Cultivating a Life of Faith

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Welcome to this weekend’s In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. What set the great men and women of the Bible apart? It was their bold, unwavering trust in God. In today’s episode, discover how you can cultivate the same kind of faith, a faith that transforms ordinary days into an extraordinary life.

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The Bible… has many accounts of different kinds of people and they’re all ordinary people through whom god has done some extraordinary things and oftentimes we think that these have to be very gifted talented skilled people but maybe lots of education all the rest but here’s a whole book of people who were ordinary in their day but when god touched their life When God spoke to them and they responded in the proper way, God made their life extraordinary. Now the question is this. What factor in their life, what element in their life made it possible for them to step out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary? What was true of them? Can the same thing be true of you? And the answer is yes, because God has not changed. He’s still using ordinary people. So what I want to do in this passage of Scripture is this. I want to give you a picture of what the life of faith is about. And we’re going to turn to the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews and read those first six verses, though we’ll cover more. Because in the Word of God are these brief sketches of God’s Old Testament saints and how He used ordinary people in that day to do the most extraordinary things. The writer of Hebrews does two very important things when he begins this chapter in talking about all of these Old Testament saints. Because what he says about them is so awesome when you and I begin to understand how it applies to your life and mine. Because you see, there’s one thing about God’s Word. We can sing about the old-time religion, and we can talk about the ancient scrolls and so forth. The message of the Word of God, listen, is more appropriate than more powerful, more up-to-date today than any news you ever hear. Because this is the truth about circumstances, and oftentimes the news we hear is not the truth. And besides that, it’s man’s opinion and how he sees it. This is the way God sees life. This is the way God sees you. This is the way God sees how He wants to operate in your life and mine. So notice two things he does in the very beginning. And the first thing is this. He defines what faith is. Listen to what he says. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The first thing he wants us to recognize is, what is faith? Faith is simply confidence in the promises of God that He will do what He’s promised. That is, simple faith is confidence in God that He will do what He promises, every time, all the time. There is no reason, no logical reason for doubting a God who is all wise, who loves us unconditionally, and who is omnipotent. So he defines that. He says, it is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction, an absolute conviction that he will do what he promises he’ll do. Then what he does, he slips down to this sixth verse, and he says this. He says, this is how important your faith is. Without faith, it’s impossible to please him. Not you may be able to. Some people could, no. Without faith, it is absolutely impossible to please him. And many people believe with all of their heart, oh, I’m living by faith. But if you look at their conduct, listen to their conversation, watch their character, they’re not living by faith at all. They’re living by feelings. They’re living by the opinion of others. They’re living by their reasoning. Faith, listen, faith is above all of that. And what the writer of Hebrews does is this. He takes these biographical sketches of different Old Testament saints to explain and to graphically describe what faith is really all about. Now, if you will accept the truth of God’s Word, not what I’m saying, if you will accept the truth of God’s Word, Apply this message to your life. You won’t be the same. There’s what happens people. So I heard that message Well, what did you do about it? Well, I heard it Did you get it? That’s the issue. Did you get it? Listen? This is the powerful Penetrating life-changing Word of God. It’s not a sermon. This is a word of God And I want you to watch what he does through the lives of these people They’re ordinary people but they listened to God and God did something awesome through them. You say, well, who am I? God knows who you are. What can He do in my life? He’s sitting on ready, waiting for you to believe Him and to trust Him and to follow Him. Then you will discover what He can do in and through your life. Or you can live a settle for life Stay on the low level, just being ordinary, coming and going, and something awesome missing in your life. You don’t want to live your life that way. Or maybe you do. If you’re wise, you won’t. Now, here’s what I want to do. I’m simply going to describe what a life of faith looks like by looking at these people in this particular chapter of the Scripture. So I’m going to answer the question, when we walk by faith, what? So when we walk by faith, the will of God… will be our guide. When we walk by faith, the will of God will be our guide. Not somebody else’s opinion, not somebody else’s counsel, but the will of God, which he is certainly willing to reveal to us. Now, what he does in this chapter, he mentions a couple there in the beginning, and then after he defines what faith is and comes down to tell us how important it is, he begins with Noah. And you will recall that God said to Noah, I’m going to wipe out the whole earth. I’m going to destroy everything on it. The wickedness is such that I can’t stand it any longer. God is telling Noah in the midst of a very pagan society. In fact, everybody who lived around him was getting ready to die. Everybody but his family. That’s how wicked they were. God only found one man who had favor of God. He says, I want you to build this big thing. We’re going to call it an ark. You and I would probably call it a boat. But I want you to build this thing. And he told him how long it was to be, how wide, and exactly all the dimensions and how he was to do it. And he didn’t tell him how long it was going to take him. He just said, build it. The only thing Noah had was the will of God. What was the will of God for his life? Listen to this. For 120 years, this man focused on one thing, the will of God. He preached righteousness, Peter says in his epistles, that Noah was a servant of God who, listen, he preached and built, preached and built, preached and built. And so here he was doing something that seemed absolutely senseless. Lots of criticism because the Bible says he was a preacher of righteousness. So therefore, he was condemning their sinfulness, condemning their wickedness. And so naturally, he had lots of opposition, lots of criticism. He just kept building and kept preaching, kept building and kept preaching. Do you know why he was able to complete that ark? take his family and the animals in. God closed the door. He rode the waters, and he and his family were the only ones who left because his focus in life was the will of God. When you and I live by faith, our focus is going to be the will of God. Here’s what happens to us. Too many of God’s people look around at society, and instead of focusing on the will of God, they want to be like somebody else. They want to act like them. They want to talk like them. They want to sing like them. They want to dress like them. They want to live like them. They want to have the same pleasures the unbelieving, ungodly have. And so then they wonder why God doesn’t bless them and why God doesn’t work in their life in unusual ways. They think they’re living by faith. Listen, they’re living by the influence and the pressure of the society around them. Do you know why many people are living an ordinary life? Because they’re not guided by the will of God. Opinion, feelings… Influence of others, not the will of God. Ask yourself the question, what is the will of God for my life at this point? Are you willing to do that? If you’re not willing to do that, what it says is, I don’t believe him, I don’t trust him, can’t do it. Then you’ll end up, my friend, with a lot less, far less than the person God wants you to be. So, that’s principle number one. And that is, the will of God will be our guide. The second one is this. If we’re going to live by faith, the promises of God will be our assurance. And so he chooses Abraham, for example, to describe that. So look, if you will, in verse eight. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive on inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land. Dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Then it goes on to talk about his wife and so forth. So go back, if you will, to Genesis chapter 12. And let’s notice here what’s going on. Genesis chapter 12. Here’s a man… Who lived by faith. And living by faith, he was living what? By the assurance. That is, God had made a promise to him. Promises to him. When you and I are walking by faith, we’re going to live by By the promises of God. That is, we’re going to have the assurance that if he says it, he will do it. And listen to what God said to him. 12th chapter. He says, verse 1. Now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house to the land which I will show you. Now he didn’t give him a map. He just said, I’m going to show you. Now watch this. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you. One who curses you, I will curse. And in all the families of the earth will be blessed. That is in you, through you, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed. Now, let’s think about it for a moment. Lots of things you could say about Abram. Well, God said through you, all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. Well, what did he have to hold on to? With Abraham, the promise of God was his assurance. He couldn’t look within his own body because he’d reached a hundred years of age and this son wasn’t there yet. Ninety-year-old wife. And you talk about having children? No way. But you know what? He had the promise of God. And because he held on to that promise, what did God do? God gave him a son, Isaac. Listen, it was the son of promise. He lived by the promises of God. That was his assurance in life. There was no assurance. within himself that was no assurance from anyone else if anyone he said anyone and you know what sarah and i gonna have a son abraham in ninety nine years of age what do you mean you’re gonna have a son we’re gonna have one what makes you think of the promise of god you’ve got to be out of your mind that you and i would say the same thing to a person today and yet what did he have to hold on to the promises of god you know why because listen he believed that a promise from God was as good as done. And listen, what he could not see with his naked eye, he knew that one day that promise would be reality. So what did God do? He kept his promise and he gave him a son, Isaac. Listen to what happened. So the next thing God does, he says, Abraham, remember what I promised you, that through all the nations of the earth, your son’s going to be blessed? Right. Yes, thank you, Father. Then I want you to take Isaac, your only son, whom you love, he said. I want you to take him to a place that I will show you, Mount Moriah, and I want you to sacrifice him unto me. What? How are all the nations of the earth going to be blessed if I’m going to kill him? Obey me. Do you trust me, Abraham? Yes, God.” So the Scripture says, got his servants, saddled up the donkey, cut the firewood, and they headed out. So on their way, I’m certain that Abraham thought a lot about the possibilities and what could happen. You know what caused Abraham to call his servants? You know what caused Abraham and motivated him to chop wood? You know what caused Abraham to get his son up and say, we’re going for a little trip? You know what caused Abraham to commit himself to sacrifice his son? One thing. The promise of God. What made Abraham, this unknown man in a pagan society, become such an extraordinary servant of the living God? One thing. He learned to trust God. He learned to be obedient to God. For him, listen, living by faith meant that the promises of God, that’s all the assurance that he needed. And you and I live in a day when we hear a lot of preaching, for example, that we got to see proof. Got to see proof. What did God do? If God makes a promise, I don’t need any proof because I know that when he fulfills his promise, I’ll have all the proof I need. The truth is because God doesn’t lie and God doesn’t promise one thing and give something else, I can trust him. To live by faith simply means this. I’m willing to believe that God will keep his promises and that’s all the assurance I need. Faith is believing God because He says it. Now, I could give you lots of testimonies, and many of you could, how God honors your obedience when you trust Him. You just trust Him financially. You trust Him in relationships. You trust Him in your obedience to Him. Our assurance is the promises of God and the person who lives and walks by faith. lives by the promises of God. And our assurance every single day is whatever He promises, He’s going to perform. And the reason you’re in the mess you’re in is because you won’t trust Him. You won’t believe Him. You won’t take the first step. And sometimes that first step looks like it’s a mile wide. Take it. See what God does. All right, the third principle I want you to get is this. When we walk by faith, the presence of God will be our comfort. The presence of God will be our comfort. And so what does he do? He moves down from Abraham and takes quite a bit there. And then he moves down to, we come to Moses in this 23rd verse of this 11th chapter. And listen to what he says. “‘By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.'” By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Considering the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is unseen.” Now, let’s go back to the third chapter of Exodus for a moment, and let’s look to see what’s happening here. You recall the children of Israel have been in bondage to the Egyptians for hundreds of years, 400 years. Now, here’s this shepherd. He is only a shepherd. Now, he grew up in Pharaoh’s household, but you recall how he had to flee because he killed an Egyptian soldier. So, now he’s on the backside of the desert. Forty years he’s been living back there. Who in the world is Moses? He’s a nobody, just a shepherd. One day he’s walking along and all of a sudden he sees something very strange. He sees this bush burning, but it’s not consumed. Now, he’s seen bushes burned before, and he’s set some of them afire. But somehow this one’s not burning up, it’s just burning. And all of a sudden, he hears this voice. And the voice says, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you’re standing is holy ground. Moses hit his face, scared him to death. Then God began this conversation with him. He said, you know, my people are in bondage. And they’re suffering under these taskmasters of the Egyptians. He says, I’ve heard their cry. And then he says in verse 10, therefore, come now and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt. And listen to what God said to him. Certainly I will be with you. This was the comfort of that Moses needed and God knew that he needed it. He says, Moses, I’ll be with you. When you stand face to face, and how many times did he stand face to face before Pharaoh? Many times. Plague after plague after plague after plague, and he wouldn’t let them go. He stood there. What did he have? He had the promise of God. And listen, it was the Word of God. God had given him this awesome sense of assurance. Listen, he lived with this comfort. Nothing he had in his hand could have defended him. The only thing that could defend him was the living God. And listen to me. The same God that stood with Moses on the bank of the Red Sea… is the same God who stands with you and me when you and I face our Red Seas, when you and I face our Pharaohs. It is the same God with the same power to offer the same comfort if we’ll trust Him.

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Thank you for listening to The Life of Faith. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.