Looking For The Invisible
by Kevin Allen
May 21, 2023 · Centerpointe Apostolic Church (Murfreesboro, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11:24-27, Hebrews 11:1, Genesis 28:16-17, Hebrews 11:1-3, Hebrews 11:7, Hebrews 11:8, Hebrews 11:10, Hebrews 11:27, Hebrews 11:6, Hebrews 12:1

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/kevin-allen--looking-for-the-invisible
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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As was said just a couple of minutes ago, it's, it's not an accident that you were here today. God wasn't surprised to see you present in this building. He knew you were going to be here, and I believe with all that I am that he has something special for all of us. We have prepared our hearts to receive the word today, and I would ask, if you were able, to make your way back to your seats and remain standing. I'm going to read just a couple of verses of scripture and move forward with what I feel the Lord has laid on my heart for us today.

I want to speak about looking for the invisible. Looking for the invisible. Hebrews 11 is where I'm going to be, for most in the room you'll recognize that as the faith chapter — old chapters talking about the faithful of God. Verse 24, speaking of Moses, it says: "By faith, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, steaming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect in the recompense of the reward." Verse 27: "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible."

For just a few minutes on this Friend's Sunday, I want to preach about looking for the invisible. In life — will you help me pray right now? Jesus, Lord, you've been so very good to us. God, your word is forever anointed, but I pray that our hearts and our minds would also be anointed today to receive that word. Lord, you know every need that is present in this room. God, I know you are here to meet that need. I pray you would do what you do best: make broken things beautiful. In the name of Jesus we pray, and amen. God bless you. You may be seated.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty fond of seeing. Um, I'm someone who has not been blind, but I was born and, through my formative years, became extremely nearsighted. Now, for those that are nearsighted in the room — any nearsighted folks? Say a little "whoop whoop" here. Yeah. Now, here's the deal when it comes to nearsightedness: I was extremely nearsighted. I was the guy who wore the Coke bottle glasses. Now, most of you don't remember those days of me, because thank goodness I was able to wear contact lenses. What a great invention that was. Helped me actually find a woman that would be willing to marry me. But when I, when I tell you that I struggle with vision, I struggle with vision. For those of you who understand prescription, I was a negative 9.75 in both eyes. Now, some have been like, "Yeah, I was pretty bad too," and I tell them my prescription, like, "Oh my, you really couldn't say — I couldn't see, you know." Not only would I, if I was in that current state, I wouldn't be able to see anybody in this room. I — my field of vision — and this is not an exaggeration, my wife will back me up — my field of vision for me, able to read, was right here. I had to get it so close to me that I basically would go cross-eyed. I could only read with one eye. I would have to close an eye to read something without corrective lenses of some sort.

Now, God is merciful and gracious, and he provided wisdom and knowledge in mankind, and they provided lasers that helped my eyes, and now I no longer have to have any corrective lenses. Yeah, the God be the glory for that. I give him all credit. But I will tell you, as someone who has struggled with, with vision issues for pretty much the majority of his life, up until about two years ago, it's no fun not being able to see. Now, I would dare say that most in the room — or, you appreciate your eyes. How many really appreciate your eyesight? Yeah. Some of, some of you have reached the age where you do a little trombone action, you know. And, and thankfully, with my, with my laser-enhanced eyes, he also helped me — at 47 I'd have to have, have the readers for a few more years; he bought me a little bit of time. But for those of you who are having to — some of you just went ahead and you have bifocals, some of you have trifocals, and quad focals, and multifocals. And you know, you notice these individuals when they navigate stairs, because there's something about being able to walk somebody like — that's not funny. I know it's not funny. I, I'm not there yet. But I, I have struggled myself. We, we want to be able to see.

There's a certain kind of — uh — pilot's license you can get, that if you're going to fly an airplane, that's just done off of sight. I believe it's called BFR. You can fly VFR — Visual Flight Regulations. Rules — I don't know what the R is there for; I didn't look it up, so forgive me for that. But I know VFR is the terminology; has to do with you being able to fly by sight. And then you can get instrument rated, which is an important thing for pilots, because a lot of, a lot of stuff happens when you're up in there, especially when you get into the clouds, because your, your body doesn't always tell you the truth. You can feel like you're going up, and you're actually going down, and things can cause you to, to, to lose your sense of where you are. Anybody ever played the little bat spinning game? You remember, you take the bat, you stick it down, you put your forehead on the bat, and you spin around for like nine times, and then you're supposed to run to a destination. You probably have seen some of these videos on YouTube where people do this at the family, you know, functions. Yeah, we'll do that. Now, what happens in there — now, there's no difference really in your physical body from the time you put your head on the bat, so you got up, other than the fact you have spun yourself around and round and round, and you've caused your, your function of your inner ear to be off. And you see these people that stand up, and they're just kind of going — you know, they're supposed to be going that direction, and everything in them is saying they're going that direction, but they're not going that direction. Yeah, something's off. They can see, but yet something's messed with them; they're not able to go where they want to go.

Now, there, there, there's often times a correlation, or a parallel: what happens oftentimes in the physical, it can also happen in the spiritual as well. There will be times where things are going on in the spiritual world, and you think things are right, but they're not right. They're off. Something's happened. Something's caused there to be a misdirection in your life. All the facts are there, present, but for whatever reason you're not able

to, to calculate or compute them in the right way.

Hebrews 11, as I said, is a faith chapter. It's talking a lot about faith. In fact, it starts off in verse number one. It says: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." How do you have evidence if you can't see it? You know, if we're going to work a crime scene here, where we want to look for evidence, we want to dust for fingerprints, we want to look for clues — but, but if it's not available, how do you operate? How do you go off it? But this is what the writer of Hebrews is putting down here: faith is, is about something that you hope for. It's evidenced in things not seen. God is very insistent that we gravitate from the scene to the unseen. There's something about God where he's calling you and I to move forward in, in our faith, and oftentimes it requires us to take action even when we don't really see the next step. There's a trust factor here. Why? Because what you see affects a whole range of perceptions inside our body. Again, I'll go back to, to, to you spinning around the bat — it messes you up.

Let's, let's talk about something that I feel like is going to be really important to all of us in this room. How many of you like a great presentation when it comes to your meal? Yeah. How many of you that, that you love the taste of things, but there's something about when it's presented really well, it helps it even taste better? Well, I'm in the word — Brother Span, you feeling this right now? Yeah. Now, there probably won't be a whole lot of time put into the presentation of the hamburger and hot dog today, and it, the taste of the hamburger, hot dog will probably match the presentation today — just preparing you. Now, if I preach long enough, you'll still eat it, because you'll be hungry, borderline hangry. But let's talk about when you go to, to a nice restaurant and they bring that meal out, or you go, you go to a, a — you know, been blessed, like, like I was blessed, where you go to family dinners and the spread is there. You know, they've got all of the veggies, and they got all of the meats, and they got all of the breads. And you walk in there, and not only are you overwhelmed with all of the aroma that is there, and not only is your tummy ready to be filled, but then you get to look at it, and it just adds to — and maybe mouth even gets to water a little bit. So we see how all these things are therefore connected together: you can taste and appreciate and smell, and texture and appearance — it's all there. Now, all of that, it plays into where we are as human beings.

Anybody ever taking your kids to, to some kind of amusement — maybe it could be a huge playground, or it could be a theme park or something, and you watch your children's eyes. They see the thing, and we see these kids, they walk up and they're just like, "Oh wow, it's the best thing ever." All of this is stuff that's done through sight. We, we are very sight driven in what we do. Let's be honest with you: there's, there's a difference between pretty and ugly. Typically, you, you gravitate towards the pretty attack — you gravitate towards the attraction. Now, where everybody has their own determination on what that is, but we, we are biased people based off of sight. Amen. This is a trick question. Everybody was still with me out there? We'll get to the hamburger in a minute.

These effects are so strong, and so powerful, and so predictable, that it can become a default position of our way of thinking. Why am I bringing this up? Because more often than not, God has a way of drawing us into places where we don't always want to go. He has a way of working things in our life through faith, that the, upon sight we tend to hesitate, we tend to be a bit resistant before we just simply launch off the cliff. We, we — our own natural body says, "This doesn't feel right." But, "God, I, I'm sensing you also in my spirit. You're, you're pulling me in this direction." And what's going on is God's trying to say, "I want to know if you trust me. I want to know if you're willing to look past and see the invisible that is there."

I'm here to tell you today that, that our God exists right there on the edge. He's there at that crossover point in life, a point of transformation, that's a point where you have to leave the restrictions of human nature, and you have to undergo a shock of faith in your life. God is there, and he's so desiring that you and I would step out in that term, faith, and trust him, that he has more available for you and I than we have ever imagined in our life. God's — God is the God of water walkers. He's the God of walking on the water. You can't walk on the water. I've skipped across the water a few times, been thrown off of an inner tube, but I've never walked on water. But by faith, it has been done. That's our God.

I'm here to tell you that God is there. He wants to do great things. He wants you to come out on the edge. He's motioning us to climb up to an area where we've never been. He, he makes radical declarations that are not always received well, because that's what God does. He's looking for you to step outside of the norm of everyday life. He's an extraordinary God. I'm gonna say that again: he's an extraordinary God. He's not going to do it in the same old ordinary fashion. He's not going to be the God that's going to be in the, in the mundane of your day, but he's out there on the friends, saying, "I got something special for you. I got something extra for you. I got something that's bigger than you could ever think, dream, or imagine." And he has it for you, and he has it for me, because he's a great extraordinary God. He stands and says things like, "Accept the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." He said — God has always causing you into the areas to where that doesn't seem right, that doesn't seem natural, but that's where our God is. When you demand evidence that you can see, you oftentimes can disqualify yourself from the mighty acts of God. Again, the writer Hebrew says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Usually God's standing right outside the visible things of life.

And I'm here to challenge somebody on this Friend Sunday, and I want to ask you a question: Are you exercising your faith? Are you living out your faith? Or are you — let me ask you another way: are you willing to go where God is calling you to go? Because more often than not, where

he's calling you to go, you're not going to see the end at the beginning. There's going to be some, some challenges that are going to come up against what it is you can see. There's going to be some challenges; they're going to come against your faith. There's going to be some opportunities where you're going to have to trust that, "God, I can't see what's on the other side, but I know without a doubt that you are calling me to move forward, so I'm going to trust that you're going to work all things together for my good, because I trust in you. So I'm going to take a step out in faith to see what you're going to do in my life." Anybody out there willing to exercise your faith today? All right. I'm gonna bring that back up in a minute.

You're going to find God outside the visible. If you're going to go where God wants you to go, you're going to become a new creature. The same old, same old is not going to work. Anybody tired of the same old, same old? Anybody ready for a good adventure in life? Now think about what I'm asking you. Think about what I'm asking you. Anybody tired of just the same old, same old? I don't know. I want to go on a great adventure with God. Now, I can be scary, because I don't know what I'm really signing myself up for. I just know it's going to be a great adventure. I want to go where God wants me to go. I want to do what God wants me to do. I want to be who God designed me to be, and in order for that to be fully incomplete, there's going to become a, a more than one opportunity for me to step out and trust that God's going to do something great with me. That's why some people never have an encounter with God, because they never leave their comfort zone.

All right. You know, we like — so it's casual Sunday. You're liking casual Sunday? Yeah. We had to — we had the difference between casual and pajama Sunday. We, we don't want — we're not going to do pajamas Sunday. If you want pajamas, you gotta go to Walmart. That's where they hang out. I don't understand why, but that's where they hang out. Must be pajama small group over there or something. A lot of people, they, they, they like being in their comfort zone, and oftentimes it, it causes them to, to never have a real encounter with God. Now, God will meet you where you are, but he never leaves you where you are. Don't say that again: God will meet you where you are, but he's not going to leave you where you are, because he has something great for you, something great for you.

God is at the point — listen to me — where you surrender the control of your life to him. Now, I'm a person who have, who has admitted multiple times from this pulpit that I like control. I don't easily surrender control. But I've also learned that I'm not going to get where God wants me to be if I don't let him drive. Now, y'all ever been in a car with somebody that, that is an inferior driver to you? Okay, anybody besides me been in a car with somebody who's an inferior driver, and you're over there in the passenger seat? Now, for some of you, that's been the most spiritual moment of your life, because you prayed like never before while you were over there. You made declarations to God like, "I will serve you forever if you will just let this car get to where we need to be." How many of you realize it's hard to do that, right? It is. It's a tough thing. But in that same principle applies to your life, that you're going to have to learn to surrender control of your life over to God. Now, that doesn't mean you just sit back and say, "Okay God, I'm going to surrender control. You've got to — I'm not going to work, I'm not going to work. You're going to pay my bills." That's not — doesn't work that way. What I'm talking about is for you being a willing to say, "God, wherever you lead, I will follow. Wherever you lead, I will not argue about which direction you take. Whatever you choose to bring into and take out of my life, I will simply say, your will be done." Now, that's a big, that's a big ask, isn't it? Yeah, you're right, that's a big ask. But those examples — not only do we have in the room, but the examples we have in scripture — we see where that it was what individuals were doing. Now, they didn't always portray it being easy, because it's not easy to do this, but they showed what happens when you do.

Let's think about the guy in the Bible named Enoch. This, this guy is out for a walk with the Lord, and at some point on his walk, he just wasn't anymore. And what I mean by that is the Lord just took him on. And see, what I realized in this story — and I have a multitude of questions; I'm sure anybody got a question about this story in the Bible. I know I do. I have a lot of questions, like: how far was the walk? Was it a sunny day? Was he physically there? Was he talking? I got all these questions. But what we have is, the word of God tells us that he was walking with him, and he was being so obedient in the moment that God just took him on home.

But let's go to one maybe we can relate a little bit better. What about, what, when Jacob said, in Genesis 28 verse 16: "Then Jacob awoke him asleep, and said, Surely the Lord was in this place, and I wasn't even aware of it." But he was also afraid, and said, "What an awesome place this is. There's none other than the house of God, the very gateway of heaven." Because in a moment that Jacob realized, "Hey, God is here, and God is wanting to do something special with me." I'm not — some of you are like, "Hey, is he fixing a dissect Jacob's letter?" I'm not going to do that tonight, today. We don't have enough time for him to go see that. But there's a lot of spiritual implications. My point for bringing him up is, he was a guy who realized there's a lot more going on than I was aware of. There's a lot more that God has for me than I was aware of in this moment. God's powerful. He's calling me to do something.

Moses, when he saw that there was a burning bush and it wasn't consumed, he went over there, and all of a sudden something changed. He stepped out in faith. He's talking to him. Now, let's be honest with you: Moses is not the picture perfect guy, of a guy who's going to do everything. He argues with the burning bush. I don't know how are you — that seems like something that's just completely ludicrous, that the bush is burning — it's not — and God's speaking to

you, and you're going to argue with God. But how many times have I argued with God? How many times have you argued with God? Ah, Isaiah, when he saw the Lord was high and lifted up, his train filled the temple, he said, "Woe is me, for I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips," and then God intervened. Paul, when he saw that there were things that he couldn't even talk about. The difference between Enoch and Jacob and Moses and Paul and the rest, as they were willing to say: "I will go. I will call what I react — what is reality right now, not all that God has for me. I'm willing to break into God's reality of life." Stepping into the unknown is where heaven and earth collides. Faith is the evidence of the unseen.

Now, I want to take you back to Hebrews chapter 11, because I want you to show you how this stuff unfolds. Verse number one: "Now faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things —" and I think for it, "by elders obtained a good report. Though faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made by things which do appear." Everything that you and I see was made by something that we can't see. So here we are. And I personally believe that Paul wrote Hebrews. I can't prove it to you; it's just how I feel. Many feel the same way, but we can't say with a surety. But whoever the writer of Hebrews is, is all of a sudden drawing our attention that faith is what started the world. Faith is evidence all around us, that there is something unseen that is, that is — uh — that is making an impact on what is seen. You look around: everything that's around us was spoken to existence by something that's not seen. Faith is the evidence of things not seen.

He starts illustrating the principle that the world was framed by the words of God. In other words, the things that we see, we're created by things you can't see. And I know that's hard to wrap your mind around it, but you have to start with an understanding that I can't always see everything that is. Remember I talked about how the vision is — anybody confused? Am I confusing you? I'm not meaning to confuse you, but I'm trying to make the point that there's a God who stands outside of our vision, our physical vision, and he's there calling you to say, "Trust me. I have more than you can see available. I have more for your life than what, what you, what you see on the surface."

The second thing is, then, when you look at this verse, is that you can become your — the, the, the, the, the enemies is going to try to prevent you from moving forward into the unseen. He's gonna fight you. He's going to tell you it's not right. "You can't see it. Why would you trust? Why would you do that?" This chapter on faith gives testimonies of people who didn't allow it happen.

He shows up to Noah and says, "No, I want you to build a boat, because I'm going to destroy the world, and it's going to rain." Now, you and I, if I say it's going to rain, we understand that, because it, it has rained before. So when we say rain, you have a working knowledge of rain. I don't know if you know this or not, but when he speaks to Noah, it had never rained before. All right? So God tells Noah, "I'm gonna — I'm gonna pull you out into the unseen. There's going to be water, liquids going to fall from the sky. It has never happened before." Hard for us to comprehend, but it had never happened before. And then he tells Noah, "I want you to build a boat — not just a little boat. I want you to build a boat, because we're going to put all the animals in the boat, and I'm gonna put your family in the boat. It's going to be multiple layers, and it's going to be — honest, you ever been to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky? You should go. Just go see, if even if you just drive by and look at it one time, to see a representation of what Noah built. Because God quoted me: it was going to rain, and it had never rained before. He was calling him to step out in faith into the unseen. And Noah did it. And because he was willing to step out into the unseen, his family was saved. Hebrews 7: Noah being one of God of things not seen yet, moved with fear, to prepare an ark, the saving of his house."

But then we go next, verse number eight: Abraham acted by obedience, not knowing or seen where he was going. "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went." Now, you may think, well, that's pretty easy, but you need to understand that Abraham was told — his name was Abram — he said, "Abram, I want you to leave everything you know. I want you to leave your father's house. I want to call you out of Earl, the counties, and I want to take you to a place where — am I going, I'm not telling you yet." How many is comfortable with that? I'm speaking to the church. How many in the church is comfortable with that? But God's still in the business of calling you out from where you are, because he never wants you to stay where you are. He always has something better for you in your life. And for too many people, oftentimes miss all that God has for them, because they're comfortable where they are.

Verse number 10: "For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and makers God." He didn't see what he was looking for. There are a lot of people who would stop right there. But they think they know exactly what God should do, and how he should do it, and why he should do it. And if there's anything that will kill faith, it's when you think that you've been disappointed, or deceived, or destroyed by the very God that should be working on your behalf. And it's in these moments that our enemy, our adversary, he loves to jump in and tell you: "God doesn't love you. God didn't care about you. God's not concerned with you. I told you he would leave you. I told you he would abandon you. I told you he was all going to go down." And none of us are exempt from this failure, including the ministry. Looking around at what others have and what you don't have, and, and the God is messed up — can cause you to become bitter. It can cause you to become someone who, who, who sets back in, and you get so wound up and, and tied back by what — by unfulfilled things. When God's standard the whole time, saying, "I just want you to step in faith and to trust. I want you to

know that I have your best interests at heart. I want you to know that there are some things that you can't understand in the moment, but time will prove to you that I am a good and a faithful God. And what I want you to know is that, in this room today, you're surrounded by a group of people who will tell you that trust in God is the best decision you can ever do in your life. Yes, salvation is for you. Salvation is for you. But there's more than just the initial salvation. That's the beginning of your walk with God. Walking with God has hills and valleys. It has ups and downs. It has times when everything is right and perfect, and there's money in the account, and your body feels good, and your family's together. But there are dark times too, when you go through some lonesome valleys. And I want you to know he's the same God in the valley as he is on the mountain top. And though it doesn't make sense in a moment, I promise you, stick with him. Keep walking forward. Keep moving into the unseen. Keep pushing forward into the unknown. And I promise you, when you get to the other side, he will prove to you time and time again: I can be trusted. I am a good God. I am faithful. I will prove it to you over and over and over again, because he is a good God.

When what you see doesn't match your expectations, you've reached the point when faith has to take over. Are you listening to me? When what you see doesn't match your expectations, you have to let your faith take over in those moments. Because some people try their best to hang on to their vision and force God into accepting something that he will not bless. He will not go against his word. He will not go against his word. I don't care how much he wanted to bless that. I don't care how much you think it's the right thing. He will not contradict his word. There are some things, I promise you, it will just not be blessed. I don't care how much you want it. I don't care how much you love it. I don't care how much you desire it. God will not contradict himself. He will not go against his commands. He will not go against his word. And that — what worries me so much in the world we're in today, it worries me about Christianity in America today, is because there's not a whole lot of sacrifice preached about anymore. But I promise you, God will not honor anything that goes contrary to his word. That's why at times you have to come back and say, "I don't see how this is going to work, but I'm going to step out in faith and trust God. You're going to get me through."

Verse 27: "By faith he forsooked Egypt" — going back to Moses — "not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." That sounds samurai. It sounds like something that contradicts itself: Moses saw him who's invisible. That — how do you see something if it's invisible? It was faith. Faith — faith caused them to move forward. Moses knew that just because you can't see something or someone doesn't mean that you're, that you're simply — it's not there. That he said, hallucinating — someone here today has no concept of anything that goes beyond precisely what you can see, hear, and feel. And that's because your, your actions are basically proclaiming: if it doesn't fit within my definition, I can't believe it. And the fact is, God will never fit inside your mind. He is bigger than you. His ways are higher than your ways. He's more than you can fully comprehend or understand. And if you're set and bound, and you're saying, "I'm not moving until I understand it," I promise you, you are always going to miss what God has for you. At some point, faith has to cause you to take a step and say, "I don't fully know how this is going to work out, but I can't get away from this overwhelming sense that I have to move forward. I have to move forward." And you can say, "Well, Pastor Kevin, I just don't believe that sway." And all I know to say to you is this: what the word of God says, that faith is something that you have to activate. It's something that you have, you have to be willing to see what's not there. What are you telling me — you're telling me I have to hallucinate? No, that's not a hallucination. I'm telling you there's a real God standing in front of you, calling you out into the deep. He has things for you that's beyond anything you could have ever imagined, just for you. Faith is — the word of God says it this way: "Without faith, it's impossible to please him." "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

If you keep reading through Hebrews 11, it says "by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith." He goes down: "by faith, by faith." Yet we see — we keep coming back to it and saying, "But I want to — I want to do it by sight, by sight, by sight." And that's not how they got in that chapter. If you go back — and I encourage you later today, when you have an opportunity, read through Hebrews 11. Read it slow, and allow it to sink into your mind. Not one of those individuals listed in that hall of fame of faith — well, there they ever did anything by sight. It was always done by faith, by faith. There's something about stepping out.

Moses forsook Egypt that he could see, for the freedom he couldn't see. He endured the wrath of the king to please the King he couldn't see. Moses chose the imperishable, and saw the invisible, and he did the impossible. How? All of it done through faith. Moses' faith enabled him to face Pharaoh unafraid, and to trust God to deal with the enemy. Then it was this courage — it wasn't natural to him. At the burning bush, he argued with God, said, "There's no way I can do it. I'm not, I'm not someone who's eloquent in speech. I'm not the man to do it." He's arguing with the bush, and God says, "No, it's you. I want to do this with you." Matter of fact, if you go back and study the story out of the burning bush, it was God who went ahead and proclaimed, "I'm fixing to do it, and I want you to go with me." Ladies and gentlemen, God has a will, he has a plan, and he has a purpose, and it always be fulfilled. But he also wants to, to take you and put you into his plan and purpose too. That's why you were created. Not for young — not just to live 75, 85, 95, 105 years, just, just to make that many trips around the sun, to get a little education, you know, to have a little bit of offspring, and, and seven dollars in your 401k, and retire and die. That wasn't — that's not why you're

created. You created for so much more. So much more. God's desires to use you to further his kingdom. Believing makes the invisible reality. Peter endured prison, seeing him — he was invisible. Daniel endured the lion's den. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and endured the fiery furnace. But the invisible God showed up. They didn't see him outside the furnace. They didn't see them when they were refusing to bow down to the golden image. Where did they find him at? In the fire. In the fire. It was there in the fire that the, the fourth man showed up.

There's going to be times in your life where you got to trust that God's going to see you through. Everybody may be saying, "You're losing your mind. You're going crazy. You're going to die." But I promise you, sometimes it takes the fire to reveal that that's invisible. In here, I feel with everything in me that God desires to do something special in the service today, and I feel it's time to bring, bring this close to an end. So as they're getting ready to end the service — the musicians are coming — someone sitting here today, you're clinging to your fears as though they're going to lead you to some kind of place you don't want to go. I want you to know there's a God of deliverance in this room today. There's a God of healing in this room today. There's a God of salvation in this room today. Now, you may be saying, "Pastor Kevin, I can't do that." I promise you, if you never moved, then that can be a reality. But our faithful God is here, and he's beckoning you: come. He's beckoning you: take a chance. Step out. See?

You may be saying, "I can't believe without proof that's going to work. I can't." And this is what I would say to you: God loves you so much that Hebrews 11 is all about faith — "by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith" — that's what it says. But I love that God knew that there would be somebody stubborn. I'll put both my hands up; I can be stubborn, because he loves stubborn people too. He ended chapter 11 and started chapter 12, of the first verse, and says this: "Wherefore, seen we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let's lay aside every weight, and the sin which to so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us." Wherefore we are — we're there with a great cloud of witnesses.

I want to do something right now, because I want, I want to counteract the doubt that I have been fighting since I started this message. Is there anybody that's brave enough today to stand up and say, "I was bound by drugs and alcohol, but God delivered me"? Would you stand? Just keep standing. Just keep standing. Bound by drugs and alcohol, but God delivered me. There's anybody in this room to say — who would be willing to stay, be brave enough to stay, that "I had a dire health emergency need in my life, and God healed me"? We don't understand — anybody understand? Look, keep standing. Is anybody in this room is willing to say that "my family broken and on the verge of destruction, but by the grace and mercy of God, we are healed and we are whole and we are together"? You'll be willing to stand. "Foreign off" and going on and on and on. But I want you to see, because there's doubters in the room — there's doubters in the room — how many are willing to say that "I didn't think God could ever do anything, because I was a broken mess, shattered, but God put me back together and filled me with his Spirit"? He'd be brave enough to stand. If that's you, you're brave enough to stand.

Now look, you are surrounded. I can keep going and eventually almost get 90% of this room standing. I want you to look: it's all around you. It's not just one or two. But I wanted you to see that there's a room full of people who said, "I had, at some point, to step out and trust into the, into the realm of the invisible. I couldn't see, but I knew God. All I had was brokenness, and he said, 'I want you to take a step.' And I just took my brokenness, and I stepped out, and God met me there."

Were you all stand with me now? Because God desires to do something right now in this place. He wants to do something special with you. God has given you the evidence you need to step out in this moment right now. And I, as I begin to pray, if you feel God moving on you, I want you to — invite you to this altar down here in the front. Let us pray with you, because the same God that touched all those individuals who stood up is here in this room today. He's willing to meet you if you're willing to step out, and to the invisible, into the unknown.

Will you help me pray? By your heads, if you're comfortable with that. Jesus, God, you are here, in your desire to do a great work in this room. Lord, I know that you want to touch lives, that you want to make changes, that you want to meet people where they are. God, I've preached about faith and the importance of trusting even though they can't see, and the importance of stepping out and trusting you. And I pray, God, that you would meet those individuals, that you would honor their courage as they step out. Give us a boldness, Lord Jesus, to trust you like never before. And God, do what you do best. God, you make broken things beautiful again. In Jesus' name we pray. This alters open. I'm inviting you to exercise your faith today. I don't know every need that's represented in this room, but God does, and he's here to meet that need. If you need to know him as Lord of your life and salvation, I invite you to come. If you need — if you need a restitution, if you need — if you need reconciliation, if you need a healing, if you need a miracle, I invite you to come. It's time to pray. Ministering brother, I pray that you would help us work the altar today for a little while. It's, it's prayer time.