It's Alive

Fresh Faith Review

We have only 2 more messages in our series of Fresh Faith.

pastor Jim Cymbala calls it what happens when Real faith ignites God’s people

I like to see it as how the people of God rise up and get victory over the enemy and his attacks on their life - Fresh Faith

We grow our faith by getting to know who our God is.

It’s what you know of God that gives you the ability to be able to trust in God

So what are you doing to get to know God better?\

How much time are you putting into His Word?

Not because you need to read something today but because His Word tells you Who He is and what he is able to do.

How much time are you willing to spend with him daily, or weekly or just monthly?

Because you never really get to know someone unless you start to spend time with them.

And so we’ve now taken 12 weeks to get to know a little bit more about our God

The God who can restore all things. Even those things which are broken and missing

The God who can make us forget all of our troubles

The God who can make us fruitful in the midst of our sufferings.

Getting to know God like this strengthens our faith, doesn’t it. Perhaps you didn’t know that God could do those things, but now you do.

Kristian - brakes on car. He can do it.

As we trust God, we open up more of our lives to him, to allow him to work in us. - talking more about that in today’s message.

it means that we can give him more place in our lives. Hopefully moving him from the surroundings of our life into the very center. - Our Lord and King.

It means that we will be able to trust him in the important things even when time is running out.

That we recognize that he is the God who is not restricted by time as we are and that he moves inside and outside of those time restraints.

It means that we will get over our hurts and disappointments, because we recognize the things He can really do and they won’t hinder us from seeing him do them anymore.

It will give us a better understanding of how God works in situations and why:

That he uses every situation to get a higher praise in our lives

He uses every situation to give us a greater testimony and power in our lives

He uses every situation to raise up the next generation of God believers. So church, seek those times when you can tell these young people that are with us about what God has done in your life and what it has meant to you.

It will cause us to have the patience to wait on God.

To wait on His truth - He is greater than anything that we will ever face including our sin

We need to wait on the power and process of his salvation and his grace - not allowing the enemy to discourage us, but knowing that God is not finished with us yet, but he doesn’t give up or throw in the towel.

It will give us the ability to walk in faith.

To make god the source of everything we have and need

To see God as the loving God that he is

To keep moving forward and not becoming campers

To trust God to let us know when we are finished.

and as we saw last week, it will give us the ability to see with our spiritual eyes

Not to be so focused on the external stuff, but know that God’s hand is moving in the deepest places of our lives

That he is working at the root of the situation that we feel is out to get us.

That he is giving us a new heart

That he is renewing the Spirit that is within us

And that spirit will be a willing spirit - a spirit that will not give up in following God, no matter what....

Turn with me to

1 Peter 1:3–12 NKJV

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into.

Peter here is writing about the incorruptible inheritance that we have been given through the death and resurrection Of Jesus Christ.

But how many know that to see that inheritance we need to have faith.

And as we’ve been talking about, the enemy is out to steal that inheritance by stealing our faith.

So first we have a

A Living Hope

This is a hope that is contrary to a dead hope.

Remember satan comes to rob, kill and destroy. In that message back in the beginning of July we said that one of the things that he kills within us is our hope.

Because he knows, if you can’t hope for something, then you are basically going to die

But Jesus brings our hope back to life. He gives us a living hope.

A living hope is something that is breathing.

You can feel it inside

It’s constantly being refilled and renewed

It brings life back to other areas of your life.

A living hope is something that is growing.

I may have this hope about one thing that God has promised me about, but day by day it grows into something greater, and then something greater still.

If I can have hope for something or about something

I can have a vision to see it happen

I have something to work towards

I have something to live life for

I have something to believe God for.

A living hope is not, “Well I sure hope that happens some day.”

It is My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ name

Oh, it’s happening. This is the God whom I serve, this is the promise that he has made me and so I expect it. I have a living hope. It’s alive and I live in it everyday.

I may not be able to touch it yet. I may not be able to hold it yet

But like a pregnant mother who can put her hand on her belly and feel that child kick and move I know that someday, this thing is going to be birthed.

The Bible talks about moments of pregnant like expectation - church that’s what we want today - A living hope.

As the Bible says here, we can have that living hope, because our glorious inheritance is three things:

it is incorruptible - impervious to corruption and death. Our inheritance cannot be corrupted or killed. It is sure and cannot be altered or undone.

It is undefiled - our inheritance is pure. It is not tainted by sin or stain or blemish.

and it is unfading - our inheritance will not loose its pristine quality or character. It will not fade.

and that living hope has a powerful effect in our lives.

tells us that it begins to place substance in our life. It begins to give us the ability to see things that normally we wouldn’t be able to see

What that verse is tellling us is that this living hope inside of us starts to give us a

A Living Faith

Hebrews 11:1 NKJV

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

A living Faith or as Timothy says in our scriptures today - a genuine Faith.

I’ve met people with crazy faith - ever meet one of them? They are so far out in left field, you can’t even have a conversation with them

I’ve met people with dead faith - not very uplifiting people to hang around with

But what God wants to give his people is genuine faith

The substance of our hope

The ability to see what normally we would never see.

A Living faith is a substantial faith

There is weight to it

There is volume to it

There is depth to it

When you have faith such as this, you trust God with everything.

Our Chapter this week was about God purging us. God using the furnaces of life to clean the dross out of us and make us pure in our metal of faith and living.

A Genuine Faith trusts God enough to allow him to straighten us out.

Kim and I love to watch “Forged in Fire” - a show about black smithing (It really intrigues me)

I watch these guys take nuts and bolts, cut bicycles apart or ball bearings or just flat pieces of scrap metal and make unbelievable blades out of them

But you know what the first step is? - The forge. the fire

And then the next step is the hammer

I know steel doesn’t have feelings, but I want you to know to a human, those things hurt.

My brothers and sisters, God wants to bring you to a place of power in your life. But as it says here, that comes by faith.

There is going to be fire involved.

There is going to be some pounding and same shaping and some forming

But the real pain in that comes only in stubborness to the process.

A Genuine Faith trusts the refiner and the process

I watch as they smiths draw out their design. And I watch as they grab their steel and I can’t see. BUT THEY DO!

God sees it. He gets it. He created you for good things. Let knows what it will take to get you there. Trust Him today!

Because a Genuine Faith also trusts God for the end result.

The scriptures say here that these things - the total result of the Lord’s work in our lives will be revealed in the last time.

And we see here that the genuine faith produces in us

A Living Salvation

A full salvation

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like half baked cookies

I want you to know that God is not looking for half saved Christians

In fact he is very clear about that in

Revelation 3:16 NKJV

So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

God expects that we would be fully saved. Experiencing the daily effects of the process of sanctification in our lives.

I’m not where God wants me to be yet, but I’m not where I was yesterday either

I’ve taken another step, I’ve matured, I am on a jouney to becoming more like Christ daily

And Look what it says the signs of that will be in our lives.

Inexpressible Joy

and a life full of glory - God’s glory

A faith, more precious than gold, that has been tested in the fire and is giving praise, honor and glory to God

My brothers and sister,

It’s Alive today! Do you feel it?

Are you walking in it?

Is it effecting the way that you see things and live life?

It’s a living hope

It’s a genuine Faith

and It’s a Rich Salvation

It’s all for you today.

Let’s Pray