We Walk by Faith

intro

How many of you can see the future? How many of you know exacally what tomorrow holds? Nor next week, or next month?

Of course the answer is none of you. The bible makes it very clear than tomorrow is amystry to all of us.

James 4:13–14 NKJV

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

James 4:13–15 NKJV

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

Proverbs 27:1 NKJV

1 Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.

We do not know what tomorrow may bring.

But for years, for decades we as christians have lways maintained and Amened the popular saying:

I do not know what tomorrow holds, but I know who hold tomorrow.

And here is the issue.

This was true a year ago, it was still true a month ago, and it is still true today.

I want you guys to all understand that we as christians have faced Uncertantity every single day of our lives thus far and have been more than conqueres through Christ who loves us.

A lot of peoples hearts are fainting because this wholes Pandemic has created such uncertantity.

But it has not created antymore uncertantity than we have faced before it came.

We have NEVER known what tomorrow holds.

Let us take this pandemic out of the picture for just one moment.

Let us look at the uncertantity of your life WITHOUT COVID19:

Over 5000 people get diagnoser with cancer every single day - you could have been 1 of those for the past how every many years youve been alive.

Every single day in south africa 40 people are killed in road accidents, 30 people are left permanitly disabled - you could have an accident any time.

In south africa there are 60 murders a day, 115 rapes are reported each day.

here is South africa we have lived with the uncertanty of life every singkle day.

What about your job?

Well for all you in south africa, your job has NEVER been stable. Everyday over the past 20 years our economy has gotten steadely worse and worse. The unemployment rate has risen higher than almost any other country.

Established brands and buisness close down on a monthly basis.

Why am i telling you all this? because this is the uncertan life we faced and lived in the Joy of the Lord.

We have always faced each day by faith. Trusting in the Lord for his care and provision.

And COVID19 should not change that.

Our world has always been unstable, but we have always trusted i the Stability of God.

Instability is a Mark of Immaturity

Because the Christ trusts in God the christan weathers any and every storm that comes to their life.

Ephesians 4:14 NKJV

14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

This tells us that to be tossed about, to be unstable is to be like a child, is to be immature.

James tells us the same thing:

James 1:6–8 NKJV

6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

An unstable person is a person who is tossed aboout by outside forces.

Fear, trails, fake news, threats, wars, roumers of wars, sickness, deases, ecomomical failure - all of these are outside forces.

And we have been battered by these ouside forces every day of our lives, with various degrees of verocity.

And the problem is that the immature person allows these outside forces, these storms to destroy them.

Jesus told us:

Matthew 7:26–27 NKJV

26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

My frineds the situations in terms of the lockdown may be unpreccideneted in our lifetime, but it is not unpreccidenet in terms of Faith.

mat 726-27

The great weakness of the modern christian is perfectly summed up by AW Tozer.

he said That weak christians always need to feel like they have security, but in the problem is that in the christian life there is no security.

We confuse security with stability.

Weak christins are stable when they feel secured. - Its like a dog barking inside a closed gate - the gate gives the dog security to be bold, but if you take the gate away, the dog puts its tale btween its legs and runs.

Stability is courage and faith, with or withour the gate, with or withour securirty.

But what this pandemic has done, its it has removed many people sense of security. and now they panic and cower.

But what im trying to tell you, is that we as christians never had any worldy security to begin with, so this virus has nothing to take from us.

Why?

because as belivers our stability should have and is not based in worldy security - which is frail and weak and always changing.

Our stability is based in Christ Jesus who is mighty and loving and never changing.

As Jesus said:

Matthew 7:24–25 NKJV

24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

Our life is founded on the rock and who is the rock?

1 Corinthians 10:4 NKJV

4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.

1 cor 0 4

Conclusion:

God wants us to excersise faith and trust in Him so that in the midst of storms we are stable.

1 Corinthians 15:58 NKJV

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

1 cor 15

Steadfast and imovable are the words God wants us to be.

Steadfast in our Faith in God and immovible in our trust in Him.

Colossains tell us:

Colossians 1:23 NKJV

23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Grounded. Steadfast. And not able to be moved.

This kind of stability cannot be experienced without a deep, daily Devotion to God, through daily prayers, daily readings and daily meditations on Gods Word, all while maintaining a life that is free of Offence.

Nothing Has Changed Church:

Matthew 6:33 NKJV

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.