Stability in a Time of Flux

Praise the Lord everybody. If you'll open your bibles, we're gonna go to Habakkuk. Turn to your neighbor say, is that in the Bible? Those lesser known prophets of the Old Testament, Habakkuk chapter two, then we're gonna skip forward to Hebrews chapter 11. While you're turning there, I just wanna say what a delight, an absolute privilege it is to speak to you today, not only to teach here, but to be able to speak in chapel. I know that so much of the future rests in this room. If we really accept and believe God's economy, turn to your neighbor to say, truth matters. Habakkuk chapter two, I'll read verses two through four and then I'll let you be seated. And the Lord answered me and said, write the vision. That revelation of God for the time and make it plain upon tables. Now, why should the prophet write the vision

and make it plain? It's very simple that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie. Though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him. Don't get lifted up in yourself, but the just shall live by his faith. I have a complicated title. I've tried to distill it twice. Didn't work. So I got a convoluted title. Stability in a time of flux. Stability in a time of flux. Would you maybe set your Bibles down, help me pray over these next few moments that the Lord will speak somehow out of my heart into yours under the inspiration of his spirit. God, we love you. We confess, Lord, we never come to these moments alone

that our strength, our trust is in you. Do we ask you, God, that revelation, God, would somehow get deep into our heart and spirit beyond our mind, to our heart, to the seat of that deep down source of our will shape us. We pray, we wanna run, Lord. We wanna have the strength to run, God. We wanna have a clear vision, Jesus, so that we can endure through every moment that you trust us with in which to run. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen, God bless you, you may be seated. Man, didn't the worship team do well today? Leading us in worship, focusing our mind and heart on the Lord, that's the beautiful job of a worship leader. I was gonna title this, The Way of God in History and the Means of God in History. I'm looking for Brother Brown, there you are.

That's a convoluted title. But it's important for us to know from revelation, how does God accomplish his will through his people? We gotta learn from scripture, not just the right formula of baptism, but the methods that God employs to get his task done in the world. The Old Testament prophet is inspired by God to lift up that vision has to be playing, that the person can run in order to have the strength for the longevity of the promise to come to pass. You need an understanding that the just, the one that will become vindicated shall live by his faith. Hebrews chapter 11, I'm gonna set a little bit of the context there, suffering persecution. We don't have time to deal with the details. You'll have to take the book of Hebrews. Whoever's teaching that, Brother Herbs, that's your job now, hallelujah. But they're suffering persecution by chapter 11

and it's increasing during the loss of property and some of them have been imprisoned by their faith. Life is getting tough, life is getting harder and it is easier to go back to the old life. It would be simple to go back to old patterns. Now I wanna go ahead and start aiming at your heart. At times over breaks and when you get out of Indiana Bible college seniors, it would be very easy to go back to old patterns. Patterns before the Lord spoke to you and called you and equipped you. It would be easy to go back to the same level of entertainment, the same level of inactivity, the same level of complacently, the old brutes with the old friends that don't make a difference. That's what's being tempted and God is going to be clear as he inspires the apostle to write Hebrews

that he is not asking anything extraordinary. As a matter of fact, it has always taken the same thing for the people of God. It is faith and endurance. What the apostle is going to do is call seven witnesses to establish his case study that you need to live and obey and walk in trust or faith with what God has said. And not only do you need to live and obey and walk in trust, by the way, that is faith. It's in the things he said, Brother Tanner, even if you don't see him happening yet. And so he says, the power and permanence of faith is that it can get you through any moment, faith in God, in his word guides and gives us strength to run and the word will come to pass even if I need to wait. Even if the promise tarries, even if what God showed you at a youth camp

in an altar takes years to come to pass, the promise is true if you can tarry. The Old Testament prophet says that the way to live and to walk and to obey is the life of faith. Now I have to not get stuck here. Turn to your neighbor and say, pray for it. I need to define what faith is not. It is not an attempt to manufacture your own reality. And all due respect to well-meaning people we do not buy into things like the word of faith that says you have creative power in your voice. You create your own future. Thank God the Lord didn't reduce my life to what I have spoken over it. You gotta refuse that limitation. You need more than what you can ask or think. That's what the promise of the word of the Lord is that he is able to do exceeding

and abundantly above all that you can ask, that you can come up within a board meeting, that you can invent on your own. He can exceed the human limitation. So I'll just tell you that in all my life and ministry and work I do not want to predict or mold or manufacture my own future. Faith is trust, trusting in what God says, trusting in what God directs, trusting in how God guides. Brother Bucklin, your wife said when we went over to Europe people asked us how did we do everything that we did? She said we didn't engineer that, we just followed the Lord. I got good news for you. That's all you need to get in your future is faith in what God says. All of God's people, their lives were filled with difficulty and when we look at Hebrews 11 they knew that God had to be the initiator

and I have to be the follower. Thank you Pastor Turner for that last week that I am not the one who sets the agenda. I am not asking God to bless what I wanna do. I wanna know God, if there is a revelation from you speak to me, you can trust me. I'm gonna walk in faith. I'm gonna walk in obedience. I wanna hear the words of the Lord. Because it's faith in who, not what. It's faith primarily as the basis and starting point and foundation of belief, it's his character, his word, his promises, his provision, his direction. Okay, let's try it again. His grace is sufficient in my weakness. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. His ways are past finding out. He does all things well. He makes everything beautiful and it's time. We gotta hurry. Turn to your neighbor and say,

listen, pastor, Hebrews chapter 11, this beautiful hall of faith, this wonderful example of that are called to the witness stand to show that God, I'm trying to get away from it. My brother Turner, God is not asking anything of these young people. He is not asking of all of his people. You are not a special case study. Your problems are not unique. It's the same human condition. Every temptation that comes on your life is common to man. You just gotta determine, I'm gonna be a man of faith. I'm gonna be a woman of faith. Hebrews 11, one, now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not yet seen. Kind of like all that homework that campus pastor was talking about. For by it, everybody say faith, the elders obtained a good report. You're gonna see 20 times in Hebrews 11.

It's gonna be said now faith, by faith, through faith. Because it's impossible to please God without faith. I'll take you back many years ago when we pulled up in horses and buggies. No, it wasn't quite that long ago when I was in Bible college. But I was in homiletics and there was two sermons preached in homiletics and they were both graded. And they both chose Hebrews chapter one as their text. And one wonderful, everybody say wonderful, one wonderful IBC student preached, you need now faith. The second week came along and the next sermon was, you need patient faith. Aren't your neighbors say those are different? Now, which is right, brother Kilman, because the quandary in the class is, which is the intention of God? What is true to the text? And I get it and the apostle is writing and it's day in the Greek, it's now,

it has no temporal value at all. It could be translated and faith. It's faith, the Greek word pistis, belief, trust, confidence, faith. It doesn't give just the definition, it gives us examples so that we make sure we don't miss the revelation. Okay, brother Kilman, what does that look like? It's not so much about faith looking upward, although faith looks upward in hope of heaven, in hope from strength from on high. And I'm strengthened by the hope of heaven, but it's more about faith that's looking forward to the declared promises of God. It's how do I get from where I am now into my future? And I understand that put one of them in a very tough circumstance because he preached the wrong thing. Turn to the other side. Now, what do you mean, brother Kilman? When I have a wonderful friend, he told another wonderful friend of mine, I love him both.

He said, you're preaching his idolatrous. He said, what are you talking about? He said, you think your ideas about the text is more powerful than God's intended meaning in the text. Now, I understand, people are the wounds of a friend. Don't you say that to anybody unless you have that kind of relationship and be careful, you can't say that too many times. But what he was saying is the intention of God, I don't know about you, but I wanna preach the meaning in the text. And brother Kilman, have you ever missed it? I've missed it. I don't wish I had just phrases back. I wish I had entire sermons back. And I get that, but I'm aimed at knowing the revelation of God. And I want revelation for the day, for the moment that I'm lived in, for any moment that God trusts me with.

I want eternal truth that transcends time. I need revelation. I need direction to get into my future. That's create stability where you are not tossed about by every wind of doctrine. And the substance of things hoped for is about the promises that God has given. And the evidence of things not yet seen is not my own carnality, but it's about what the Lord has spoken already. I'm just gonna help you. The evidence of things not yet seen anticipates that God's words are yay and amen. It's not about me speaking something. It's about what he's already spoken. What you have to do in your life if you're gonna get where God wants you to go is to trust in nothing but the promises of God. The promises of people can be well-meaning and wrong. The intention of humanity is to bless, but it's weak. I'm gonna say it again though,

but the promises of God are yay and amen. Look at verse three, through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. So no evolution, right? Just extra, ex-nelio out of nothing. And that means Genesis one and two is a disclosure of the truth that is echoed here. The writer is saying you gotta understand that we know by faith there are things that are beyond us, beyond our capacity. We're starting to understand some things from science now, but I'm just gonna tell you at the end of the day, if God said it will occur, and if God said let there be, it will occur. I don't care if it's let there be light or let there be a church in that city. Let there be a nation have revival

through that missionary. Hell cannot stop the intention of God. He was not asking darkness's permission. He was saying let there be. I have to hurry. That's about me, not you. Verse four, by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than came, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh. Abel would not have spoken some things into his life. He probably wouldn't have said, I'm gonna speak the results of my right worship into my future. He was just faithful to obey what God had declared about sacrifice. He wouldn't have said, I want the first fratricide in scripture to be overworship. Translate that, Brother Kilman. My brother's gonna kill me because I got worship right and he got it wrong. I don't think, I don't think Abel would have spoke that result into his future.

But what are you saying, Brother Kilman? The apostles saying that Abel's blood spoke to God even after death. Now you look at it in Genesis 4, 10 on your own time. Hebrews 12, 24 on your own time. Matthew 23, 25 on your own time. And what you're gonna see is God's blood spoke, or Abel's blood spoke to God. It's not about his blood speaking to us all due respect to the NLT. It misses the intent. Your blood, your sacrifice speaks to God. That's the intent of scripture. I'm just gonna tell you, even death can't invalidate the promises of God. I don't care if they try to kill you and destroy you. Your sacrifice, your obedience, your faith will speak to God. He believed the revelation of God regarding worship and he was honored and vindicated and he understood from Genesis that something had to die

to clothe people that were in sin. And back in the garden, he got the covering right and he said, I refuse to invent my own way. I am not going to take worship and design it to promote me and to bring something that I want God to bless. He said, no, no, no, no. That's not the sacrifice of Cain. I'm gonna give the right sacrifice. I'm gonna give the prescribed sacrifice. You let everybody else build their ministry on something else. You just stay obedient over time. And I don't care if they kill you and run against you or rally against you. God knows how to vindicate. I got to hurry. That's me. It's just a question. You shake your finger at me every once in a while. Thank you. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him

for before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God and then listened to the addendum but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. If you look at Genesis five, it says that Enoch walked with God and he pleased God. He understood that communion and walking with God is about pleasing God and he walked with God and he obeyed God and he pleased God for 905 years when just a handful of other people were trying to do what's right. But I'm gonna tell you everybody else can drown in the flood but I'm telling you there's gonna be one man, God says I'm not even gonna make you go through the flood. I'm gonna take you, I'm gonna snatch you out of,

God knows how to vindicate. Doesn't matter if everybody else around you is doing something else, you stay faithful. Verse seven, by faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet. Move with fear, prepare Dan. Art to the saving of his. Maybe you should worry about saving your house. But by the witch he condemned the world. How did he condemn the world? Because he obeyed and they disobeyed. That just proves that you can obey. What does that mean, Brother Kilman? He walked with God, Genesis six, nine and faith is about walking with God. Faith is about journeying through the everyday. Faith is about building something that for preparing for something that people have never seen and God will give you a vision that's stable and it doesn't matter if everybody else makes fun of your dream. Doesn't matter if everybody else makes fun of it,

God is calling you to do. There's never been a church in that town. There's never been somebody done that kind of ministry there. It will never work but when God gives you a vision you can be like Noah and say, I know you've never seen it but just because you've never seen it doesn't mean he's not gonna bring it to pass. The ridicule, build. When people don't understand you, build. When people don't get what God is trying to manifest through your obedience over time, build. When they say, I don't think you should do that, you're going, I'll behave, vindicated. We don't have time to do them all. Eight through 10 by faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed and went out not knowing where he went, huh? Can you go without knowing everything?

Can you just obey by faith? By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country dwelling in Tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him in the same promise for he looked for a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is God. God, the Bible says in Genesis 17, he walked before me. God says, and be thou perfect. The Lord before whom I walk in Genesis 24, 40 whom I walk before whom I walk. He knows that this is an everyday. See, there's the problem. If you're gonna have stability in a time of flux, if you're gonna have to deal with all of the pressures and the challenges that will come and it's gonna get more complex before the day of the Lord comes. What you gotta say is I need some stability. I got good news for you.

God is not hiding stability. He's given you stability right here. You can say let everybody else do whatever they wanna do. I'm gonna obey the word of the Lord. Through faith, also Sarah herself received strength. Wait, wait, she's aged out. To conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. My promises from God are not limited to my capacity. Therefore, sprang there even of one and him as good as dead. You got even the person that you're partnering with and guess what, the whole team's got issues because I don't care if you take a team to a city or if you're just a couple going to a city, it doesn't matter, it's not in your flesh. It's can you faithfully obey God over time? Brother Kilman, are you against any of those? No, I want whatever God wants.

No capacity in yourself. And yet I know that there are things that God has promised. If you engineer it yourself, you're gonna take a second rate, human inspired lesser version. Abraham and you're gonna make things so complex that we're still dealing with the ball out today. I get it, you gotta learn to walk by faith and Abraham got up every day and he had to walk. Why are you getting up today, Abraham and walking? Because God promises everywhere I put my feet I get. Well that's pretty selfish, you just keep walking and keep walking. No, no, no, no, I have a promise that's going to outlive me. I gotta prepare for a tomorrow that I won't inherit. I gotta lay something up for the next generation. Somebody's gonna reap that revival and if it's like the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky, I gotta have great faith.

They said because of that promise, they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out. They might have had opportunity to return, but the rank had been easier to go back. What does that mean? It means they can best, I don't belong to err anymore. I don't belong to that past. I don't belong to the world, the passions and promises and pursuits of the world, the dreams and the decisions and the desires of the world. And remember when the Lord started putting his hand on you and you begin to say things like I feel so foreign to those that are around me. I don't fit in my home and I don't fit in my youth group and I don't fit with my peers and I don't even fit with some ministers. Why? Because I desire something else. I gotta have something else. I'm telling you that's a vision from God in your heart.

We have to hurry. By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac. How'd you like that conversation from the ranking? Honey, I've heard from the Lord. I got a word. Me and the boy are gonna go worship. Hey son, you wanna go worship? You wanna go on a ministry trip? Yeah, dad, I'll go. Be careful, life and death are in the power of the tongue. Parents should never say that's out of context. But he's called out to go in Hebrews 1180. He's so journey in the land. He's living like a foreigner, brother Brown in the land of promise. He's got his heirs with him that should inherit the land and all of them are going to live as if the promise is true even if they never see it. That's what God is calling you to. Can he trust you with a vision bigger than your life?

Can he say, I want you to sacrifice for more than yourself. I want you to sacrifice for my future that I have for more than you. By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. He's saying the performance of the promise may be beyond me, but my preparation, my ministry, I'm gonna live in view of this reality. I will make provision for my generation and for the next and so the promises of God will be manifest, why? Because I'm willing to sacrifice here even if I don't see it. But I'm gonna make provision when you leave, boys, don't you leave my bones here. I don't belong to Egypt, I belong to the promises of God. Verse 23, by faith, Moses, when he was born was hit three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child

and they were not afraid of the king's commandments. That's where I think the spirit of Jacob had has to get ahold of some people. Egypt can't have my future. Egypt can't have my dream. Egypt can't have my calling. Egypt can't have my son. The promises of the Lord are upon him, you ready? I have a short time. I have a short window, but I'm gonna be faithful in this season, why? Because by the time he gets to the next, that season's gonna yield some fruit. It's gonna make a son so strong that he will refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. God can help you get that generational transition into the future. Moses kept it. Led by example, we don't have time. I wish we had time to go through the rest of them. It's kind of like the apostle writing. And say I'm more, or what shall I say?

More say, for time would fail me. Chapel time would be over. To tell the Gideon, the barricade, Samson, Ejepta, David, Samuel and other prophets who through faith, what did they do? Subdued, brought righteousness. Quench fire, escaped the sword. Weaknesses were made strong. They waxed valiant in fights. They turned to flight the armies of the aliens and women received their dead again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. Well, here's the question. When you get out of here and you get in the midst of the hardest parts of ministry, are you gonna look for a better opportunity? Are you looking for reasons to leave? Or did the God that called you to go, can he tell you to stay? Cruel markings and scourging and bonds and imprisonment, stones, sawn asunder, tempted, slain, wandered in sheepscreens and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandered in deserts and in mountains and dens

and caves of the earth. Look at verse 39. All of these weaknesses, God turns to strength. He says, these all, having obtained a good report through faith, receive not the promise. God, having provided some better thing for us that they, without us, should not be made perfect. They didn't receive the promise. Even if they got it impartial, they didn't receive all the promise. But they had faith and trust and belief to act in concert with the promise of God. Even if they never saw it in their time. But come on, what are you preaching today? I wanna address the spirit of the age. You gotta understand the times. That's why God says to the prophet, Habakkuk, write the vision and make it plain. You gotta understand so that you can run. And the spirit of the age is against the ways of God. It's against the methods that God uses

to get His purpose into the world. The spirit of the age tries to stop and frustrate and stifle what God wants. And so what you have to decide is beyond the now and the instant success and the vast numbers and the rapid results. Can I have, all due respect to the first IBC student, patient, enduring faith? See, today in the United States, it's interesting. Everything's made fast. Way back in history, there's a man, Pierre LeFont. He designed the city of Washington, D.C. And he was commissioned and they wanted to create a place for Congress and a home for the president of the United States that would later become what we know as the White House. And LeFont was a foreign volunteer in the Revolutionary War and he became a citizen of a new country. That's interesting, when you become a part of something that's new and different than the way

that you were raised or what you come from. You embrace the ideals and it affects the way that you see the country and what you will sacrifice for. Because of his commitment, he was commissioned to design the new federal city that became Washington, D.C. His task was to combine the traditional urban European elements, grand boulevards and squares with symbols of the new republic through the placement of national government institution. You can go to Washington, D.C. and see the principles that built our country in stone, marble. And the sayings are there, the ideas as well as the architecture. So LeFont created imagery and architecture and city landscapes to strike the mind and the heart. He wanted to memorialize America's notions and ideals and beliefs of being a republic. And to memorize its principles of liberty and civic engagement, he worked to help define the new American public by putting our beliefs in concrete.

He presented those ideals to the world. And in 1791, he submitted a plan of a grand vision and that vision and dream guided the development of our American capital for the next century and beyond. What was his task? To change a wilderness into a city, to erect and beautify buildings so that to the degree of perfection necessary, it could receive the seat of government of so extensive of an empire or republic. And we know from history, for all you history buffs, LeFont gets sidelined, but his plan and his work persists even till today. That vision affects DC right now. And here's the thing that struck me as I was studying this. The vision of the US capital took a long time to happen. And I just wanna help somebody, very few visionaries commit to what takes generation. What do you mean by that? To see a little done, a little more done,

and a little more done. We go to DC and we walk around those buildings and we think, wow, this is how it's always been. But this is years of vision and sacrifice and work represented. The US capital actually, the dome was not completed until after the Civil War. That's decades, almost a century of American experience. So architectural history, whether ranking happens in America in a century. In Europe it's one or two millennia. And when we walk around and we admire beautiful things, we forget that it took time and sacrifice. Now I'll try not to, I was gonna be a commercial artist so you'll have to forgive me for my aesthetic rebuke. We're living in a time of rapid social velocity. Things happen so fast and it appears in our culture nothing is passing down and we need stability in a time of flux. And when you go to DC,

you'll find these ugly block monstrosities in DC. The art from which they come from, spring from, is the romantic rebellion and the second wave of that and the art is called brutalism. It's raw, unadorned, industrial in its appearance and from the French it comes from Béton Brut which means unfinished concrete. And where did that spring from? It came from a worldview that there were no constants that could help us in all time and the roots of Darwin and Marx and Freud and take contemporary theology and you'll have a good time unpacking all of that. They begin to make assumptions that was hostile to the unity of creation. That you can make sense of all of life from a book. And the loss of civic ideals in engineering was a reality. There was nothing righteous so there was nothing true and if there's nothing true, then there's nothing beautiful.

Now what do you mean, Brother Kilmer? The withdrawal of faith, the subtraction of Christianity, the excising of God from culture. Instead of it being construction from creation, it was construction from a love of power. And the sheer imposition of a will is the worship of power and self and pride and the buildings that they manifested was just something brutal because we're in charge. It echoes that lie in the garden. You shall be as God. Now what does that mean, Brother Kilmer? I'm just saying in all of this rapid change in our culture where things are being shifted so quickly, God can still give you stability in a time of flux. Here's what he says, I'm working to a close. There's hope. Hebrews 11 is a revelation of God's method and his means. It offers us stability in time of a people. Number one, revelation is intentional.

What do you mean by that? God is not hiding blessing. God is not hiding direction. So don't frustrate revelation. God's vision is true. His call is real on your life. His promises are sure. Even if it doesn't all come to pass in your life. Some of you have had deep touches of God on your life where you see things. What you have to understand is you gotta live and sacrifice, Johnny, and dedicate. Even if you never see the dream and its accomplishment, what if your children do? What if your grandchildren do? What if your spiritual children do? Revelation is intentional. Number two, revelation is empowering. How is it empowering, Brother Kilmer? It sets you free from momentary fads to generational kingdom work. It sets you free from the crisis of comparison to timeless faithful work. It doesn't matter if someone is like you. The question is, are you faithful?

It'll set you free from dependence on self to simply godly, sustainable vision. It'll set you free from ease that leads to empty lives and to sacrifice that yields the eternal. Lastly, number three, revelation is sustaining. Brother Bucklin, I wish I could just give you the mic today. Talk about pioneering missionaries who went in by themselves. I wish I could have Test Stuart come and talk about his father for a long time. How many years he spent in Liberia without running water and electricity over a decade? Can God trust you with patience and enduring faith? Why, because there's a promise. It won't tear you. It's on the calendar. The question is, can you be patient and enduring? It's like Mandy Brown said, Brother Kilmer, you wanna tell those IBC students how to build a church? I'll tell you. I said, what's that, Sister Brown? She said, stay for 20 years pioneering church planners.

It's like my good friends in California that drive over 300 miles a week to pastor three churches. Sister Carson, I love pastor. It's like sacrificing finances at Calvary Tavernacle to be sending churches because you gotta save dying campuses. Somebody's gotta be a sending church. Somebody's gotta stop resting on the laurels of success and the big bank account and just having big conferences and get a vision of the mission. And I need to help some of you. You may be able to be the one to be on the long end of fulfilled promises. Stay humble. Somebody's sacrificed before you. Somebody built that, I'm gonna quote Brother Hunley. I wish I could get away from it. I can't get away from it. Again, the Lord is prompting me. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna manage the decline of somebody else's revival? Or are you gonna learn that sacrifice and time

that doing the hard work of reaching and discipling, that teaching Bible studies, talking to people, discipling the hard work of all of that. Stay humble. I don't know about you. I don't wanna be handed something and watch it go into court. I want it to be strong. Some of you may be, and I think you are called the plant and start and carve out work. And you will have to be a man of faith and a woman of faith, even when I don't see it, your work. I hope you don't just sing songs, but they'll come to the music hall all the way. Sustaining apostolic faith takes the long view of things. That's what I'm preaching today. That's Hebrews 11. It's realizing that we may not see all things come to fruition even in our generation. But the seeds we plant, they may show amazing growth in our time

and I pray that that's the case, but we may not see the total fulfillment. That's not even the point, Stanley. Here's where I need to do the work in your heart a little bit. We do not make the sacrifice for vision and faithfulness for ourselves. We make it for our future, the promises of God. We want an apostolic church and an apostolic movement and sustained revival through difficulty and change. And God is saying, that's in my heart first. The question is, can you have faith though the promise tarry? I love the example of Thomas Friedman, that great writer, he said, Brother Herbs, he returned to 6831 West 23rd Street, St. Louis Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he grew up. And he said he had left in the 70s. And he said, when I got back, he said the house was still blue and it was totally familiar.

He said, but then all of a sudden I got this feeling, I'm driving around my neighborhood, everything looks pretty much the same. And he said, but something is just not resonating. And then he said it dawned on me, it was the trees. He said they were small and scrawny when I was small and scrawny. And now they've grown up into something and not only have they changed, but I have changed. Some of you are gonna go back home and you're gonna realize some things. I've grown. Maybe you're embarrassed to talk about the small start. When you leave and the Lord calls you to be a youth pastor of five students, seem small and scrawny, but God is enabling you to shepherd a church point because if you can worship with them and you can pray with them and you can preach to them, you can preach anywhere, going home to serve.

It seems small, but God is shaping and molding and maybe even parking you to work things out of your heart and spirit so he can trust you with something that will be enviable later. But he can't give it to you when you're small and scrawny because it'll crush you, but he's going to grow. It's like the Bible study. Seems like that's all I'm doing. I remember an IBC student said he left and all of his friends are like, when are you gonna do something for God? When are you really gonna do something for God? And he just stayed at Calvary Tavernack on top Bible studies. Little did Mike Nolan know that what God was showing him is how to plant a church, to take a church and grow that church because if you take a church and you don't know how to teach a Bible study,

I'm gonna say it again, you will manage decline. Because you don't know how to reach. You don't know how to decipher. That you'll grow together as the dream of God unfolds in your life. Patient, enduring faith. I was, I'm landing, I promise you. Play louder. Thank you, Jacob. For the Kilmen, it's just a sermon for chapel. It's just a Wednesday night slot of worship. It's just a prayer meeting. It's just an MSA. It's just a lesson for Sunday school kids. It's just an opportunity to serve. I'll do that later. I'll start then. When someone invites me to the position, I'll really start. I'll really consecrate. Hear me, the time to start is now. And that patient, enduring faith will grow you to the moment where the promise can be realized. So I'm calling it. For the ranking, I know I tend to be drawn to the exhortive.

So I try to check that. But I feel from the Lord to challenge you. Your ministry has to be more than a flash in the pan. The way that it will is you doing the hard work of saying, God, I'm gonna obey you over time. And when it's hard, I'm not gonna jump out. I'm not gonna be looking for the easy. But being ahead as a discerning leader makes you take hits. It includes isolation. But somebody has to walk the path first. Somebody's gotta call others to follow. It will pay off over time. If you believe your simple obedience is enough for the long haul. I'm calling you. I'm done. I'm calling you to say, I am not looking for easy, God. I'm committing to hard work over time. I'm committing to doing the work right now until all the way. When that vision that you gave me come to power.

And when I get on the long end of that promise, God, I'm gonna realize that you grew me to this moment when I was small and scrawny. And I just started obeying. And I just started reaching. And I just started consecrating. God says, I know I put something in you that's stable. A commitment to my word, to my dream, to my calling over time. Come on, one more time, I'm calling for consecration. Not easy, God. I'm not asking that. I'm not asking that. I'm not asking that, God. I'm not asking for ease. Help me to see that it's my commitment over time. I know, man, the devil's already tried to talk some of you into leaving Bible college. What's gonna happen when you get into ministry? The pressure will increase. God is putting strength inside you right now with every yes. But I don't wanna work that job.

God is putting strength on the inside of you right now to trust you, to grow you into your tomorrow.