The Expectancy of Faith

Intro

It strikes me as kind of funny when I think about last year being 2020.

In the world of eyesight, 20/20 is the epitome of healthy sight. There is clarity, definition, and acuity in a person with 20/20 vision.

How ironic then, that 2020 would be a year unlike any other year in history. The events of those 12 months flipped the script and left all of us scratching our heads as we tried to make sense of out what we saw taking place all around us.

No one could predict the events that would transpire from Jan 1st to Dec 31st of 2020.

they were anything but predictable or reliable

Nothing was certain

We were all forced to face circumstances outside of our control and comfort zones.

And so far, 2021 doesn’t seem to be shaping up to be too different…There is still much uncertainty. There is still much that is up in the air as it pertains to life getting back to “normal.”

Even with the Covid vaccines being rapidly dispenses, exeprts are saying we will still need to wear masks and practice social distancing.

We will still be bombarded with limitations and isolations and annoyances…when all that most of us want is to return to a sense of normalcy and predictability.

However, I believe that this time of uncertainty is ordained by the Lord.

I believe He is allowing it because He wants to:

wake up and shake up His church.

He wants to speak afresh and a new to us.

He wants to fill our hearts with new dreams and fresh visions and

I believe he wants to give us action steps that align with what His Spirit is desiring to do here on the earth in the months and years yet to come

The upside to all the unpredictability is that we are learning to become less and less reliant on certainty.

We are becoming less and less reliant upon routine.

We are becoming less and less tied to predictability.

Instead we are being forced to learn once again what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.

This is, perhaps, the greatest gift that Covid has given to the church. Sure…it’s closed our doors to weekly worship, it’s made finances more difficult, and its dislodsged our reliance on weekly programs…

yet it’s also helped us to learn how to seek the Lord for ourselves.

It’s caused us to dig deeper into His Word.

It’s allowed us more time spend in prayer and its helped many of us to hear God more clearly in our lives - some of us for the very first time.

God’s people have always been referred to as people of faith.

- People who LIVE differently,

- THINK differently,

- BEHAVE differently than the world around us, because we are guided by different principles, truths and and ideaologies.

We are people who believe that the words of Scripture are not just words written in some book thousands of years ago,

but that they are the divinely inspired and authoritative words of God himself!

And these words are every bit as timely and applicable today as the day in which they were written.

While we may not be afforded with perfect vision and insight into what exactly is going on in the world in which we live, we are being provided with ample opportunity to stretch and grow our faith. Hebrews 11:1 reminds us that faith is SUBSTANCE of things HOPED FOR, and the EVIDENCE of things NOT SEEN/” KJV

The MSG declares that “this faith is the FIRM FOUNDATION under everything that makes life worth living. Its our handle on what we can’t see.”

The Passion Translation assures us by saying this “Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is the all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.”

The AMPLIFIED Bible tells us that FAITH is the TITLE DEED of things DIVINELY GUARANTEED. It goes on to say that “Faith comprehends as FACT what cannot be experienced by the physical senses.”

As believers, we are commanded to walk by faith and not be sight.If there was ever a better time to start living this out, I can’t think of one…This is our mandate as believers today.

Stop reacting to what you see with your eyes.

Stop reacting to what you hear with your ears.

Stop allowing the things that are taking place in this world to dampen your faith and pour cold water on the fire of God burning in your hearts!

This isn’t a time to SHRINK BACK in your faith, it is a time BRANCH OUT! It is the time to ACT OUT what you are hearing God speak to your in your prayer closets!

The words of Isa 43:19 keep ringing in my ears “FOR I AM ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING NEW. SEE, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland>”

Yes the world all around us is shaking…It is quaking in fear. Anxiety is on the rise. Mental health is in decline. Fear and worry are being exeprerienced in unprecendented levels....

YET GOD IS WORKING…

HE IS MOVING BEHIND THE SCENES.

HE IS PREPARING A WAY FOR HIS PEOPLE.

HE IS GETTING READY TO DO THINGS LIKE WE’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE

This is YOUR time to begin participating in activity of the Holy Spirit here on earth.

This is your divine invitation to be a part of what God is about to do....

***Don’t let history reveal that you just sat here and did nothing.** Rather, let history reveal that you were created for SUCH A TIME AS THIS and that instead of shrinking back in fear, you SPRANG to a life of faith and radical action!

One of my devotions this week was the faith of Noah. His faith was OBEDIENT, It was ACTIVE and it was EXPECTANT!

NOAH’S FAITH WAS OBEDIENT

God was about to do something UNPRECENDENTED in history in Noah’s day. He was about to destroy the world because of its sin and he was going to use a world-wide flood of epic proportions to carry it out.

He spoke to Noah one day and commanded him to build a boat. -Something that Noah had never seen or heard of before.

And it wasn’t some dingy or small vessel God asked him to build either.

It was to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall!!!!!!

He was commanded to construct a vessel that could contain the equivalent of over 500 livestock railroad cards, providing space for nearly 125,000 animals.

And as daunting as the construction of the ark was, It’s not the SIZE OF TASK that’s so incredible in this story, it the REACTION of NOAH. He simply did what God asked him to do!!!! Genesis 6: 22 says. “SO NOAH DID EVERYTHING EXACTLY AS GOD HAD COMMANDED HIM!”

There was no arguing. There were no excuses made. There was not even delay. Noah simply heard the Word of God and obeyed it.

But Noah’s faith wasn’t only OBEDIENT…HIS FAITH WAS ACTIVE!!!!

even though he hadn’t ever experience torrential rainfall before

even though he had never seen a boat - let alone built one

even though the project took him 120 years to complete

Noah sety out right away to begin the task to which God had called him!

What an incredible man Noah was. Abraham gets all the credit when it comes to faith, but Abraham wouldn’t have even existed if it were not for the faith and obedience of Noah.

James 1:22 reminds us of this “Don’t just LISTEN to God’s Word. You must DO WHAT IT SAYS!”

The KJV encourages us to be doers of the word and not hearers only!

The Passion encourages us not to “just listen to the words of Truth but to RESPOND TO IT”

The AMPLIFIED tells us that as believers, we should “actively and continually obey God’s Word”

If we don’t act on what we hear...

We fool ourselves into thinking that we’re being spiritual, when we’re actually not.

It’s not the hearing that pleases God…it is the doing! This is the heart of what James wrote!!!

and it here where a lot of modern day believers miss the mark

We love to listen to the word

We have bible apps on our phones

we have acces to audio bibles and podcasts and live sermon streams from some of the greatest biblical preachers of our times

And if hearing the Word was all it took, then Christians today would have changed the word a long time ago

But merely LISTENING to Word is not a sign of spiritual maturity

Merely discussing what we’ve heard is not a sign of spiritual maturity - the internet and social media are filled with that

Spiritual maturity only comes when WE ACT ON WHAT WE HEAR!!!!!

It’s good to hear the Word…It good to have our emotions aroused when we hear it, but if the Word doesn’t actually MOVE US to TAKE ACTION, then it is pointless!

God doesn’t try to stir your heart and arouse your passions just so that you can just go back to living the way you always have…He does it to radically change your life and the lives of those around you for eternity!!!!!

Noah’s faith was bold and active.

He didn’t let his doubts, fears and questions to get in the way of his obedience.

He couldn’t argued with God. He could have tried to talk him out of his course of action.

He could have told God why he was NOT THE RIGHT MAN to carry out this task

But he didn’t do any of that…He simply obeyed because God told him to do it.

Oh that we would learn to be more obedient to the leading of the Lord!

To act when he tell us to act

Noah’s faith wasn’t just Obedient. It was Active. Yet it was also EXPECTANT.

He literally expected what God said to actually take place. As a result he got right to work in carrying it out.

Faith prepares for what it expects

Noah expected a terrible flood to destory the earth

He expected people to die

How do we know this? Becuase of what he did as a result!

He built a boat. Though it took hi 12o years to complete it, He was faithful to do it.

He preached that the flood was coming. He warned his contemporaries, even though they mocked and ridiculed him .

He warned them of what was going to happen.

He begged and pleaded with them to enter into the ark, yet they refused to do so

Noah believed God’s word with all His being and becuase of that He used His life to prepare for what God was about to do.

Let me ask you this...

What is God Saying to you?

What are you doing about it?

What is your faith preparing you to do?

What are you EXPECTING to receive from God’s promise

IWhat an incredible man Noah was. Abraham gets all the credit when it comes to faith, but Abraham wouldn’t have even existed if it were not for the faith and obedience of Noah.