Evidential Faith

turn with me if you will in your bibles to a book of hebrews very familiar passage i don't i think hebrews chapter 11 8 through 19. then i'll be reading romans 4 18 through 21. uh this is one of the greatest two of the greatest faith passages in the bible by faith abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whether he went 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 of the same promise for he looked for a city who hath foundations which hath foundations whose builder and maker is god through faith also sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised therefore spring there even of one

and him as good as dead so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable these all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth for they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country and truly if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out they might have had opportunity to have returned but now they desire a better country that is and heavenly wherefore god is not ashamed to be called their god for he hath prepared for them a city by faith abraham when he was tried offered up isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in isaac shall thy seed be called accounting

that god was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in him a figure romans 4 18-21 who against hope talking of abraham again believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken so shall thy seed be and being not weak in faith he considered not his own body now dead when he was about a hundred years old neither yet the deadness of sarah's room he staggered not at the promise of god through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to god and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform amen lord jesus we love you today we thank you for your character nature we thank you for your power your goodness god i thank these wonderful people that are here today god i pray that you administer to us today i pray that the gift of faith would flow through this building today god i pray that you speak to us in the name of jesus amen you may be seated

i want to preach you today on the subject evidential faith you know it's impossible to overestimate the importance of abraham in the biblical narrative he's the central character of the old testament in as much as the bible is history it's the history of abraham's descendants god said in abraham i will bless all people all families of the earth shall be blessed and of course jesus christ is that seed of abraham that has blessed the whole world what a privilege to know to be the the family through whom the messiah would come and this was abraham's great place uh when the bible is trying to uh talk about faith uh whether it's jesus or whether it's the apostle paul or where whether it's james at the end of the day they wind up saying have faith like abraham he's the father of the faithful when you've said everything about faith you just have to say well just look at abraham and do what abraham did because he is the father of the faithful

i titled this message evidential faith it indicates that faith is its own evidence uh we don't like that do we now uh faith is the substance of things hoped for it's the evidence of things not seen well faith is not seen either so how can something not seen be evidence for something that you can't see well that's what we struggle with isn't it we know that we're supposed to walk by faith and not by sight i'm preaching to a church today we know that we have to believe you don't have to tell christians that you need to believe only believe and we know that we're supposed to see the invisible and we're we're supposed to walk by faith but the lifestyle that we live because we are blessed and because we are americans we get out of practice walking by faith in fact most of us live most of our life without really having to walk by faith if god doesn't come through we'll write a check if god doesn't come through

well at least we got blue cross blue shield if god doesn't come through well uh mom and dad will come through well if god doesn't come through the state government will come through the federal government will come through we as christians sometimes if we're not careful we think we've failed when we have to trust god well how do i get myself in this situation to where i had the only option i have is to wait on god now that's not always true in the past but carla's grandfather in pastor of church in joplin missouri started the church in joplin missouri still exists today this years ago and they had run out of money and didn't have anything to eat in the house no money to buy anything and they had an evangelist coming to stay with them that night and grandma looked at grandpa she said well what are we going to feed him what are

we going to do he said well he said i'm going to the grocery store she said what are you going to buy groceries with he said i don't know i trust god and so he went to the grocery store and he built his cart up whatever they would need to feed the evangelist feed his family that week and roll those groceries right up to the counter and guys checking these groceries out and the about got done and here stepped up the manager said mr baxter said you've been trading here a long time he said these groceries are on the house today and here he come walking in with a load of groceries come on i had an old saint tell me that story when i preached in joplin a few years years ago they remembered it but you know if we're not careful like well what in the world he do why didn't

he have any money did he not plan well enough had he been squandering his money on something else you know i mean we don't want to be we love to we celebrate that miracle isn't that a great story you're going to tell that story to people before you you'll be repeating that story but you know it's one thing to tell that story it's another thing to live that story it's another thing not to have groceries in your house when you're a man and you're supposed to be the provider and you've obeyed god and you're in joplin where you're supposed to be and there's no food that's that's a story that sounds a lot better 20 years after you went through it i thank god for his blessings on my life i really do uh i i thank god part of living for god as he does bring blessings but but

we can forget where all those benefits come from where all those blessings come from and we can forget that god owns it all and he has it all and and i'm not dependent on my job or on my ability to provide or own my bank account or on uh the government or whatever it is but i still need to trust god the more mature we get sometimes the more we think that we uh the the more we can re rely on uh uh the blessings of god and we can rely on the job that god's given us you know sometimes new converts they come in their life's a mess they've lost their job because of the way they've acted their lives a mess they may be looking at a prison sentence say the sin has devastated their life and all of a sudden they see miracles all the time god gives them a miracle of getting them a new job god gives

it a miracle some of the miracles they need you know uh a car you know and and and boy that's just like look at god well for some of us it's been a long time since we had we said well look at god but there comes that day when god tests our faith abraham was a mature christian so to speak abraham had been walking with god a long time god called abraham we don't know abraham may have been serving god since he was a teenager we don't know how long god had been talking to abraham all we know in fact abraham may have been the only person on earth that god was talking to or that was listening to god certainly the only one we know of the only one we know of that was obeying god and abraham was about 75 years old and finally god said abraham your dad is dying i want

you to get away from his house i want you to separate yourself i'm going to show you a land i'm going to make you a nation i've got a plan for you but you've got to get out of here and abraham said okay god i'll do that and he left his homeland he was blessed he left his father's house he his nephew lot uh said man i'm going with abraham the hand of god whatever's going on with abraham i want part of it i want to go with him and so abraham already a blessed and wealthy man from god left er of the counties lot with him they are going to look for a city where are you going abraham you're leaving town but where are you going well i don't really know well what are what are you looking for a a city well where is this city well i don't know but i'm looking for

it and we're going to take everybody with us it sounds foolish to the human mind to walk by faith and not by sight even though we sing about it and we talk about it doing it is another thing and so lot had already been through the situation where our sir abraham had already been through the situation where lot decided to uh he he could do better without him and and abraham had the experience of standing there and saying lot you take whatever you want you take the best land you take wherever you want i'll take what's left and so he goes to the rocky barren judean hillside and i'm sure he as he looked over his shoulder and lot was going into the well-watered plains of sodom and gomorrah he was like man did i make the right choice i thought that little kid i thought surely he'd give me the best spot you know

i mean what in the world god all right is this the city you know you see you read all that stuff and you forget what it's like to walk through it and i don't know i'd be i'd probably been burnt up for a few days about it i'd been so but he trusted god trusted god then god says for him to circumcise his whole household nobody had heard of doing that before imagine that conversation god said god said then lot gets in trouble and he has to send his own personal army to rescue lot here's a man whose faith was continually tested god told him that he was going to make out him a great nation and he's he doesn't have one kid at 89 years old he didn't have one kid he left when he was 75 and then 14 years later he still doesn't have any kids he gets besides god needs some help

and he they he has ishmael god said that's not the one and you'd think you know maybe a year later he'd have the one but no another 11 years and now for 25 years abraham has been looking for this city and he still doesn't even have the promised child but abraham believed god the bible says he staggered not at the promises of god that doesn't mean that abraham didn't have some doubts because it's obvious he did he lied twice because he must have doubted for a moment god's uh ability to take care of him and and so he must have doubted for a moment god's ability to give him that promised child through sarah but at the end of the day he got back to trusting god you are never too old or mature to have your faith tested and abraham passed all of these tests and he had the promised child

and then the ultimate test of abraham's faith came when god says to abraham take your son your only son the take the source of the promise and offer him up as a sacrifice this wasn't unheard of in abraham's time it was quite customary for these canaanite tribes to offer up human sacrifice to their gods and their firstborn and it must have been quite a shock to abraham but abraham believed god somewhere in abraham the his trust in the character and the nature of god never wavered and the bible says that he believed that god was even able to raise him from the dead and so abraham i mean isaac was a son of his old age it was more like his grandson this was the promised child he had waited so long for and he has wood and he has fire he has a knife and they're walking up the hill

and abraham is prepared in his own mind to plunge the knife into the heart of his living child because god said do it all the while believing that god was going to work it out and the promise was going to be intact everything was going to be okay he didn't know how god was going to do it but he believed that god was even able to raise him from the dead amen nothing about his circumstances gave him any encouragement or hope abraham had faith and god said now i know that you will withhold nothing from me i'm here to tell you today your faith is going to be tested because faith is the whole ballgame without faith it is impossible to please god you can't please god by working hard enough for him you can't please god by giving him enough money you can't please god by living holy enough you can't please god with anything

but faith without faith it is impossible to please god the why the reason we live holy is because we believe what god said the reason we work for god because we believe in his work the reason we pay ties or do whatever we do is because we believe god's word it's all about faith if you're doing it for any other motive you're going to be sorely disappointed because it's all about faith in fact the bible says whatever is not of faith is sin so we trust god your faith is going to be tested because god wants you to be saved we need to follow abraham's example we need to believe that god can do the impossible and nothing is too hard for god oh sometimes we we don't mean it like this but but it's almost like we say well uh you know god i guess you're not i guess you can't do

this i'll i'll take over now that that that that's what uh abraham did when uh he had ishmael well god maybe maybe and and sometimes it's not even that you don't it's never that you think god can't do it but your actions see your actions belie what you think and when you decide to push god to the side and do it yourself it reveals the state of your heart and what that should cause us to do is say oh god help me believe how silly is it for us to uh decide that we can do it better than god anyway you've got to believe god can do that did he do you believe he made the world do you believe he spoke it into existence oh how do you know that you don't know that it's by faith by faith we know that the worlds were framed by the word of god

you better believe god can do anything he made this body he can fix it anytime he wants it he can even raise it from the dead we need to believe and be willingly obedient to god to be willing to leave everything like abraham did to depart from everything that's comfortable everything that's familiar we need to trust god for guidance and direction and leading us into uncharted territory oh boy we don't like it when god leads us into uncharted territory do we we want him to tell us we'll go anywhere god wants us to as long as he'll tell us that beforehand how it's going to work out just tell uh god i'll do it just tell me how it's going to work out and how are you going all these obstacles how are you going to solve them give me your plan and i'll be ready to go that's never worked very well for me

and god just kind of shuts up at that point and he's like i'll be back and so we feel like failures when we're having to walk by faith and we should feel so thankful for this opportunity that god has given me to test my faith thank you lord that's why james said count it all joy brethren when you fall into divers temptations knowing this that the trial of your faith worketh patience or endurance and let that endurance have its perfect work and you will be perfect and entire wanting nothing the process of perfection comes through the testing of your faith we wouldn't be reading about abraham today if he would have refused to offer isaac abraham had to deal with this let's i i just want to i i want you to rethink this story i want you to put yourself in abraham's shoes when he has that beloved son walking up that mountain

and the lord the the young man says dad i see the fire i see the wood but where's the sacrifice what would you felt when isaac said that but abraham's faith in what god could do and who god was and his nature and character allowed him to override his fear his emotional reaction he said i'm going to obey god i'm going to trust god no matter what abraham for abraham it could have been about the blessing and i know god has the ability to look and see the heart of man and don't ask me to explain all the actions of god but but god has to have that on display maybe he knew what was in the heart of abraham maybe god knew how it was all going to turn out uh but we believe in free will of man we don't believe god just pre-planned everything we're all just here and it's

we don't believe in fatalism we don't believe in predestination we believe that that that it really is a tug of war between our will and god's will and we do have the ability to say no and we do have the ability to say yes and and that's what god wants and and that's the tension we live in and sometimes we need to know what we're made of americanitis bottom line profit is our value i'll sacrifice as long as i can be assured of some benefit in the future what if god asks you to satisf to sacrifice and he doesn't give you any benefit in the present and your benefit is when you get to heaven these all died in faith having not received the promise abraham never did see that glorious city abraham dwelt in a tent his whole life he never did get to see solomon's temple he never did get to see the new jerusalem coming down out of heaven

he he died in a tent but he believed god he believed god can you assure other people in the middle of your storm i hear abraham is going through the greatest storm of his life and is and he's comforting isaac god's gonna make a way god will provide a sacrifice don't worry about it son god's gonna take you through a trial some of you going through a trial we got to trust and believe in the character and nature of god i told the story this morning about my father my father wonderful christian in church his whole life raised me in church there was never any doubt about what we were doing on sunday and on wednesday daddy was a printer he was on his feet a lot almost all day my mother was a bank teller but we were going to be in church don't don't come with no excuse for no homework not being done on wednesday

and you need to stay home do homework no you just got a f and a spanking so but we're going to church and uh so my dad's dad died when he was 10 years old his dad was in church and he had a brother uncle charles was when his father when dad's my grandfather passed away on charles was 20 my dad was 10 and so uncle charles became a father figure to my father and my dad loved uncle charles and every thing anytime something would happen in our house something would break or something let me call charles any question dad had called charles uncle charles i grew up thinking charles had to answer to all life's problems because that he was he was the go-to guy and so one day uncle charles was driving to work and something happened he became totally disoriented he's pulled over the side of the road didn't know

he was in the world hardly his son happened to come by and and see his truck parked there and so he he took him to the hospital and uncle charles was diagnosed with a brain tumor stage four only had weeks to live well my dad was not a demonstrative christian he was a faithful christian you wouldn't he wasn't prone to running around the church or demonstrative worship but he he was faithful and uh but all of a sudden something kicked in my dad decided he was going to believe god enough that uncle charles was going to be healed and so he began to verbally profess god was going to heal uncle charles he believed it he was trying to get everybody else to believe it and he printed up invitations for a celebration of the healing of charles says drunk at a date to be determined that was big for my dad my dad just didn't

but he was believing god for his brother and they were at my house in michigan when i got the call from brother kraft he said scott charles just passed away and i had to tell my dad that his brother had just passed away he was devastated he couldn't figure out why god would not heal his brother i remember him saying god healed wendell price of cancer why wouldn't he heal charles and what was i going to say my 22 year old self i didn't know what to say to him didn't have the answer you know i i don't know what happened maybe by the time he got back to jackson i don't know if it took a few more days but i'm going to tell you the next sunday rolled around my dad was sitting in church and somehow he found the strength to raise his hands again

and to worship god in spite of his disappointment somewhere his feet landed on a solid bedrock of faith god made the world god created me god is just god is love god is holy and i can't let go of that or the whole world falls apart the whole world comes apart if i depart from that fundamental faith i've got to believe gout it's easier said than done sometimes but god's nature is not to be questioned you can question his action actions uh you you can not understand what he's doing but james said let him ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like the wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed let not that man think he shall receive anything from god a request of god must be made in faith and this can be understood to mean that it's up to you to convince yourself that god will give them what

they want if they somehow expunge all traces of uncertainty from our minds but this self-hypnosis is not what james is talking about here the faith required for asking is trust in the character and promises of god it it jane the doubting of which james is speaking about is not uncertainty about whether or not something is god's will it's not about doubt about one's worthiness but a wavering commitment to god the doubting of god's character listen quit letting the devil torment you that you because you've got some questions or doubt that you don't believe god the very fact that you're in this building today with all the junk that's going on in your life that's faith that's that's like abraham you walked even though you couldn't see you're here even though you don't know why god's doing what he's doing or why god's not doing what he's doing you're here and you came and you drove

and you worship but that's the faith of abraham and god is testing you right now but you know what you're passing the test because you're not doubting the nature and the character of god you keep on believing you keep on trusting you keep on worshiping you keep on walking because you know that in the end god is going to be justified no it may take a while

musicians can come i'm closing i don't know i'm preaching this different than i did this morning i'll tell you one more story this is a terrible story i don't tell it very often because it's horrific lady i got a call from a lady she was terribly distraught she was trying it was it was the saturday before mother's day and she was trying to get all of her kids to church so that she could get the prize for having most kids at church grandkids she had taken her two-year-old or four-year-old grandchildren to the store to buy them clothes or kids weren't in church and they didn't have any church clothes and so they'd been shopping bought outfits for mother's day and were unloading them from the trunk of the car and a man driving down the street had an epileptic seizure run up on the sidewalk and run over her two grandchildren by the time

i got to the hospital the four-year-old was dead and they were talking to them i'm sitting in the room talking to them about donating this kid's organs and her children were not in church and they were in gangs and they had their gang cuddlers on and they were looking for this guy that ran up they were going to kill him they were in the grandmother was praying and the kids were in the waiting room plotting the murder of this guy who had run up on the sidewalk it was a horrific scene and while we're talking about donating the organs of the four-year-old in walks the doc doctor and told us the two-year-old was dead too and that grandmother wailed and she looked at me and she said brother says trunk i want him dead too i just held her i didn't know what to say but i felt it while she was sinking

i don't know what happened but somewhere her feet touch bottom her feet touched the bottom of bed rock faith i don't know how she did it i don't know what i would have done in the circular my faith has not been tested like that but i watched this grandmother hit bottom and i watched her start coming up i watched as she stood in front of that casket and comforted everybody else coming by those two little bitty caskets praying for her family somewhere she realized i don't know what this is about but it's not making me doubt god's character and god's nature and god's power and god's ability i still trust god we have this hope it's going to be okay one day i'm going to know maybe why my father-in-law passed away at the prime of his ministry just whatever i'm going to know why god took brother roy barnhill a man

i leaned on for north american mission i i don't like it if god would have asked me i would have told him no don't do it but i trust him now i'm going to praise him i'm going to be at church next sunday too sister willow we're here today we're gonna be here next sunday i know it was the same for your family but the sunday after we buried my father-in-law they roped up a whole section it was sunday before we buried my father-in-law they wrote up a whole section because uh he he passed away i forget what what day day of the week was at that was on a tuesday we made the funeral arrangements we did all the things we had to do and we were all in church on sunday worshiping god in our tears not knowing but trusting not knowing but trusting oh god's talking to somebody today

you haven't done anything wrong because you're having to walk by faith you haven't done anything wrong because you don't know what the answer is you haven't done anything wrong because you've lost your job you haven't done anything wrong because somebody in your family's got cancer you haven't done anything wrong you're just walking by faith right now and it's gonna be okay it's gonna be okay because god's able to even raise him from the dead god's able to take this situation no matter what it looks like today god is able to take it and make all things new oh hallelujah

let's stand today come on somebody just needs to worship god in the middle of your trial in the middle of your test oh you're not going to see it you're not going to know it but your faith is the evidence the evidence that's going to be okay oh god god's gonna meet that need god's gonna take care of your family it's gonna be all right oh all things work together for good to them that love god that are called according to his purpose not all things are good that happen to us but all things work for good god is somehow going to take all this ugliness and he's going to turn it for your good i don't know how he's going to do it you may not know how he's going to do it he may look if he may have to raise somebody from the dead but he can do it

oh hallelujah come on let's work lift our voices to the lord right now oh i will lift up my eyes unto the heels from which cometh my health my help cometh from the lord which made heaven and make earth and earth he can solve your situation you keep walking with him today oh hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah

come on make this place an altar make this whole building and all if you feel comfortable come up to the front every step you take take my faith with your hands lifted god i trust you i believe in you come on find somebody to pray oh let's encourage one another this morning to believe god to trust god yes yes hallelujah hallelujah still believe oh that's it that's it i will worship your god i will worship you god no matter what god i believe you i in the trust of our confusion i trust you i believe you i we believe believe we still believe and though the journey has been hard we will confess your goodness god we still believe we still believe we're still surrendering our hearts your faithfulness is goodness god again through them again again again your faithfulness is confess your goodness god we still believe we still believe we're still surrendering our hearts has

this morning i'm looking across a room a lot of people who have continued to trust in god despite what you have faced we did this early this morning in our first service but i just feel to take it a step further if you feel like your faith is being tested today and you'd like to strengthen the help of god i wonder if just as a sign of your faith will do this carefully but just step out of where you are and i'm just again just specifically felt this just to show that i'm going to take a step of faith and i'm going to put action behind my prayer if you just go and find a place near the edge of the aisle and this church family is going to pray for you and uplift you just take a step in an action of faith we've got several already stepped their faith is being tested right

now but god they're letting god see i still have faith and i still trust in you no matter what i'm facing i still trust in you we're going to sing this again and we're going to pray in the name of jesus and god's going to strengthen and guys god's just coming alongside in the nature of our heavenly father we can see it throughout the room oh god you see this step of faith you see every heart behind it and right now we're asking for your help and your strength you're gonna honor this faith you're gonna honor these steps of faith we still don't understand we still don't understand but we trust you