Faith

Good morning. I pray you are all doing well on this glorious morning. The Lord blessed us with cooler temps this past weekend and what a blessing it was

What a wonderful morning yesterday was.....We had our monthly men’s breakfast....it is held the second Saturday of every month we start cooking and fellowship at 7 am and eat around 8 am followed by someone bringing the Word. Yesterday was a beautiful morning and we had a great breakfast. Men mark your calendars and make an excuse to attend next month

I ask that as teachers return this week to prepare for this school year you lift up the teachers, admin, cooks, janitors maintenance, bus drivers all those who are involved with the schools. I ask you pray for them to follow God as the lead children

I also ask that you pray for the kids preparing to return to school. For many it is a wonderful time of year filled with excitement and joy but for many it is a time of year full of dread and anxiety. Pray God moves in all their lives as they return to school on the 21st here in Nevada

It is wonderful to be back with you this morning. It was so good to hear my brother Jefferson bring the Word last week and we enjoyed a wonderful week on vacation together. God is so good to us!

I have struggled with this message

I have started and stopped it many times

I have written and re-written it a few times, which is not an unusual process for me but this message was a struggle

I believe, however, the struggle is necessary and beneficial

In my life, in this ministry of preaching God’s Word I truly feel the sermons and messages

Many sermons come from my secret place time with Jesus

Sometimes they are things I am really struggling with

Sometimes they are things I am wrestling with God about

Other times conviction hits and God says take that to them after you deal with me and your personal conviction

They draw me into the secret place seeking God in His Word and the messages He wants me to bring to you

The meat He wants to present to you so you may grow in your Christian maturity and relationship with Him

Through that growth....spiritual fruit will result

fruit that drives you out of your pew and home.....fruit that forces you to leave you comfort zone and take Jesus to Nevada and beyond

Fruit that produces individual revival leading to community revival

Staying the same and keep the status quo are the opposite of faith and revival

I pray for revival

true

pure

powerful

soul-winning

discipleship producing

revival to sweep over each of us individually and to take CCC and Nevada by storm and change lives for God eternally

Let’s Pray

START RECORDING

Faith

Faith is a must for one to be a true Christian

Many if not all use the word faith

claiming to have faith but if you asked them to define faith most would struggle

Western Christians tend to overuse words

cheapening them

stealing their power and meaning

society just changes the meanings of words if they don’t like them

Christians do that as well by overusing or misusing words

Grace is a perfect example

Society has changed grace to mean acceptance of all sin.....in fact if you don’t accept sin you don’t have grace and are evil and hateful

That is so far from the truth but many and unfortunately even some Christians fully accept that definition and fight to force others to accept it as well

Churches and denominations are accepting of homosexual lifestyles…even homosexual “pastors”....there is no such thing as a homosexual pastor…that is a false prophet

Homosexuality is a sin…see Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.....Romans 1:26-27 and I Corinthians 6:9-10.

Now this is not a message of hate but truth

Homosexuality is a sin

It will send people who refuse to repent of that sin to hell....just like refusing to repent of your sin will send you to hell

Sin is sin is sin

All sin is evil

all sin separates you from God

Because of your sin you deserve death and hell and eternal separation from God

But God has grace

Grace is getting what you don’t deserve

You deserve hell because of your sin but get heaven because of God’s grace and Jesus’ work on the cross!

Once you confess and believe as Romans 10:9-10 tells us....making Jesus your Lord and Savior you are saved and receive a full portion of God’s grace

Are you truly thankful for God’s grace or do you take it for granted and cheapen it by not looking at it as the eternity saving gift it truly is?

Another word that we overuse without really stopping to truly understand it is Faith

Faith is also a truth that is required in order to be a true Christian but a truth that most don’t truly understand let alone live in

What is Faith?

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I believe faith is defined by scripture

Hebrews 11:1

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“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

God’s definition of faith

Faith here in Hebrews comes from the Greek word pistis

it is a noun and means persuasion, credence, moral conviction, reliance upon Christ for salvation

According to Webster’s 1828 faith in the English language comes from two Latin verbs that mean to trust, to persuade, to draw towards anything, to believe, to obey

In Hebrews God gives us a very practical definition of faith

substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen

Faith is life giving

and life defining

Truly our faith belongs in one place and one place only

Jesus

our Lord and Savior

our Messiah

Before we can move on we must understand what are things hoped for

now this is in no way an exhaustive list but what God laid on my heart.

Forgiveness

Salvation

Deliverance

Redemption

Heaven

Eternal Security

Being with Jesus face to face one day

Just to name a few

These are things you must hope for as Christians

We must also understand what things are not hoped for

Wealth

Health

Physical Security

IRAs

Retirement

Family

Church

Ministry

Now it is not wrong to have or pray for these gifts but to place your hope....therefore your faith in them is a sin

As a blood-bought delivered…redeemed....born again Christian these can’t be your hope

these can’t be your faith

Your hope and faith belong in Jesus and Jesus alone.....through Jesus your hope is

Adoption

Redemption

Eternal life

forgiveness

deliverance

That is your hope…that is your faith and if it is not you are wrong!

The fact that you are adopted

redeemed

forgiven

have eternal life

are delivered

those facts and truths must drive your life

You must be different

you must speak different

act different

think different

you go from running from the Gospel to sharing the Gospel

Faith goes deeper

Hebrews 11:3

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“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

God created the universe with His Words

He said it and it happened

He spoke it into existence

That includes you and me by the way

You and I learn that through faith

That is one reason society struggles to explain the beginning of the world.

They don’t have faith therefore they cannot understand or believe in creation

God’s grace leads to repentance.....repentance leads to salvation

Salvation gives you the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit teaches you all things

that is the source of your faith!!!!!

You must understand it is the Holy Spirit who teaches.

I pray you have learned a lot here this morning at CCC

If you were in Sunday School you received Biblical teaching

You are hearing the Word of God proclaimed as you are sitting here this morning or are watching online

If you learned anything however it was not us…we had nothing to do with it

What you learned was taught to you by the Holy Spirit You cannot gain Godly knowledge on your own

Isaiah 55:8–9

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“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.”

You and I cannot understand God’s thoughts and ways on our own

It is impossible

Again the Holy Spirit whom we receive at salvation teaches us

Without Him no true learning can happen

You only gain head knowledge without the Holy Spirit

Heart knowledge or true knowledge of Jesus is placed by the Holy Spirit

It requires faith

Faith is one reason millions will hear away from Me I never knew you when they meet Jesus face to face

Millions have head knowledge

Millions have good deeds

Millions have ministry but they don’t have faith!

God requires faith

You and I have never seen Him face to face yet if you are a true Christian here this morning you know beyond a shadow of a doubt He exists

Faith

Ephesians 3:14–19

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“For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

Faith

Be filled with all the fullness of God

I want that

I pray you want that…filled with all the fullness of God

You will never be filled with the fullness of God without faith

Why?

Because you will never truly and fully understand God here on earth

It takes faith to allow Holy Spirit to fill you with the fullness of God

We also can’t truly comprehend God’s love for us but through faith we are filled with His love

Philippians 4:11–13

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“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

Contentment. That is a fruit of faith

Content in Jesus

Content in heaven

Content in relationship.....truly knowing God is God and God has you

That is contentment and lack of contentment is truly lack of faith

Last year I learned a lot

I have never been and will never be a true elementary teacher

However that is where God placed me

I fought that with everything in my being last school year

Now don’t get me wrong I love the kids

I love the teachers I teach with

I love the paras I work with

When you are a male in lower elementary you are a rock star....high fives....hugs....yells from the other side of Walmart or restaurants or football games....IT IS MR SMITH

I do love that but that does not make me an elementary teacher

I miss a lot about the older kids and know that someday God will bring me back to them however right now HE has me in elementary

As I said I fought that with everything in me last year for about 3/4 of the school year

I was far from the model teacher…employee…friend

I was selfish

I was self-centered

I was focusing only on me and my wants and my desires

I was fighting with God and of course losing so my attitude was terrible

my outlook was pessimistic and poor

I was not an example of how to live from Christ for sure

But God didn’t give up and He kept speaking to me and showing me things in His Word and eventually I got it

How.....knowing His great love for us in Christ

That, my friends, is faith

Nothing to do with you or me

Nothing to do with works

All about Jesus and His great love for you!!!!!

When you get that…faith is alive and well in you

That changed me....I still fight it and will continue to fight it because I am human and my flesh is evil and wants the opposite of what God desires for me

As you know we are moving into a new building.....Weber Elementary......teachers actually get access tomorrow...

But in the lead up to this new school year the enemy attacked again and again I began to fall for it

The building is built around these giant stairs in the middle called learning stairs....they will be awesome....several classrooms can be on them at the same time learning and seeing nature as the area around the stairs is surrounded by glass…really cool but that also created wings

Prek and k are on the bottom floor....1st on the ground floor and 2nd on the top floor but each floor is split in two by the stairs

When the room assignments first came out I was super excited....i was on the less populated wing of 2nd grade and the 3 other teachers were the 3 teachers I was the closest to and worked the best with....I was full of joy and excitement....then another email came

We are sorry but you are going to have to move classrooms as the room you are in is not a sped room.

I emailed back nope I want to stay where I am

Their response…we are sorry but that is what has to happen

Joy gone

excitement gone

ready to return to school gone

I started to go back down that uncontent road

I started to return to selfishness and being self-centered and being angry and wanting to run

The side that I am now on is the side with the chaos

There are teachers who do not get along, as with any educational institution

There are teachers that I do not see eye to eye with and are there for different reasons than I am there

There are teachers who view education differently than I do and that can lead to issues

In my pity party God moved and reminded me of Isaiah 55:8-9 that we looked at earlier

He reminded me He was God and He has a plan and my job was to trust Him and have faith

He needs me in the chaos because He needs the light of Jesus shone into those situations

He needs someone to display strength through weakness

He needs someone to show compassion in the midst of things going wrong

He needs Jesus brought to that wing

I get it

I don’t like it

I don’t look forward to the chaos in terms of the emotional and physical toll it will take on me

Nevertheless not my will but Your will be done Father

I do look forward to God and Him moving and taking something that should be a train wreck and making it a beautiful life giving situation

He will paint a masterpiece with the chaos

That my friends is faith and that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God

So what does this all mean?

Faith is what drives you

Faith is what shapes your perspective

Faith is what people see when they see you

How you react

How you interact

How you deal with the chaos of life

Do you have peace

Do you have gentleness

Are you calm in the midst of chaos

Do you have Jesus?

Faith is what God uses to change your life and attitude and beliefs and perspectives....He changes your heart....

Faith breeds contentment

Contentment breeds peace

Peaces comes from Jesus

God may be working on your heart right now

God may be calling you to move

to respond

I pray you are a doer not a hearer only this morning

This morning the worship team is going to do this invitation time a little different

Some may say it is just to do more music and that couldn’t be further from the truth

God laid it on our hearts to do two songs at invitation time because sometimes you need more time with Jesus

Sometimes you are prideful and refuse to move and one song is not enough time for God to get you to move

Sometimes you need to worship as a result of what God spoke to you this morning and we want to give you that time

We are going to do two songs, not for us but because God showed us you needed more time to respond

Again the altar and this time is nothing special on their own but can change your eternity and your right now

If God is calling you

come

Come and get on your knees and give it to Him

Come and receive prayer.....i would be more than happy to pray with you after service just let the elder know who is praying with you and we will get that done

The important part is you and God.......be a doer....have faith....move

STOP RECORDING

Invitation

STOP STREAMING