for us, about normal late. And we had prayer early this morning, and there wasn't. I just. When that alarm went off this morning, right after the dog, it was sheer agony. I mean, it was sheer agony getting out of that bed. It was, you know, Carol breathed or something, and I yelled, no, don't say Lord. You know, just, I'm moving. And God graced her that this morning especially to get up with me and, you know, point me in the right direction to get out of the house sometime. But the whole point of this is that sometimes the only thing you bring to God is just a warm breathing unit. You know, I am here for Holy Spirit fully. I will cease to talk. But. So we're not always gloriously victorious in our faith, but over the course of time, you know, that faith is what makes things alive. All right. Faith is partnering. Faith is seeing what God wants to do and doing it. Let me give you an illustration of partnering. Jesus when he stood at the graveside of Lazarus. Ken was. Is that how you do it? In John chapter 11, Jesus was there and he said something that was really profound about his understanding of what the Father was doing. What did he say in John chapter 11 concerning Lazarus? You remember? It's not there. No, that's later. That's earlier in the story when he's standing in front of the tomb now and he's praying. Okay, okay, that's right. He already knew what the Father had purposed to do. And he's not even praying to get the job done. He's saying, I'll read it to you. He said, father, I thank thee that thou hast hearst me. I knew that thou hearest me always. But I have said this on account of the people standing by that they may believe that thou didst send me. You see, that thou didst send me, that they may believe it. He's just saying that I want them to know that you sent me. And then he spoke the word, and out Lazarus came. Partnering with God, partnering with the things that God is doing. Fred and I have been talking increasingly in recent days about the fact that our role church is hearing what God is doing, seeing what God is doing, and getting ourselves in the way of that, and then just saying what God is saying. And the greatest obstacle that we have in our ministry and your ministries, I'm talking about is being at odds with God's purpose. If you'll just find what God wants to do in that home group. If you just find what God wants to do in that little cell group, just find what God's saying. And he's saying unique things. He's saying, I want to do something that reflects my life in you. The Lord spoke that to my heart on Friday as I was laboring over the healing ministry. And, you know, I'll just share this with you. John Wimber is a difficult person to emulate when it comes to healing. And so I was feeling, lord, I'm not John Wimber when it comes to healing. I just finally had to admit that. And that was a significant thing, just releasing that. Okay, L