Well, it is good to be worshipping again this
afternoon. It's good to see everyone that's
here. And as I announced this morning,
we're going to talk for a little while this afternoon on faith
through life seasons. And by this, I'm talking about
from all the way from the young ones who were just old enough to
understand a little bit of what I say today.
I'm going to put it in the front.
So if we lose their attention, that'll be all right, all right,
we'll deal with it all the way through the different seasons of
life. We're going to start with
Hebrews 11 and one where it says now faith is the substance of
things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
The outline we're going to cover is children.
When I say children in this first aspect, I'm talking about
those who you're under your parents authority, you're still
living at home, you know, mom and dad get to tell you what to
do. What does faith look like for
someone in that age group? It exists.
We know it exists. There's examples of it.
I won't spend time on that at this point.
But anybody that's of this age that they understand, they
understand they have faith on some level.
Our children at very young age 5-6 started talking about one to
be baptized very young. They they're getting this.
They have a level of faith. But I would say at those ages we
talked to them, they didn't understand sin.
They just knew they believed in this God and they knew they,
they trusted what was around them.
That grew until the point they were making decisions for
themself that they wanted to commit their life to God and
they knew they needed him. But these children we're talking
about, you're under your parents authority.
You live at home, you know, they get to tell you what to do.
Young men and women. Now, for this, I don't actually
have a parenthetical explanation, but this is
basically any number of young people up until you're married
and you have your own home. Sometimes these young people are
still living at home. And in a way, mom and dad get to
say what to do. After all, they got to pay the
bills. And so you can't tick them off
too much. But at the same time, you've got
freedoms. You can go out, you can go drive
somewhere, and they're not going to know what you're doing.
Faith is important in this season of life when mom and dad
maybe still have some pretty serious influence in your life,
but they can't really enforce it all the time.
Marriage. Now you've got your own home.
The perfect and the painful. Both seasons of perfect and
painful need faith. Without it, they can be very
disruptive. Raising children.
The perfect and the painful raising children can be great.
Raising children can seem like what in the world?
How are we going to get through this?
Faith is required in both those senses.
The empty nest when the kids are all gone, you know, many when I
was young, I thought, well, man, that's when faith is like
coasting. And I've come to find out not
only in my own life, but in the life of a lot of others, When
the fam, when the nest becomes empty, faith sometimes is you
face your greatest challenge when the load gets too heavy.
This applies to every one of these groups.
When you just don't think you can do it anymore.
What is faith? What's the rule for faith there?
And when the end is near, when I'm talking about the end, I'm
talking about death, that when we get to the point that we
realize it's happening, am I ready?
How are we going to deal with this?
Faith is important every one of these seasons of life.
And so for a few minutes you're like, how are we going to cover
all that territory in such a short amount of time?
We got to concentrate back on Hebrews 11 and one faith.
What is the word faith there? It comes from a Greek word,
literally means persuasion or conviction of the truth.
When I use this word faith, I'm saying it's something you are
persuaded about. You are convicted.
It's right. I told you this morning,
everybody that has ever lived on the face of this earth,
everybody that lives right now, has ever lived throughout time.
They lived by faith. Even the atheist, everybody
lives by faith. They are convicted, they are
persuaded by something that they can't prove.
Sometimes they'll say they're going to stand behind science,
but you keep chasing them down that rabbit hole of what they
call science and they get to something that depending on the
generation you're in. When I was at the peak of it, it
was dark matter and that was their word for saying they knew.
When they look at all the energy in the universe, they can still
only find 10% of the amount of energy needed to create what
exists in this universe. They need more energy and they
find it in dark matter. And you know what that is for
them? It's in a parallel dimension.
Now the Christian says, we've been telling you all along
there's a parallel dimension. There's a God there.
It's not dark matter, It's the light.
Light and darkness even in this realm is over it.
Faith, it's what you believe in. It's what you're persuaded
about, what you're convicted of. It's the substance comes from a
Greek word literally means to set under.
This is going to hold you up. This is something that's going
to support things. It's a foundation or a thing put
under things hoped for. Now this word hope here is not
like hope as in well, maybe I don't know, I hope it happens.
This is hope as in an earnest expectation literally means to
expect or to trust it's going to happen.
That's this hope. It's not Maybe I just kind of
hope. So this is, this is my hope.
This is where I am placing my trust.
Your faith, your conviction is the foundation that supports
your expectations. Whatever you expect out of life,
that's because of faith. Now, sometimes we learn it
through repetition. It's like I know that if I fill
my gas tank up or my diesel tank on my truck, I'm going to make
it about 300 miles. I have faith that's going to
happen. I have faith I can get back on
the highway and go again. It's I expect it.
It's happens over and over. People do it all the time.
That is this kind of hope. It's something you expect.
Your faith is the conviction or the foundation that supports
whatever you expect. Faith also is the evidence of
things not seen. Again, it's the exact same word,
faith, which means things you're persuaded about, things you're
convicted of. Evidence comes from a Greek
word, means proof. This word is only used one other
time in the New Testament. And so I'm going to take the
time real quick to point it out to you.
It's Second Timothy 316 or yeah. All Scripture is given by the
inspiration of God. It is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
This word reproof is the exact same Greek word that's used.
It's called proof in Hebrews 11 and one this, I don't know about
you. This resets my understanding of
what Scripture is good for. I kind of have set that as in
reproof as being something to fix.
It's a proof. Now when things get proven to
us, we do fix it when it says, look, I can prove to you that's
what we commune the way we did this morning.
It's because of the Bible and we see it and you say, OK, I'm
going to do it. Sometimes that means fix
something. Sometimes that just simply means
to prove it. Faith, this persuasion, there's
conviction, is the proof we have for things not seen literally,
things you can't look at to look at figuratively to understand
this is really important as we get into the seasons of life.
Our conviction, whatever we're persuaded out, will prove what
we cannot understand. We'll prove things we can't look
at. We just expect it's going to
happen, and it's an earnest expectation.
Your faith, your conviction is the proof for what you cannot
look at or understand yet. How does Hebrews at 11 O1 apply
to children? When you're at home, you're
still telling mom and dad tells you what to do.
I'm going to give you a hint as to how you can find out if you
have faith in God's Word or not. Ephesians 6 and one says,
children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.
Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment
with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long
on the earth. What child does not want to live
long? What child wants to just die?
I know some children that have been older on the child spectrum
that we're embarrassed to death, but we want long lives, we want
healthy lives, we want good lives.
If you're a child, if you understand anything that this
lesson is about right now, honor your father and mother, obey
your parents because that is the first commandment that God ever
gave to man under the old covenant, the 10 commandments
that also came with the promise that it would be well with you
and you may live long on the earth.
Jesus, what a wonderful example of what to do as a young child.
At 12 years old, he went to the feast of the Passover, the one
we talked about this morning. He went there, the whole family
went there. They went there and then when it
was over, they were headed home. Do you remember they went a
day's journey before Jesus parents realized he wasn't
there. Now I've talked about this in a
previous lesson. I won't go into all the details,
but I can understand how somebody gets left alone.
I told you this morning we had a huge family, the Butler site.
We, we had people left in town because you just assumed they
were in another truck. They were with somebody else.
Jesus parents went a day's journey before they realized he
wasn't there. They have to go another day's
journey to get back to Jerusalem.
The scripture says after three days they found him.
And where did they find him? In the temple.
He was listening to them. He was asking them questions.
He was answering their questions.
And his parents marveled at that.
Do you remember that? What did they marvel at?
Oh, you're so good. We need to just leave you here.
This is where you belong. No, they said hers.
Mother Mary said your father and I have sought you soaring.
Where have you been? And what Jesus say, don't you
want me to be about my father's business?
Now listen, sometimes the reason kids don't obey their parents is
because they don't we, they don't think Mom and Dad
understand. They don't get me.
They don't understand I need to do this and I can't do what they
say. If ever a kid, if ever a child
had parents that didn't understand and had pure motives,
it was this. Jesus at 12 years old, he wanted
to be in the temple. He wanted to be in Jerusalem
hearing them, asking questions, answering their questions.
Is that what happened? Luke 251 says.
Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject
to them. But his mother kept all these
things in her heart. Jesus is a child, exemplified
what it's like to obey your parents, to honor your father
and mother at a time. He was fast and talking about a
prodigy. They knew he was, the people
knew he was, but he still humbled himself and he went home
and he was subject. Do you have faith?
We decide as children whether we have faith in God's will on this
at all. What about young men and women?
Timothy also speaks to this, or Paul did to Timothy.
Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the
believers in Word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in
purity. Don't let people despise your
youth. Now I didn't realize we didn't
talk about whole Timothy was, but he's clearly talking to
someone who's young and how the young should look at this.
Early adulthood presents a lot of opportunities and
temptations. Look, when when you finally
realize nobody might actually give or catch you, you get some
choices. These don't go way away in life.
If if you're young and you think I'm just going to sow my wild
oats, look, this doesn't go away.
If you think you're going to do it while you're young and then
you're just going to grow out of that, you need to meet some 60
year olds. I know until you decide to walk
in faith, you're not stepping away from it.
This is a pattern we start as children.
If you haven't started it, then do it in early adulthood.
If you kept it, just keep going through it if you did before.
Our faith, our conviction is what insulates us from bad
choices when we can't see the harm in.
And you insert the blank. Been around long enough for
people that have said this Blank is filled in a lot of different
ways, whether it's sexual purity, whether it's the kind of
things we're ingesting and taking sobriety away from our
bodies to taking a little money out of the the cash register
where you work. People say, I just don't, I
don't know. I can't see how it's really
going to hurt anybody. Faith then becomes your
conviction that insulates you from such a bad choice.
Do we believe it? Do we not?
You see, it's really simple. When we started this out, you're
like, oh, how are we going to cover all that material?
It's by putting our faith in God.
Our faith and our conviction will need to be the proof for
what? We can't look at what we can't
understand yet when we can't see what's so wrong about whatever
it is when we read the Bible, our faith has to say, but I'm
going to do it anyway because that is what the Bible says.
How do we place this in this section?
I want to take marriage and raising children together.
I realize a lot of married people never have children and
they're fine with that. But most of the married people I
know have children, and so I'm going to put them together
because they offer a lot of the same circumstances.
How do we deal with marriage and raising kids?
The perfect and the painful fact is there are times when things
are going great in marriages, in raising kids and people slip
into worldliness and sinful choices.
Been around long enough in the church and dealt with enough
marriage problems. Sometimes they happen to people
who's like, how in the world could you could this happen what
everything looked perfect in your family and they'll say it
was had no financial problems, had no real issues, but whatever
this thing was came in this sin. It was like we behave like we
don't need God. See things can getting going so
smooth for people. They're like, I don't need God.
I got a great life. So like I'm in some third world
country where I can wonder where I'm going to eat next and I
really need God. It's amazing that sometimes when
things are so good, people can become disconnected from God and
faith suffers. There are times when things are
going horribly bad. Times when people slip into
world in this and lose confidence in God.
Thinking of one situation I had to deal with right now in which
it it got to the point in this relationship because what seemed
right was not happening, what seemed like God should be doing
and the answer to all their prayers never happened.
And because of the devastation inside to the answer being no to
their prayer, it was almost like they behave like they don't need
that kind of God. If God's not going to let me
have XYZ, if God's not going to answer my prayer when I need
this and it's just right, then I don't need that kind of God.
That's what it seems like. Why would we take either of
those positions? I submit it as simple as our
faith, our faith, our conviction will need to be the proof for
what we can't understand yet for what we can't look at when life
has situations and look the scriptures are clear about
marriage. We take a vow for marriage.
It's for life what man, what God has joined together.
Don't let man put us under and yet some marriages, people like
I cannot live the rest of my life like this.
Now they're not being beaten at night.
They're not being it's not like they're worried about their
life. They're just not happy with this
person that they thought they knew.
Yes, you can. You can make it.
God's not just looking to make you miserable the rest of your
life. You know the greatest enemy to
contentment that I know of Choice.
If you get a smorgasbord of stuff set out, you can have the
hardest time trying to decide what to get.
This potluck this afternoon. I don't want to be just stuffed
of everything, but I all these choices and I can't have them
all. So what I want to, if you had
just put out, here's some chicken, here's a green salad
and here's a Key Lime Pie or that apricot cobbler, but just
one of each. You just eat it, you're happy,
you get all those choices. And now contentment is like,
well, but I'm going to get this and I'm going to be full.
But then I didn't get to have that.
Life is kind of like that. I know people that got married
and didn't like who they married, who who the person they
married turned out to be. The only thing that caused them
to really split up was they figured they had a choice in the
matter and they just go find another.
The Christian doesn't have that choice.
Fascinating thing. Statistics will prove this out.
If you will stick to the choices you made, if you will stick to
the vow that you made, you will be amazed that when this doesn't
turn out, when you just do what God says in faith that it's
better than it ever was before. Focus on the Family has a lot of
research on this. I can't do all this and we're
not really set up as a brotherhood to do it, but
there's research done on this of I forgot.
It was 10,000 or 12,000 couples that were at the point of ready
for divorce that went ahead and enjoying what their focus group
was about on trying to re establish and save these
marriages. Over 85% of the marriages, the
people that went into it reported when it was over, they
were happier about the choice they made on who they married
than they were on their honeymoon.
Do you know what their whole focus of that was?
This is over and you're talking almost 10,000 people that said
it's even better than it was back then.
People that completed the program, they had a 99% success
rate on those marriages lasting. You know what they did?
There were three main things that they did.
They said they started worshipping together and riding
in the same car to worship services.
Like what's that have to do with anything?
I don't know, but I can guess. But you don't need my guesses
right now. They started worshipping
together, going regularly. I don't know how they defined
regularly. I know how the Bible defines
regularly. But they went to church and they
rode in the same car. That was 1 #2 Yeah, I'm going to
tell you. Read the Bible.
They just got them writing, reading the same literature and
talking to one another about it. They didn't even require it was
the Bible. I'd tell you, if you're not
reading the Bible, man, that's the key.
They got them reading the same literature and talking to one
another. Had to be religious and #3 they
got them to get actively involved in their place where
they were worshiping. With what's going on, almost
100% said our marriage is now better than it was when we first
were madly in love with each other.
Because now you're surrounding, you're running around a purpose.
What happens when these people that fall in love are falling
apart? They're no longer doing this
together. We're just doing life and
there's somebody that we got to drag with us.
I submit faith. Their conviction will have to be
the proof for what we can't see. If you can't see a path to
happy, then you're going to have to believe it's there and just
keep doing the right thing. The empty nest.
What is the empty nest? Some people may say, I don't
even know what you're talking about.
Empty nest syndrome is a real thing.
Empty nest syndrome is the name used to describe the sadness and
distress parents sometimes feel when their children move away
from home. This can be immediate.
It can also take years. You may say, ma'am, my kids
moved away a long time ago, everything was fine and all the
sudden he's just not the same person.
She's just depressed all the time.
She's sad. It could be.
Empty nest syndrome symptoms are sadness, anxiety, grief,
irritability, a sense of fear. This can be especially difficult
when you enter marital conflict into the problem.
You know what? Most studies, and this is on the
social side of things, point to lack of purpose.
You've had all these kids, you've raised the children,
however many they were. You've been busy, but it was
over 1. You just gave them all your
time. You had all this.
And then when they're gone, it's like, what is the purpose now?
What are we doing? People even begin to wonder if
they know each other. And I would point you to Titus
chapter 2 verses one through 5. Now this, I don't want to go on
a lesson of this, but what you will find is that the older men
and the older women are reminded that they have a purpose in the
ministry of the church. Very specifically, the women are
asked to teach the younger women, the older women, the
younger women. One of the things is how to love
their husbands. Interestingly enough, guys,
we're never told to help teach people to love our lives.
They're taught to teach to love us.
You have a purpose, even when your kids are gone and you think
I'm growing old or whatever it is.
As we get older in life, the church needs us.
The church needs you, you know. I know I have had young people
at Oakdale tell me I almost didn't come tonight, but I
thought, you know, Leon and Doty are going to be there.
They'll name other older people. You may not know that you as an
older person are the reason that some of the other people are
here, just because they know you'll be here.
You have a purpose now. I would really, as strong as I
can, encourage you younger ladies to go and reach out to an
older one and the older woman to reach out to let the younger
ones know you're available because it's just not kind of
where our culture seems to be in most places right now.
There's always that fear of prying or that fear of trying to
give advice where advice isn't wanted, but just try to offer
your time to people. You are needed.
The Lord needs you. The church needs you.
Older men, everything that I just said could apply to that.
Our faith, our conviction will need to be the proof for what we
can't look at or understand yet. If in the empty nest phase of
life we're saying what is my purpose?
Faith is going to have to be the foundation that supports us
through that. When the load's too heavy, any
group can get to the point. You think you can't go far
enough. I know you're on to me by now,
but there are times in life that every direction we cannot see
how it's going to work out. There is no way we see a path
forward or a way that we're going to be happy.
So I'll point you as we'll start to Romans chapter 5 in verse
one. It says therefore, having been
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into
this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory
of God. He says you're thinking past all
this. You know, there are times in
life we do that. The boys and I, we love to
backpack. At first I think I loved it
more. And I'd get home and I'd tell
Rachel the boys did so good. You know, they were little.
And now we get home and they're like, mom, Dad's doing so good.
It's not as fun as it used to be the older I get, but I still
want to do it. Why it hurts to breathe and walk
up some of those mountains. And then I also know coming down
may be hurt worse than going up did on the knees.
Why do you do it? Do it for the time with them on
the top of the mountain. Because there's nothing like it
to me. Now.
I can understand that on climbing and walking a path out
in the middle of the wilderness. Surely I can get that when I
think of this life as a mountain.
Sometimes it's not fun. Sometimes we're just doing good
to breathe and keep carrying the load because why in the world
did I bring that? That is life.
Sometimes we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Our faith, our conviction is the foundation of this hope.
It's an expectation. I know what's there now.
We have gotten where most of the times I want to go on the
trails. I already know because I know
what's at the other end. I know it's worth it.
I used to like to go on any trail and just figure out and if
it wasn't a good one, Oh well. Now I expect that I want to go
somewhere. I expect to see something
amazing. And not only that, don't answer
yet. Don't buy yet.
Not only that, we also glory in tribulations, knowing that
tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance,
character and character hope, he says.
This process will produce hope. How is that?
It's because some of you have already been through things in
life that you didn't think you were going to make it through,
and then you did. And you're here in this
afternoon and you're like, OK, yeah, I've seen that happen
before. You know what happens when we
have success? The next time we face that same
kind of deal, we're like, hey, remember it worked before we got
success. There was a study they did with
rats. I don't remember the name of the
study. You can Google it and read the
details of it, but they basically put rats in a VAT of
water to see how long they live before they drowned.
It was like a couple hours. And then they did another study
where they did that again with a group of rats, but with another
group of rats, at about the time they were given up and going to
sink. They pulled them out, they dried
them off, they fed them, let them recover, and they did put
them in again. They found out the second time
they lasted like about 6 hours before they were going to give
up. They pulled them out, they dried
them off, fed them, let them get all rested again, and they put
them back in. They had rats that lasted over
two days. Why?
Because even a rat figured out that they could have hoped they
were going to get rescued. They could hang on.
Now, rats can do that. We can do that.
No matter what we're going through, it'll be our faith.
Our conviction becomes the foundation of the hope.
Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been
poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
How does this work? There is a faith that surpasses
understanding, the Scripture says.
And according to the book of Romans, the Holy Spirit being
poured out in our hearts has something to do with that.
When the load seems too heavy, our faith, our conviction is the
proof for what we can't look at or understand yet.
Finally, as we bring these to to to a conclusion when the end is
near, this lesson is it's a new one over the last year because
there was one season of life that I really was not didn't
feel equipped to even talk about.
And that's the end. I've seen different people go
through different seasons, but going through what we went
through with mom was totally different.
And it completed my experience with when the end is near in a
lot of ways. Not completed that I'm there
yet, not the completed that I think I can tell somebody all
the right things. But here is the consistent thing
every time, whether you have a long goodbye or you got a week
to say everything you need to say, faith really comes down to
the end. Romans chapter 8 verse 18 says,
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in US. I can't even compare what's the
glory to whatever you're going through?
That's that's lung cancer, that's anything.
Nothing compares to the glory that would be revealed in us for
we were saved in this hope. But hope that is seen is not
hope for why does 1 still hope for what he sees?
Think about that. You're like, well, I have hope,
but I just need to see something.
Well then it's not hope. You've seen it.
This hope is this earnest expectation that's based on
faith, not on something you can grasp.
It's not hope when you see it. But if we hope for what we do
not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
This word perseverance means endurance.
We will endure, and we will stay through.
Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weakness.
Once again He brings the Spirit, for we do not know what we
should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes
intercession with us, for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered. Comes from a Greek word
literally means unspeakable. The ESV says too deep for words.
There are times that we get life.
You don't even know what to pray for anymore as Cole prayed this
afternoon and he says for there's some, we pray for
health, but sometimes that's not the answer.
And we now we don't know what to pray for.
We want peace, we want comfort. Most of all, we want God's mercy
and we want the peace that passes understanding that is
this hope, this intercession. He says the Spirit makes
intercession for us when we want to pray, but we don't know what
to pray for. 2nd Corinthians 5 and 6.
So now, so we are always confident, knowing that while we
are home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we
walk by faith and not by sight. When we're in this body, we're
absent from the Lord. And he says, so in that case
we're walking by faith, not by sight.
We are confident, yes, well, please rather to be absent from
the body and to be present with the Lord.
Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be
well pleasing to him. He says he's come to the point
that he realizes the end is better than what I have when I'm
here in the body. Now, I got to admit there's
times that's hard for Greg to imagine.
I love my life. I love my wife.
I love my kids. But now, if I'm real honest,
I'll admit there's been times in that process.
It's like, how can I do this today?
Yeah, you can. How do I know I can?
That's faith. How are we going to face that
when we take something and we get to the end of life and say,
I don't know how to deal with this?
You're going to look back through childhood.
You're going to look back when you were a young adult.
You look at those years of the middle age and older, and you're
going to think of all those times that you've seen God's
will work even when your decisions were bad.
Here you are today, even when you know some of the things that
happened back then. Maybe you shouldn't even be
alive today, and you are. That is all, equipping you for
the hope you need for the end that there is hope, so that you
can know that whether present here or absent from here and
with the Lord, you want to be well pleasing to Him.
For why we must all appear before the judgment seat of
Christ, that each one may receive the things done in His
body according to what He has done, whether good or bad.
We know we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
Somebody says, oh good, because Christ, he's merciful, He won't
put anybody. Everything will be all good.
Verse 11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade
men. I'm assuming you're the Sunday
afternoon crowd. I'm preaching to the choir, but
just in case I'm not and you're here just because whatever
reason you're right or you're just curious, but you know
you're not ready. Paul told the church here we
persuade people because the terror of the Lord's real Jesus
says I didn't come to judge the world, but the very next thing
he says was, but the words that I speak, they shall judge them
in the last day because they're not my words.
God gave me these words. Paul knew that and therefore he
says we persuade men. Can you relate to one of these
life seasons We've talked about children trying to figure out
what next. What am I supposed to be focus
on honoring your parents focus on his will parents if they're
too young to get this right now, focus on teaching them to obey
you and honor you. You're like that honor part's
hard. I can make them obey, but keep
working. Best advice I can give is don't
give up. Young men and young women
confused about your future, Keep your faith on the Lord.
Your marriage is struggling today.
I'm going to tell you the Lord's going to be the thing that keeps
it together. You're raising children and it
feels overwhelming. I'm going to tell you that's the
Lord and your faith in Him. That's going to keep it
together. Your nest is empty.
You've made it through those things, but you've now feel like
blank and dole and you don't know what to do with it.
Focus on the Lord. He's going to make it work.
The load is just too heavy and you don't think you can naked in
any of these. Focus on the Lord.
The end is near and your life is fleeting away.
It's the same answer in every season of life.
It's focusing on the Lord. Your faith feels so weak and
you're like I believe, but it just feels insufficient.
The last example I'll leave you with this afternoon is the
father of the boy with a mute spirit, as it describes it.
It sounds like to me he had grand Mal seizures.
I'm not a doctor, but he came to Jesus in Mark Chapter 9 verse
18, and he said whenever it seizes him, it throws him down.
He foams at the mouth, he gnashes his teeth and become
rigid. I got it work for me when I did
a job in Oklahoma. This is what happened on one of
our days. OK, so when I think about that,
being one of my kids, I can't imagine the anxiety of a parent.
They didn't know as much about this back then, this thousands
of years ago. He's begging with Jesus to
please heal his son. And he asked his father, how
long has this been happening to him?
He said from the childhood. And often he's thrown himself
both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.
You already know we like to camp.
We had the kids up this last hunting season, the last week,
and it was cold and snowed and we had this fire and it was all
cool, right? Except everybody's paranoid.
The kids run around the fire. Somebody just falls that way,
right? This man's son has thrown
himself into the fire when he's had one of these seizures.
If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
And Jesus said, if you can believe, all things are possible
to him who believes and immediately the father of child
cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my
unbelief. I can relate to that.
When you're you're here on a Sunday afternoon because you
believe on some level, but you, there's just another level of
belief you know, you need. What I'm going to say is you
keep coming on Sunday afternoon. You keep coming.
Do not give up. It is a relentless pursuit of
this faith, as Peter says, until the day dawns and the day star
rises in your hearts and it will happen.
It absolutely will happen. Does your faith supports?
Does your faith support the foundation of your hopes?
Is your faith the proof of what you don't understand?
If it's not Hebrews 11 and six, we talked about it this morning.
Without faith, it's impossible to please Him.
We need to repent. Luke 13 and three.
We need to be willing to confess him before men.
Romans 10 and 10 and be baptized.
That's how we put on Christ. As many of you have been
baptized into Christ, have put on Christ Today, if you're a
Christian, you've obeyed the gospel, but you sinned and you
know that you need to to change things.
That doesn't mean you have to be re baptized.
You can pray to God. He's willing, He's faithful and
just to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.
First John 18 and 9:00. But if you want the prayers of
the church according to James 516, then we'll pray with you.
We'll pray for you. We want to encourage you.
Keep the faith no matter what season you're in or what season
you're headed to. If we can be of assistive
evening, won't you come as we stand and see?