Christians are always talking about faith. My faith walk. Faith this, faith that. So what is faith? Not the theory? But what does it look like when you live it? The sort of faith that pleases God.

What Is Faith?

Hey, a bit of a mile stone today. This program is the first in the 100th four-week series of Christianityworks, man, time flies when you’re having fun. It’s almost 8 years since the first Christianityworks program went to air.

Its’ been quite a walk of faith and so today on the program we’re kicking off a series of four messages which I’ve called quite simple, “Having the Sort of Faith that Pleases God”. Those two words “by faith”, appear over and over again in the bible. In fact, if we go to the New Testament book of Hebrews we’ll see that it’s pretty much the place where they’re most densely packed together, “by faith”.

Now faith, it’s something that Christians talk about a lot – our faith walk, faith this, faith that. But what is faith? When and where do we need faith? How do we get it? It’s something that Jesus talked a lot about so let me ask this, do we really understand what faith is? Do we really know what the outcome of faith is meant to look like in our lives? They’re the questions that we’re going to be pondering and exploring and journeying through together over these next few weeks on the program starting with today.

Okay then, so what exactly is faith? Well I suppose that many of the people listening today perhaps you’re one of them, would point me to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 to answer that question, it says that:

Faith is the assurance of the things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.

Well and good, that’s the most concise definition of faith in the bible, that’s the stock standard definition, tickity-boo, who needs a series on faith? We know what it is: it’s the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. But as much as we Christians quote that verse and its one of the most quoted Bible verses of all, do we really understand the context in which it was written? Let’s look at it again, it says exactly:

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

So what’s that word “now” doing at the front of the verse? What’s that all about? Well, that word is called a conjunctive, in other words, it ties this verse to what came immediately before. Ah, so this verse doesn’t stand alone, there is a context, something that comes before that we need to get in order to really understand the verse.

So, what comes before? Well, here it is, the previous chapter, Hebrews chapter 10 and we’ll kick it off just at verse 26. Listen carefully because we’re going to unpack this in a moment. Hebrews chapter 10, starting at verse 26:

For if we wilfully persist in sin, after having received the knowledge of the truth, then no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the advocacies. Anyone who has violated the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witness. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the Blood of the Covenant by which they were sanctified and outraged the spirit of grace? For we know the one that who said ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’ and again ‘The Lord will judge his people’. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

But recall those early days when after you’d be enlightened you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution. And sometimes partners with those so treated. For you have compassion for those in prison and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions knowing that you yourselves possess something better and more lasting.

Do not therefore abandon that confidence of yours, it brings a great reward. For you needed endurance so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised for yet in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back but we’re not amongst those who shrink back or are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved. Now Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

So what’s the context? The context is two things, the punishment that will surely come if we reject God’s grace and mercy and continue on in sin and the second part is about the extreme trials that we’re bound to face in life. In fact the Hebrew believers, the ones who were reading this letter, were facing incredible trials! They were being persecuted like you wouldn’t believe. And so the writer of this letter was saying, you know something, you’re going to struggle with sin, and you’re going to face incredible trials and so what you need, what you really need to get you through, is faith.

To tell you the truth if you put it like that I’d frankly rather be in a situation where I didn’t need any faith, because faith is what we need when we’re battling sin. Faith is what we need when we’re in a dangerous uncertain place. Faith is what we need to be saved from something we can’t save ourselves from. To persevere through situations and ordeals to make it out to the other side of something we’d rather not be in the middle off.

Wouldn’t it be so much better from were you and I sit, if we didn’t end up in places were we actually needed faith? Because faith is the assurance of something we hope for, which by definition means we don’t have it right now and we wish we did. And faith is the evidence of that thing that we can’t see yet, because all we can see is what we’re in the middle of which are our circumstances, and we’re hoping for so much more. And yet, as we’re going to see shortly that’s exactly how God sets things up.

You have sin in your life and I have sin in my life, but in and of ourselves we just can’t get rid of. We’ve struggled with it for years and we couldn’t’ do anything about it until we started putting our faith in Jesus. We couldn’t overcome sin or set things right until we put our trust in Jesus. And the same thing’s true of the many obstacles we face in life. Perhaps you’re someone who’s been listening to these programs for a while and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Oh that Berni guy seems to have things all sorted out. What an easy life. He gets to be on the radio and tell us how to get it right.’ But you wouldn’t believe the challenges and the trials involved in getting out there and doing what Gods called us to do at Christianityworks.

The attacks that come against the ministry because Satan doesn’t want people hearing about Jesus, he doesn’t want us doing what we are doing. The trials when people fail, when the finances are tight, you name it. It’s either happened, or it’ s going to happen. And just in the same way you face trials, you face temptations, you have mountains that get in your road and stop you from doing the things that God’s called you to do. You have sicknesses you have struggles, and people come against you, financial issues – my friend that’s what faith is for.

Faith is the assurance of things we hope for and the evidence of the things that we just can’t see yet. You and I need faith and that’s why we’re going to be talking about it over the coming weeks on the program.

Big Picture Faith.

Are you familiar with that term that saying that someone’s lost the plot? What it means is that we’ve lost sight of were we are going, we’ve lost sight of the objective. We’ve managed to get things completely “out of kilter”, “out of bounds”, or “out of whack” as we as Australians like to say. “Oh man, hasn’t he lost the plot!?” And often it happens when we become focused on just one thing in our lives, let’s say a single relationship or a single thing that’s not going quite right.

When we’re hurting, we focus on just that one thing that is hurting. Sometimes we lose the plot when we are so focused on making ourselves happy that we forget about everyone and everything else and somehow, the more we try to make ourselves happy the more empty we feel. It seems to me that they one sure way of feeling depressed is trying really, really hard to make yourself happy.

So the reason we lose the plot is that we lose sight of the bigger picture, we’re so focused on that one thing that we can’t stand back. We’re busy working hard at life, living life, peddling harder and faster and then the storm strikes especially when there is a head wind blowing and it’s slowing us down. It is the easiest thing in the world to lose sight of the big picture, the context, the sense of meaning and purpose and direction that we once seemed to have for our lives and now the harder we go at it, the murkier it appears to get.

What was once clear when we were young now seems to be blurry. Sometimes it’s like we’re living our lives in a fog. You know what I’m on about here right? And then one day you wake up and you think to yourself, I think I’ve lost the plot!

That place right there is a scary place. I’ve found myself in that situation, when I’m busy working hard, even, working hard doing things for God, none of us is immune to this here. I don’t get some exemption certificate from this stuff just because I work in a Christian ministry. This is real life. This is real stuff. What we’re talking about this week on the program, in fact over the coming few weeks is faith. It’s a phrase, two simple words, “by faith” that appear over and over and over again in the Bible, especially in the 11th chapter of the New Testament book of Hebrews.

Now, we need faith for all sorts of things, we need faith in Jesus to be forgiven by God and to be set free to live an eternal life in His presence. We need faith to make it through the trails and the difficult situations and make it to the other side of those. And as it turns out we need faith to get a sense of the bigger picture, to keep the balance and sense of perspective right over our lives. So that we don’t loose the plot or so that when we do loose the plot we can pick it up again. Have a listen to this. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 3:

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible …

In other words, by faith we know that everything that was created, was created by Jesus. He is the Word of God that is being referred to there. The worlds, the cosmos, the universe, the little ant that crawls cross the floor, everything … the worlds were created by Jesus, God spoke them into existence through Jesus.

“Let there be light.” He said, and there was light! “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place and let dry land appear.” And it was so, and God called the dry land Earth, and the waters were gathered together and He called them the Sea’s. and God saw that it was good … and on and on.

A universe that with all our brilliant technology we can only see part of, and the part that we can see with our radio telescopes is so big, its so vast that it would take light – travelling of course at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometres per second – it would take light 15 billion years to travel from one end of the known universe to the other!

Even the nearest star to the earth after the Sun is called Proxima Centauri, it’s about 4.6 light years away. Now that doesn’t seem too far does it? But if you and I were to hop into a car, say at 100km per hour and travel that distance of 4.6 light years, how long would it take us? Well, just about 7¼ billion years. And that’s without any toilet breaks. It’s the nearest star after the sun, and the rest are all much, much further away!

Why is this important? Here’s why. We live on this earth as though this is all there is. Now we know there is a sun up there and it’s really big and its really hot and its about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometres away. We know that there is a universe out there that’s huge. But day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, we live life really as though they don’t exist. We live life as though the only thing that exists is my own “here and now”, this instant: what I’m working on, what I’m doing, what I’m trying to achieve, what I’m feeling, what I’m struggling through, what …

Do you see my point? We completely loose sight of the big picture. I see all around me, every time I travel to India, I come back with a fresh realisation that the narrow privileged lives that we lead here in this affluent, blessed country we call Australia, is completely atypical, completely abnormal in the big picture of the rest of the world. And it’s in this narrowness that we lose our way; its in this narrowness that we loose the plot. Let’s look again at that verse on faith that I read out before. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 3:

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was made was made form things that are not visible.

Faith gives us the context that we need, faith is about knowing in our heart of hearts that there is God out there who made it all, He’s so big, so powerful, so intelligent, so loving, so awesome that He created the whole cosmos. Even the bits beyond human science can see. And He placed you and me here on this earth in perhaps the only inhabitable place in the whole universe. That’s the big picture.

And so instead of telling our God how big our problems are we need to start telling our problems how big our God is. Instead of obsessing about this problem or that disappointment, instead of sweating over the little things in our lives, in faith we can stand back and see the big picture, the God picture, the faith picture. By faith we understand that God made it all. By faith we can rest in this God who loves us so much that He sent us His son to die for us. By faith!

God-Pleasing Faith

Now there is a huge part of me I have to tell you that wants so much to please God with everything that I think and everything I feel, and say and do, I really, really, really want to please God. Really I do! But someday it seems that all I have to do to blow it is to wake up and get out of bed in the morning. Does that make sense? You want to do what’s right, you know what’s right with all your heart you want to please God, but you just can’t seem to do it.

It’s like there is a war going on inside you, you want to do what’s right, but every time you want to do what’s right, evil intentions are lurking there right over your shoulder, whispering into your ear. Well it’s not just me, it’s not just you. The apostle Paul who wrote almost half the books in the New Testament he had exactly the same problem and you can read all about it in Romans Chapter 7.

So how do we please God? Let’s go back to that book towards the end of the New Testament, the book of Hebrews chapter 11, which is where we have been spending out time together today, and let’s have a look because there is an answer in there as to how you and I can please God. And the answer isn’t working harder at being good. Let’s pick it up, Hebrews chapter 11, beginning at verse 4:

By faith able offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous as God Himself given approval to his gifts. He died but through faith he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken so that he didn’t experience death, and he was not found because God had taken for it was the tested before he was taken away that he had pleased God. And without faith, it’s impossible to please God for, whoever may approach Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

That’s really interesting because back there in the book of Genesis, chapter 4 when we read about Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s two boys, were not really given a reason why it was that Abel’s offering was acceptable to God, but Cain’s wasn’t. There’s a bit of a hint. We’re kind of told that there wasn’t something quite right in Cain’s heart, but that is all we’re told. It certainly had nothing to do with physically what he did.

Both Cain and Abel brought an offering to God. Cain’s was rejected while Abel’s was acceptable to God and as a result, out of envy, Cain murdered his brother Abel. So what was the difference between the two. The answer is faith. Its there in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4:

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approvable as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts. He died but through faith, he still speaks.

See Abel gave his offering to God in faith. And as God showed through His response to Cain, an offering without faith isn’t pleasing to God at all. It’s not just the physical act of making a sacrifice, that sacrifice has to come with faith. And again, we read that Enoch had been blessed by God because he’s pleased God because of his faith. Executive summary, bottom line, what’s God saying here? Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 6:

You see without faith, it is impossible to please God. For whoever would approach Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

And it’s not just here in the book of Hebrews that we discover the importance of faith in pleasing God. Jesus himself told people the exactly the same thing. When someone asked him, “Lord what do I have to do to be saved?” He answered quite simply, “Believe in me”. How often have you and I worked so hard at pleasing God as though anything we can do, can possibly add to what He has already done for us, and what He’s planning on doing?

Sometimes I think that we behave as though God is totally completely and utterly depending on you and me to fulfil His plans. As though without us, God’s plans for this world are going to fall over in a screaming heap, and God’s going to go, “Oh man! What am I going to do?” And so we work so hard, we work hard! And we bring Him the offering and we bring Him the sacrifice. We see all the problems facing us and so we bring in the offering from the field like Cain with little to no faith in our heart.

Well, guess what? Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Would you please note that word, “impossible”? What it does not say is that without faith you won’t please God quite as much through your labours as you would have done if you put a bit of faith in the mix. That’s not what it says. The Bible clearly says that without faith it is completely impossible to please God.

The Greek words used there for “impossible” mean literally to be completely without strength, impotent, powerless, weak, disabled. That it is unable to be done, it’s totally impossible. Why? Because God is God. And He has put us here in this physical world that is removed from His spiritual dimension, yet the spiritual dimension, the God dimension, the presence of God is as real and as present as the nose on my face.

The thing is that we just can’t see it. Our act of Love, our act of pleasing God is honouring him by believing that He is, that He does exist and that He is in the business of blessing and rewarding those who seek Him. Why does he do things that way? Well, just think about it, God has something of a problem when it comes to eliciting a free will love response from you and me. If we could see God for what He is, if we could see Him face to face in all His power and in all His glory, hey, there would be no free will involved. In the face of that power, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

So He removes us from that presence, He puts us in a place where we lay hold of Him, not by seeing Him, but through a layer of adversity we call life. Through a cloud of unknowing, never quite seeing Him clearly in this life. And we lay a hold of Him, we honour Him, we love Him, we serve him, we obey Him by faith. And that is why without faith it’s impossible to please God. Ask Cain, ask Abel, they’ll tell you all about it, because by faith that story is still being told today.

So the next time that you feel the need to work your back side off to please God, remember this, your work isn’t so much the thing that pleases Him, it’s not about the sacrifice so much, its about you, its about me, its about our faith! When we do what we do in faith, my friend, that is what pleases God.

You know, I wish I could tell you that God is primarily concerned about our comfort and convenience, but that’s just not true. He’s much more interested in our character and maturity and so He often calls us into radical, uncomfortable faith.

Radical faith

Have you ever felt God asking you to do something that is so radical so counter-intuitive that you felt that you were going mad? I have on more than one occasion, and as I speak with great men and women of God as I interview them as I meet them and get to know some of the giants of faith that I go to church with, that I work with, here’s what I’ve discovered listening to their stories. The more open we are to God the more we spend time in prayer, the more we take God’s word to heart as though it’s true and as though it’s actually meant for us, the more God asks us to do crazy things.

I have a dear friend who against every personal desire and aspiration that he had for himself and his family, moved across the other side of the world to take on a job for years that God had called him to do.

Now most days were a struggle, most days he was homesick, most days he didn’t really understand why God had called him into that place. But four years on, as he was heading back home again, can I tell you the impact that his presences, his skills, his wisdom, his insight and energy and persona has had, not just on the organisation that he worked for but in the lives of tens of thousands of people that organisation ministers to, is just enormous.

And the more we listen to God, the more we find Him asking us to do crazy things. Radical things, things we wouldn’t consider doing if it was left up to us. And that’s exactly what happened to Noah.

We’re looking today again at faith in this series I’ve called simply, “Having the Sort of Faith that Conquers the World”. It’s a phrase you find a lot throughout the bible and no where more so than in the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 11. It’s a chapter that talks a lot about faith, the sort of faith we need to make it through the trials and the temptations of life. The sort of faith we need to see the big picture, to get life into perspective. The sort of faith that we need to please God, because without faith, without the assurance of things we hope for and the rock solid of evidence of faith in our hearts of the things we can’t yet see. It’s completely impossible to please God.

Now, I want you to put yourself for a moment in Noah’s shoes. You’re living a happy life. Okay, the world around you is a bit corrupt but there is nothing new or surprising about that. You, your wife, your family, you’re having a great little life there and God says to you, “Hey Noah, I know you live miles and miles and miles away from the nearest lake or ocean, but I want you to build a hulking great big boat. A big one! We’re going to call it an ark because I’m going to flood the world, kill everyone, and you and your family and two of every species of animal are going to be the only ones that survive. So get to it. Start building this boat.”

Now you and I know what happened. We know how the story turns out. But, poor old Noah had none of the benefits of the 20/20 hindsight that you and I have. He didn’t even have the Bible that we have to believe in God through, he’d never even heard of Jesus. All he knew was that this God came along and told him to build a boat in the middle of nowhere. Talk about feeling stupid.

Imagine going home to the little misses that night and she asks, “How was work Noah?” “Well? I was chatting with God and we’ve come up with this great plan, we are going to build a boat. A big one! An ark!” She says, “A boat? Are you crazy?” And not just the little misses, imagine what the neighbours had to say? “Hey have you seen what Noah’s up to? He’s really flipped his lid this time. He’s building, wait for it … an ark!” “Nah, not even Noah’s that crazy!” “Yeah, really an ark, 300 cubits long!”

The laughter, the ridicule that must have gone on down at the local pub each night as Noah and his sons built that ark! What does God tell us in Hebrews chapter 11 about this? What’s God’s summation of Noah’s craziness? Look verse 7:

By faith, Noah warned by God about events yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household. By this he condemned the world and became an air to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.

What Noah needed to do this extreme thing was extreme faith, and he yielded extreme results. I’ve had some times in my life when God has called me to do the craziest things. “Berni … leave your secure high paying consulting career and become involved in this media ministry that’s stopped doing what is meant to be doing. That’s almost broke and ready to shut it’s doors! Berni, go and start broadcasting your Australia programs in Africa when there was only one guy I even knew in Africa! Berni going and hire a man in India to start broadcasting your programs over there, even though there isn’t a single door open to start doing what I’m calling you to do! Berni….”

Yeah ok, today it’s a thousand radio stations airing these programs, today its millions of listeners each week, today it seems like the obvious thing to have done. But each time God called me to do something crazy … it was just that dead set crazy. Maybe not as crazy as Noah’s gig, but that didn’t help me at the time.

So when was the last time God called you to do something crazy? Something happens in that place that I can’t quite explain. There are many times that I’ve listened to sage advice from mature men and women around me and that’s been the right thing to do. But at those major turning points, the truly crazy ones, there’s been a pull in my heart from God that was as scary as it was unmistakable. And at those turning points, the “Noah” points, I’ve pretty much had to ignore the sage advice that I was getting from the people that I trusted and just go with the call in my heart.

At those times it’s been scary and at those times I’ve made some mistakes. Not everything always worked out the way that I’d planned it in my head. We didn’t always get everything right the first time. Things didn’t always happen as quickly as I wanted them to happen. It was 8 years from when I felt the call to go and tell people about Jesus until I took on the role that I’m doing now. It was almost 3 years between when we hired that wonderful man in India and when God actually opened the doors to a weekly radio audience on a major secular network of 30 million people each week.

It never felt much like faith, it was uncertain, it was murky, it was unclear, but often when with this dream in our hearts, and with a certain reality that we’d rather look like idiots, that we’d rather fall flat on our faces and fail, rather than miss out on what God was doing. At times I’m prepared to admit to the people around me, that I looked like an idiot. But then, so did Noah. And the God that Noah served and the God that I serve and the God that you serve, never ever chastises us for having too much faith. Sometimes, not everyday, but sometimes faith is doing scary crazy, counter-intuitive things that God calls us to do:

By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected that warning and built an ark to save his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with that faith.

So what are you waiting for?

Uncomfortable faith

We’ve been chatting over these past few weeks about faith, not in a theoretic sense but in a “rubber hits the road” sense. Because faith is that thing we need to get through the things that we can’t handle on our own. Faith is what we need to move that great big obstacle that’s blocking our way when its way to big for us to climb over, or crash through or walk around.

Faith is what we need to overcome that one nagging sin in our lives that keeps on coming back to rob us of the joy and peace that Jesus came to give us. And faith is what we need to go and do the difficult things that God sometimes calls us to do. The inconvenient things, the uncomfortable things, the things we rather not have to do thanks very much Lord.

So that’s the sort of faith we’re going to chat about right now – uncomfortable faith – because no one ever had an impact in this world by playing it safe right? When Jesus calls us into a place to make a difference in someone’s life, it’s often because that persons life is, well, a bit of a mess and it’s going to hurt us to have to be in that place with that person. When Jesus calls us out of our nice safe comfortable existence to go and do something for him, I can guarantee you it’s not going to be convenient and it’s not going to be comfortable. It requires faith.

People sometimes ask me, “Berni why is it that even though I believe in Jesus, I don’t know, somehow it doesn’t feel real. There’s no passion, there’s no fire. There’s no excitement.” And my response is always the same. I ask them two questions.

Question 1: How much time do you spend quietly each day alone with Jesus, with the door closed and the bible open?

Question 2: What are you doing with your faith? How are you living it out?

Now Question 1 is really important because, unless we’re spending that time alone with Jesus each day, growing in a dynamic relationship with Him, well, shazam shazam there’s not going to be much of a relationship. But today I want to focus on Question 2, What are you doing with your faith? And when I meet someone who has that vague unsettled feeling about their faith, the sense there should be something more, there should be power, there should be impact, I can almost guarantee you that in effect they’re a spiritual couch potato.

And by that I mean, they’re not living out their faith. They’re not getting out there and making a difference in this world, taking risks, putting it all on the line for Jesus. And just like someone who spends their life sitting on the sofa, channel surfing cable TV, drinking soft drinks, eating chips is going to end up feeling lethargic, the Christian who isn’t exercising their faith is going to feel precisely the same. Don’t believe me? Well, it’s exactly what the Bible tells us. In James chapter 2 verse 26 says:

For as just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.

So as we come to look at faith again today, we’re going to do so from the perspective of Abraham, a man who was called out of the comfort of his ancestral home in Ur, which is around about where modern day Bagdad is today, have a listen. Hebrews chapter 11, beginning at verse 8:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he set out not knowing were he was going. By faith, he stayed for a time in the land which had been promised to him, as in a foreign land living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who where the airs with him of that same promise. But he looked forward to the city which had foundations, who’s architect and builder is God.

By faith, he received the power of procreation. Even though he was too old and Sarah herself was baron. Because he considered him faithful who had promised, therefore from one person and this one as good as dead descendants were born. As many as the stars of heaven and innumerable as the grains of the sand by the sea shore.

Now, perhaps you remember that story. Abraham is the father of Israel the nation. He and his wife Sarah in their mid seventies were childless, a source of great anguish and shame that equated God’s blessing with having lots of children and having your own land to live in. And so what was God’s solution? To promise Abraham and Sarah many, many of descendants if only they’ll leave their safe and comfortable ancestral home behind and go out on a journal thought the wilderness, though all sorts of strange and weird and wonderful places only God knows where.

A familiar story to many I suppose. And yet what we often miss is the context, let me say it again the definition of God’s blessing in that time and in that culture – in fact you see it over and over again in the Old Testament – is firstly that you had lots of children. And secondly you own your own land to live in. If you had both of those things, then you were considered to be blessed of God. The more children, the more land you had, the more quiet openly God was in the business of blessing you. But if you didn’t have them, then you were considered to be cursed of God. Obviously you’d done something wrong. Obviously you must have been a bad person. That was the thinking.

Now Abraham, was a wealthy man. He had lots of flocks of animals which means he had a lot of land. So when God called him out of that and onto his journey with this promise of many children, do you see what God was asking him to do? God was asking Abraham to give up that one half of the blessing that he already did have, in order to get the other half, which was lots of descendants. And what made this so crazy was that he and his wife were in their seventies, way pass the age where Sarah could bare children. Abraham and Sarah had to let go of this blessing and step out in faith, God knows where, in order to get that blessing.

My friend that is so often how God works. So long as we think our lives are about being comfortable and safe, no risks, no need for faith, no need to rely on God for food and shelter and provision. So long as we make our comfort and our safety the priority, our faith is going to be dead.

God’s main aim isn’t to make you and me comfortable; His main aim is to grow our character, by making us part of his plan, to touch and reach a lost and hurting world with His love. God’s plan isn’t that we should have a huge superannuation or pension fund so that we can spend our retirement indulging our senses in food and travel and luxuries and relaxation. His plan is to use us to reach out to our neighbour with His mercy and grace and love.

And so the solution for the spiritual couch potato … the answer to getting rid of that lethargy and bringing a new vigour and anticipation to our faith? It’s always the same. The one who would live a vibrant exciting faith, a life where the power of God is manifest before their very eyes, is the one who goes to God and pleads:

Lord show me where you want me to go! Want to you want me to do? What sacrifices do you want me make? What risks do you want me to take so that the name of Jesus would be lifted up in this world. Oh Lord wherever you call me, and whatever it will cost me, I want to go! Give me the courage, fill me with your spirit. Show me where and how and when I can loose my life for you dear Jesus in order that I might find it.

Friends, start praying prayers like that one, and I guarantee you that God won’t take long to answer you. I guarantee you that before you know it you’ll be at a place where you see God’s power in action because frankly without it, you’d be in trouble!

Ditching comfort and convenience

God’s word stands in such contrast to our hopes and our desires and our ambitions for comfort and convenience doesn’t it? Yes God is a God of outrageous blessing, but it’s a blessing that follows along behind our obedience to Him. You and I want to put the cart before the horse, so often! Because we’ve been taught over and over again that it’s all about us. I come first. I’m the most important one.

You know my parents immigrated to Australia from Europe just after World War 2. They brought us into this world, in this great new land of opportunity that they made their home. This land of freedom and of plenty that embraced them as new migrants, and what they wanted for my sister and myself was a better life than the one that they’d had. They’d worked so hard, they’d sacrificed so much so that we could have a great education, so that we could learn and study and grow and have all the things that they missed out on during that terrible world war.

But the easiest thing for me as a recipient of their sacrifice, was to take all their serving of me, and misinterpret it to mean that it’s all about me. But that is not what they meant at all! I mean, they taught me a very strong work ethic. But because I had parents who loved me and sacrificed for me the natural selfishness that we all have, that selfishness that was in me, twisted that around and so I lived most of my early adulthood in this belief that it truly was, all about me!

In fact, the term “the me generation” was invented for my generation – The Baby Boomers. We were all pretty much like that. And that mistake is exactly the mistake that so many times we make as we misinterpret the love and the grace and the blessing of God in our lives.

Jesus talked about this very thing, our tendencies to put the cart before the horse; to put our comfort and convenience before the will of God in our lives. Have a listen to what he said. There’s every chance you’re quite familiar with this passage. He was talking about our natural desires for enough food to eat and clothes to wear and all those physical needs that we seem to worry so much about. He was saying, “Look, don’t worry about those things. Your father in heaven knows everything you need. And you’re worth so much to Him, of course He’s going to provide all your needs!” And the punch line, the executive summary of all that, went something like this. Mathew chapter 6, beginning at verse 33:

Jesus said, look don’t worry about these things, instead strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things will be given unto you as well.

In other words, put God first. Put God’s will first. But obedience to God first, sacrifice first, follow Him where He calls us first, and all those other things which by the way, aren’t the main things, they’ll follow along behind as surely as night follows day.

Friend, He’s not saying here that we shouldn’t have our needs met, He’s not saying we shouldn’t have clothing or food, or shelter, Jesus is simply saying, “people get your priorities right”. And getting our priorities right, putting Him first, takes faith. It does! When our funds are limited, and running low, it takes faith to take the first fruits of our income and give them to God to support his work. When there’s been a global financial crisis, it takes faith to step out and use all our resources for the glory of God.

When people are being critical when their being obnoxious, you know something … it takes faith to love them with the love which Jesus loved us. It takes faith to forgive them; it takes faith to hold them. And when it’s hurting like hell, when the pain of our sacrifice for Jesus is more than we really want to take, it takes faith to say, “Father, not my will but let your will be done.” Exactly what Jesus did for you and me in that garden called Gethsemane just before He was handed over to be nailed to that terrible, terrible Cross.

My friend, Jesus isn’t looking just for believers He’s looking for disciples. He’s looking for men, women and children who are prepared to lay down their lives and take up their cross each day to follow Him. He’s looking for men, women and children who aren’t in the business of saving their own skins for those who’ll surely loose it, but who are in the business of laying down their lives for Him by faith, knowing that that’s how they’ll discover real life. By faith.

Strive ye first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, get your priorities right. Put God first and all these other things will be given to you as well. You know why it takes faith? Because at the very time it feels like we’re loosing something, at the time it feels like we’re in a dangerous place, at the time I feels unfair, at the time it hurts, but truly I tell you, when we take up our cross, when we follow after Jesus with our cross on our shoulder, prepared to lay down our lives, that’s when we discover true satisfaction.

I think sometimes we spend way too much effort standing up for our rights so that we forget that we should be laying down our lives for Jesus. May God bless you as you live out your faith.

You know we only really need faith to get through the things we can’t get through on our own. And sometimes, that’s the last thing we want … or need. Some days having faith is inconvenient. But try telling God that!

Sacrificial Faith

Today we’re continuing in our exploration, if you will, of faith. What is it, when and where do we need it, and how do we get it? Christians talk a lot about faith – our faith-walk; faith this; faith that. But faith isn’t just something you talk about: Faith is something you live, and living it, as anyone who’s tried it will tell you, oftentimes is a whole bunch more difficult than talking about it.

Today we’re going to have a look at the faith it takes to give up something we really love – something that we really want. People want to call Jesus Lord, right? You hear them praying: “Dear Lord”, “Thank You Lord”. “Lord” is a term too that we bandy around, but, to call someone Lord is an act of submission. Back in the days when the Bible was written, someone called, “Lord” often had the power of life and death over you.

Lord means that we accept that we have to do things His way, not ours; and sometimes, not surprisingly, the priorities of the Lord are different to ours. Sometimes we’re focused on our comfort; He’s focused on saving someone’s life, which might have to come at the cost of our discomfort, so right there is a clash of priorities. And when we really, really, really want the thing that we want, which is the thing that Jesus is asking us apparently to give up in order to be about doing His will and living out His priorities for life, then you know something? It takes faith to do that.

That’s the sort of faith we’re talking about today – because for anyone whose heart is set on following Jesus, this clash of priorities between what we want and what He wants for our lives is anything but a theory lesson.

The more we set our hearts on following Jesus, the more this clash of priorities is going to confront us. And it’s not just a clash between the bad things we want to do and the good things Jesus wants us to do; but in fact, very often, it can be a clash between the good things that we want to do, and the good things but different things that Jesus wants us to do.

I want to tell you about a man today whom I know quite well. He’s the head of a ministry organisation, and whilst for many years he led that organisation, he performed his work with great skill, there came a time when it was obvious to everyone and sundry that God had taken His anointing off this man. God was ready to appoint a new leader, and it was time for this faithful servant to move on. The world had moved on; he hadn’t changed with the environment, and so his ministry was no longer being as effective as it could be.

That’s not a criticism; it’s just the way it happens sometimes. Sometimes the Lord will have us in a place doing marvellous things for Him, but it’s only for a time; and when that time’s over, when God’s ready to move us on for His plans and His purposes, you know, it doesn’t matter how much of a blessing that time has been; doesn’t matter how much fruit there was out of that person in that place and that time – when God is done, He’s done.

The man didn’t move on. He clung to the leadership of that organisation, and so his healthy and vibrant ministry – a very large ministry, a ministry that was having a huge impact around the world – went into decline. He found himself in massive debt and after many decades of being powerfully used of God, it started to lose its relevance; its edge; its supporter-base; its impact. That’s what happens when we hang on to something beyond the time that God set.

So you see, it’s difficult to let go of even the good things we’re doing for God because it’s easy for them to become … well, more important than God. We begin to do what the Bible says, we begin to worship the works of our own hands; we begin to put even the ministry and our role and our position in it ahead of God and His will. Does that make sense?

Here at the ministry of Christianityworks, producing these radio-programmes and sharing the good news of Jesus with millions of people each week around the world, can I tell you I absolutely love what God has me doing? It’s such a joy and delight to see the reach and impact of the ministry grow, to read the letters and e-mails from people whose lives have been touched and transformed as they receive the Word of God. There’s absolutely nothing I’d rather be doing with my life right now.

But a prayer I pray regularly is:

Lord, when You’ve done with me, when my time is over in this place, please make it clear to me; because at that time, I want to move on. At that time, I want to hand it over to the next person who can go and do what You want them to do.

Even when that time comes, I have to tell you, having poured my heart and soul into this, that’s not going to be easy. When that time comes, I know it’s going to take faith to let it go, and to move on to the next thing that the Lord has for me if that’s the way He’s thinking.

So, let’s now meet a different man, Abraham, who had exactly this problem. Aged 75, God calls him out of his comfortable life in his ancestral home with the promise of many descendants, (now Abraham and his wife Sarah were childless, and at this age you’d have to say there was absolutely no prospect of ever having kids) and with the promise of a new land as well – the promised land. So, at aged 75, they head off on a journey which takes them over hill and dale for over a quarter of a century! But eventually, when they’re over a hundred years old, God fulfils His promise and Sarah bears a son called, Isaac.

Can you imagine how they doted on this boy? Obviously too much, because God called Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to Him on an altar – man, how could a Lord do that? And so Abraham went, and he did that. You can read the original version back in the book of Genesis, but here’s how the New Testament author of the book of Hebrews puts it a couple of thousand years later. Hebrews 11:17:

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told: ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you’. He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Chances are that you know what happened in this story. At the last minute, an angel of the LORD appears and stops the sacrifice. God didn’t want the child dead; the Lord wanted to make sure that Isaac hadn’t supplanted Him as the lord of Abraham’s life. And here’s the key phrase in that passage we’ve just read. Here’s the crux of what I’m rabbiting on about today. Hebrews 11:17:

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac.

Isaac was Abraham’s miracle-child, born as the very promise of God when Abraham was already a hundred-plus years old. And yet, even this good, wonderful fulfilment of God’s promise – Isaac, he had to lay down by faith at God’s feet. And, my friend, that’s the sort of faith that God is looking for in us: the faith to make Him Lord of our lives; the faith to put Him ahead of everyone and everything else in our lives, even the good things, even the things God’s blessed our socks off with – everything.

And so calling Jesus Lord … well that’s easy, living out the Lordship and the Kingship and the reign and the rule of God in our lives, placing Him above everything else, now that’s hard. It was hard for Abraham back then, and it’s still hard for you and me right now. That’s why it takes faith to call Jesus Lord – sacrificial faith to put Him first.

Inconvenient Faith

One of the things I dislike intensely in life is being inconvenienced. I guess it’s my western upbringing, combined with my outcome-oriented personality-type. But when I have a plan, I have a plan, and I find it so annoying when someone gets in my road and slows me down or even upsets my applecart, and what they do ends up completely ruining my plans, and I have to do something utterly different.

I’m driving along in my car; there’s a traffic-light ahead. It’s green, but I know it’s about to turn amber and then red, and yet the car in front of me is travelling just slow enough, for no good reason, so that he gets through and I’m caught by the red light. How can he do that? How can he just drive so slowly? How could he waste my time like that? See, that’s just me. I don’t get it.

I know it’s a trivial example, but sometimes that inconvenience factor can be much bigger. I break down on the freeway, so I miss an international flight. A change in the global economy, so this asset you were thinking of selling is now worth a fraction of what it was worth when you started thinking about selling it. And on the list goes – the number of things in this world that can conspire to get us, to inconvenience us … well, man, the list is just endless.

But what if it’s God? What if God is in the business of inconveniencing you with His ideas and His plans and His take on how things should turn out? Then what do we do? I don’t think I have ever heard a message or a sermon on what to do when God inconveniences you. Have you?

Well it happens, and that’s what we’re talking about right now. In fact, you’ll find it in the Bible, so because it’s there, we’re going to have a look at it. And not just because it’s there, fantastic though that is, but also because if you’re someone whose plan is to follow hard after Jesus, then one of the things that you’re going to discover is that God’s plan isn’t always convenient. And even though we’re all different, none of us is too pleased about inconveniences, even when we’re inconvenienced by God.

Over these last few weeks, we’ve been spending some time in Hebrews chapter 11. It starts out with a very simple, very clear definition of what faith is in verse 1:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

And then it tells us that faith is absolutely vital in pleasing God. Verse 2:

Indeed, by faith, our ancestors received approval.

And verse 6:

Without faith, it’s impossible to please God, for whoever would approach Him must believe that He exists, and that He rewards those who seek Him.

And then it sets out giving us a whole bunch of examples of different situations and circumstances in which we need faith, and that’s what we’ve been looking at in this series so far. And one of those circumstances in which we need faith is when God is apparently in the business of inconveniencing us (well, maybe that’s a little bit unfair; let’s put it another way) – when doing the right thing, following after what we know is right, is just going to be downright inconvenient.

And so the choice is between going for the lesser thing – the lower option, which is convenient from our perspective – or going for the greater thing and the higher thing, the God thing, even though it’s intensely inconvenient. So here’s what Hebrews chapter 11 has to say about this particular faith-choice, beginning at verse 24:

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share the ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger, for he persevered as though he saw Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

I love this passage, because you know what it tells me? It tells me that the faith that Moses had in his heart completely trumped the inconvenience factor. How often have you struggled with the inconvenience of getting about God’s business, going and helping that difficult friend … again, who just can’t seem to get their act together; honouring a marriage partner (husband or wife) that given the way they’re acting up right now, just doesn’t deserve your honour; supporting an arrogant or incompetent boss in your workplace, even though it’s not fair that he’s taking the credit for your work; walking away from the lunch table at work to the sneers of your colleagues when they start telling the dirty jokes; going the extra mile; turning the other cheek; laying down your life for others? See, those are inconvenient things to do.

Moses could have chosen the comfort of Pharaoh’s palace. Instead, by striking down an Egyptian who was abusing one of his fellow-Hebrews, he found himself on the run, beyond the wilderness, tending his father-in-law’s sheep. And then, having to confront Pharaoh when he was 80 years old to lead God’s people out of their slavery, through the Red Sea, and then contend with and lead these grumbling Israelites for another 40 years on their journey through the wilderness.

Look again what it says about Moses:

By faith, Moses refused to stay in the comfort of Pharaoh’s house. By faith, he considered suffering to be greater than the comfort, looking forward to his reward. By faith, he left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger. By faith, he participated in God’s miracle by keeping the Passover.

How did Moses overcome the inconvenience factor? By faith.

It seems to me that faith is our proactive tool for overcoming the lethargy and the inertia that we feel towards doing inconvenient things. Faith is like the thing that changes our hearts to get out there and to be about God’s business, inconvenient though it may be. And as we’re going to see a little bit later, faith isn’t something we conjure up; it’s not a feeling that you and I whip up through emotionalism.

The Bible tells us that faith is a gift from God. I can’t tell you the number of times I haven’t had what it takes to get out there and to do what God’s calling me to do. Hey, even Moses had that problem. You can read about the argument he had with God in Exodus chapter 3.

So where do we go to get that faith? How do we get the courage to step out into those incredibly inconvenient places? I only know one way. In my study with the door closed, the Book open, completely alone, when everyone else is still asleep, I go and ask God to give me the faith that I need. “Dear Holy Spirit, I sense that this is what You’re calling me to do, but I’m sure I don’t have the faith to make it happen; I’m not even sure I have the faith to take the first step.”

And this is what happens: He’s never, ever failed me. He just gives me just enough faith to get going; to get started – a mustard-seed amount of faith; the tiniest amount it seems; nowhere near enough to get the job done, but then last time I checked, Jesus said that all I needed was the mustard-seed size of faith, and that was enough to move mountains. With a mustard-seed of faith, nothing is impossible. By faith.

A Promise Broken?

The reason that talking about faith is such a challenging thing is that God’s ways aren’t always our ways. His thoughts aren’t always our thoughts, and so as a result, things don’t always work out the way we like them to or the way we think they should do. Have you noticed that? Now that’s something we’re going to talk about a lot more next week, but right now I just want to pause and rest with you for a while, to think about stuff going on in your life; to think about the last time you believed, I mean really believed, believed and believed and believed and believed, that God would deliver on something and He just didn’t seem to show up.

I’m not talking about winning the lottery or getting promotion or anything like that. I’m talking about believing God for something good – something that would honour God; something that would be so good if it happened, and He just didn’t show up. I’ve been there lots of times.

A few years back I kicked off a daily programme – a 10-minute radio-programme called ‘A Different Perspective’, and really it was triggered for one particular radio-station – a big one. They were a music format station, so they needed something shorter than a half-hour programme. I prayed; I felt led; I prayed again, and so that programme was born. That was about 6 years ago, and I was believing specifically for a really good time-slot that I knew was becoming vacant on this particular station – because I wanted to reach as many people with the Word of God as I could.

Do you know that to this day, that still hasn’t happened? They play the programme at 4 am in the morning. Great – there are still many people listening at 4 am, but the thing I trusted God for – the thing I believed for – the thing I threw myself into – was that specific time-slot on that big station, that I knew was about to become vacant, and it’s never ever happened – at least not yet. To tell you the truth, for a good many years, it felt like God broke a promise; I mean really. I really felt led to go and do that, and to go with it, and to make it happen, but God didn’t seem to show up and make it happen from His end.

But can I tell you what He did do? Can I tell you what did happen? First, I learned that faith is about keeping going when God is doing something different. Faith is trusting that He has heard me; He does know what He’s doing, and that He will work it out in the end. That was the very first lesson, and it’s a lesson that I’ve had to learn and relearn over and over again, but it’s a lesson that’s borne much fruit in my life. You know how easy it is to get bitter with God because He doesn’t seem to show up? And so then we get all angry and bitter and twisted, and our fellowship is interrupted; we stop walking in the Spirit and we start walking in the flesh.

See, what’s happened as a result of Him calling me to do that 10-minute programme is that now, all these years later, I’ve written and recorded … let me see … a couple of thousand of those 10-minute programmes, and they’ve been listened to week after week by millions of other people around the world! In fact, it’s that 10-minute programme that’s become the flagship programme of this ministry – Christianityworks, as more and more stations have moved to a predominantly music format, rather than a talk format.

You see, God knew what He was doing! He knew what He wanted me to do; He knew He wanted me to go and develop that 10-minute programme, but by not giving me the whole picture, He also took the opportunity to test my faith – to grow my faith in Him, and now I’m sharing that with you and God only knows how many other people around the world.

God is totally amazing! He works things out … well, so much better than you or I ever could on our own. Don’t you think? He doesn’t waste a thing. Right there when it’s happening, in that micro-moment when it feels like God has forsaken us, God is taking the time and the opportunity to test our faith and to grow our faith. He takes every opportunity to grow us into maturity through the adversities He calls us through. That’s what His Word says. That’s exactly what He teaches us! James 1:2:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but pure joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, and lacking in nothing.

It’s not always what we want to hear, but that’s what we need to hear. So coming back to your life and your trials, your time when God’s appeared not to show up, what do you think? What are you going to do about it? How are you going to react? Because right here in this place is where the rubber of your faith hits the road.

So often, we drive hard in our lives to get the outcome that we were looking for. We somehow believe that our plans are better than God’s plans. I somehow believed when I was missing out on that particular time-slot, on that particular radio-station, that my plans were so much better than God’s plans! God should have realised the opportunity to reach so many people in that city by being on that station in that time-slot, and yet His plan was so different.

His plan was much bigger. His plan was a plan that I couldn’t have dreamed up in a million years – to take the Word of God farther, and wider, and to more people than I ever could have imagined. So often, we have a micro-view, and if we hang on to that view and if we fight God, we’ll miss out on the big thing. We’ll miss out on the great things that God’s doing, and we’ll miss out on growing our faith.

The only faith the Bible talks about, the only sort of Faith Jesus talked about was the sort of faith that moves mountains. The sort of faith that conquers the world! The sort that has powerful results.

Conquering Faith

There are times in our lives when we have to overcome obstacles. Now not every obstacle is there for overcoming, let me say. Sometimes they’re meant to be there at least for a while, and sometimes they’re meant to be there as a permanent feature. I don’t know if you recall the apostle Paul’s prayer to God about the thorn in his flesh that was hindering him, but three times Paul asked God to take it away, and God’s answer was no, because that thorn in Paul’s flesh was there to keep him humble. Even adversity, especially adversity sometimes, plays an important part in God’s plan for our lives.

But sometimes it’s God’s plan for us to overcome obstacles in our lives. Sometimes we need to be more than conquerors over our circumstances, in order to achieve what God’s called us to achieve. When we have to conquer an obstacle that’s way beyond our power or our wisdom or our strength, then we need to have faith – faith in the One who does have the power and the wisdom and the strength to make things happen. We need the sort of faith that conquers the world, and that’s the sort of faith that we’re going to chat about again today on the programme – world-conquering faith. So let’s go back to Hebrews 11 and see what God has to say to us today about that sort of faith. Hebrews 11:29:

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so, they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith Rahab the prostitute didn’t perish with those who were disobedient because she had received the spies in peace. And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Sampson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and all the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fires, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

Isn’t that just one of the most amazing passages? I get a real courage in my heart just reading that passage. So, what’s God saying to us through His Word today? When the nation of Israel fled from their centuries of slavery in Egypt, and after they’d wandered for forty years in the wilderness, God finally let them into the land that He promised them through Abraham centuries before.

Now you’d think, wouldn’t you, that if the land was the land God had promised and He’d chosen and He’d provided, that God could ordain for them that they’d kind of waltz in there and settle down and take over, but that wasn’t God’s plan. The land was occupied by many nations and kings and tribes, and the Israelites had to take the promised land battle by battle. That’s often God’s way. That’s why so often, life as a Christian seems to be battle after battle.

That’s why sometimes we think to ourselves: “Why is following Jesus this hard? Why doesn’t it all just fall into place? What about the promises of God?” Well, the promises are there, just like the promised land was there for Israel, but they had to be taken (often battle by battle), and those battles, my friend, require faith. Faith pleases God and so those battles are our opportunity to grow in our faith, as we rely on God’s promises to take us through, and that’s pleasing to God.

So Israel took Jericho … by strength? No, by faith! And Rahab, the prostitute who’d harboured the Israeli spies before that battle, she was saved by faith. And then the writer goes on to list many situations and circumstances in the history of Israel where battle after battle after battle after battle had been won, as Israel God’s people stepped into the breach and put their faith in their God.

My friend, that’s what the Christian life looks like. That’s what we’re meant to be living, and after each battle and each trial and each beating and each victory, you know what happens? Our faith grows stronger. We don’t just become mighty men and women of faith by sitting here in our lounge-rooms watching the television, we become mighty men and women of faith by using our faith – by exercising the muscle of faith, so that it grows stronger and stronger with each battle. And one day we wake up and we’re able to face bigger battles for Christ because now we have the faith we need to live through them.

Let me share with you a letter I received awhile back from a woman, Elsie – an elderly lady, who used to support Christianityworks by sending some stamps every few months. Listen to the world-conquering faith of this frail old woman. She writes:

Although I’m only a very aged pensioner’ (those are her words), ‘I have been kept by God’s grace through many years. In the last eighteen months, I have had both floodwaters and burning tree-embers over my veranda, but God has protected me through it all. Only last night the bush-fire threatened my home again, and I went to bed knowing that only our Creator could keep me safe. Berni, I’m sending you these stamps in the name of our miracle-working God, who fed thousands with five small loaves and two fishes, who burst open prison-doors, calmed tempests, split rocks and provided water, conquered death and defeated Satan, and who is coming again to take us all to His eternal home in glory. May these stamps help others to enter His peace.

And so they did.

We used those stamps in our very next mailing to our supporters, and in response to that mailing, I received a letter from another woman, who as it turns out lived just a few kilometres from Elsie, who’d been to the point of suicide when she received our letter, yet God used that letter to save her life. She wrote: “Thank you for saving my life.”

I believe with all my heart that that miracle was born out of Elsie’s world-conquering faith. I rang Elsie, I told her what had happened, and she wept with joy. What an awesome God we serve, that this self-described “aged pensioner” can be filled with that sort of world-conquering faith.

And as you receive God’s word today, may you be filled with a passion to travel through the battles, through the fires, through the floods of your walk with Jesus, so that day after day He will grow in you the sort of faith that conquers the world.

Unwavering Faith

You know the thing that is absolutely the most difficult thing about faith? It’s that sometimes when I believe in God for something, He doesn’t give me the answer I was believing for. Sometimes when I trust in God to do something, something that’s really good – something that’s really powerful – something that truly would glorify His name, either He doesn’t do it or He delays in doing it, or He does it in a completely different way to what I was expecting.

You see, when it comes to faith, I just want it to be simple: I decide what needs to be done, I ask God to do it, and I believe in Him that He’s going to do it and He does it! Hey, that’s simple enough. How come God doesn’t get it sometimes? How come He heads off in some tangent when I can see plain as day what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it needs to be done?

Now, as we’ve been exploring what Hebrews chapter 11 has to say about faith over these last few weeks, have you noticed that each of the examples so far has focused on successful outcomes of having faith in God? Yippee! But the Bible is nothing if it’s not realistic, and so it also talks about those times when God doesn’t seem to deliver on our prayers – when we’ve prayed in faith and He doesn’t show up. Have a listen. This first passage follows on from the Abraham story.

God had promised Abraham many descendants, even when he and his wife were old, beyond childbearing age, and He promised a land of his own – the promised land, in which his descendants would be like … well, more numerous than the stars in the sky, and the grains of the sand on the beach. Question: How much of that promise did Abraham actually get to see? Well, only two small parts. Firstly, God gave him a son Isaac – miraculous to be sure, but only one – not the multitude that had been promised, and God fleetingly let him pass through the Promised Land, so what does the Bible have to say about these unfulfilled promises? Hebrews 11:11:

By faith he received the power of procreation, even though he was too old and Sarah herself was barren, because he considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore, from one person – and this one as good as dead, descendants were born – as many as the stars in heaven, as innumerable as the grains of sand by the seashore. All of these died in faith, without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth.

People who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land they had left behind, they would have had an opportunity to return, but as it is, they desire a better country – that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, He has prepared a city for them.

So, Abraham didn’t even see the outcome of his faith. All but two of the Israelites that finally centuries later left slavery in Egypt, perished in the wilderness and never saw the Promised Land; only their children did, and yet God commends them for their faith. God’s plan, God’s promises span centuries, right down to the birth of Jesus. God’s promise of many descendants is what gave Jesus to us, and you and I today are still being blessed.

Because Abraham trusted God, because Israel trusted God, you and I are blessed in Jesus who came through God’s promise to Abraham. God’s plans span millennia, way beyond Abraham’s life! Abraham’s life was just one small piece in the overall jigsaw puzzle, and yet God commends Abraham for his faith.

See, that’s the big picture – that’s the truth. You and I, our lives, are just one small part in the overall scheme of things, in God’s whole plan for the human race. And sometimes from our narrow perspective, well, we can’t see the whole picture. In fact, I’d suggest that our perspective is inherently way too narrow ever to fully comprehend God’s big picture. So often, God makes promises and we step out in faith into these promises, and things don’t go quite the way we planned, and yet those apparent failures are critical in the overall plan of God.

Again, listen to what Hebrews has to say further on, on this very thing. Having regaled us with all the successes of faith that various leaders and kings and prophets had, the writer of this book of Hebrews under the hand of God turns his attention to the apparent failures of faith. Hebrews 11:35:

Women received their dead by resurrection, but others were tortured, refusing to accept release in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats – destitute, persecuted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in the deserts and mountains, in caves and holes in the ground, yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better, so that they would not apart from us be made perfect.

So, you read that, and it seems to me that having faith in God is more important to God than the outcome of that faith. Stepping into the firing line with a distinct possibility of getting shot, trusting in God, is more important to God than whether or not we get shot. That’s what the Scripture is telling us, and it’s true. What we’re interested in is a narrow form of success – success in our little bit, but sometimes our apparent failure, or what you and I would call failure, is a critical element of the jigsaw in God’s overall plan.

Just think: What if Jesus had been saved from the cross? Where would you and I be now? But I’ll tell you something. I bet you the disciples were praying to God in those final hours that Jesus would be saved – that He’d be spared. I bet you that had you and I been one of those disciples, that’s exactly what we’d have been praying, right? It’s not always about winning each battle. Sometimes God’s got a bigger picture and what pleases Him, and what He commends us for, is a faith that stands an unfailing faith, despite the outcome.

Overcoming Faith

Well, we’re going to conclude our time together in this particular series by looking at what Hebrews chapter 11 has to say about the sort of faith that overcomes obstacles – the sort of faith in God that’ll help us overcome difficult circumstances. Often we hope that if someone is against us that our faith will mean that we’ll end up winning, and they’ll end up losing. That’s a good thing to believe for, isn’t it? Do we see something of that in the Bible? Well, yeah, we do.

We often see God’s people in the Old Testament, whether under the leadership of Moses or Joshua or David or Jehoshaphat or quite a number of judges and kings and prophets, turn to God in times of distress, and God goes out there and fights the battles for them and gives them victory over their enemies.

Sometimes that’s what the Lord does in our lives, and when we just feel to get out there amongst it and the forces of hell are unleashed against us, there is absolutely nothing wrong with praying in faith for victory, so that the Lord’s will can prevail. There’s been many-a time in my life when I’ve been up against it; when it seems that people came against this ministry of Christianity Works and our mission to share the good news of Jesus with many, many people around the world; when our finances have been so difficult that we couldn’t really see how we could possibly continue; when people that we relied on failed us, and left us in a difficult spot.

Please don’t ever think that just because I’m here on the radio proclaiming the good news of Jesus, none of these things happen to us; they do, and the more we preach Christ, the more the enemy unleashes his armies against us. That’s par for the course.

So, when we’re in a tough place, should we turn to God as our first resort instead of our last? Should we rely on His faithfulness to overcome the obstacles and opposition that we face? Absolutely we should, because He’s our God, and yet that’s not always what He has in mind. Sometimes His victories are so different to what we’re expecting. There’s something that Jesus said to His disciples in the final days before His crucifixion that must have seemed so outrageous and so plain wrong to them, as they heard it, and as they lived out the next few days. This is what He said. Have a listen. John 16:32-33:

Jesus said, ‘The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered each one to his home, and you will leave me completely alone, yet I am not alone because the Father is in Me. I have said these things to you so that in Me, you may have peace. For in this world you will face persecution, but take courage; I have conquered the world’.

The first verse speaks of the coming fear and trials that the disciples were already beginning to face. You’ll each scatter! You’ll flee to your homes! You’ll leave me alone! Man! If Jesus had been saying that to me, I wouldn’t have been impressed. You’ll face persecutions. Zippedy doo dah! There’s a promise of God that we can stand on, and yet in the very next breath, He’s saying:

But I’m telling you these things so that in Me, you might have peace. Have courage! For I have overcome the world; I have conquered the world.

Words are cheap. Not so long after this, they see Him arrested, tried, beaten to within an inch of His life – the flesh literally hanging off His back where He’d been whipped, lugging a cross – a huge wooden cross – up to Golgotha, where He’s nailed to the cross, and there He dies. And yet this miracle man Jesus had said to them:

Take courage! Be of good cheer! I’ve overcome the world; I’ve conquered the world.

Let me ask you this: When He was hanging there on that cross, did He look like much of a conqueror – much of an overcomer – in the eyes of His frightened, disillusioned disciples who’d fled, who’d left Him in His darkest hour, just as He’d predicted? Not likely, and yet just a few days later, He was raised from the dead – just a few days later, to their absolute disbelief, even though He’d been telling them this would happen. The One whom they’d seen dead and lifeless was alive again. He truly had conquered the world. He’d conquered the grave; He’d conquered death; He’d overcome the very worst outcome of all – the outcome of dying.

Do you see how the immediate circumstances of His trial and crucifixion shroud the ultimate victory in the disciples’ gaze? And so, my friend, it often is with us. So often we’re focused on the short-term victory in this or in that – a victory that all too often involves saving our skins (let’s be honest), when all along our Father in heaven is working out His ultimate victory in our lives. And in order to realise that ultimate victory, for a time, we have to suffer. Have a listen to how the apostle John puts it. 1 John 5:4:

For whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Ultimately, it’s the one who believes Jesus is who He says He is who conquers this world – because in Jesus Christ, you and I have victory over the grave; we have victory over death; we have victory over this world. And as we’re travelling through the short-term pain of a lifetime, that’s what keeps us pressing on to the end – the truth that in Christ Jesus, we have life eternal. Peter the apostle says this. 1 Peter 1:6:

In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while, you have to suffer various trials; so that the genuineness of your faith – being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

To that you and I can shout: “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Through Him, we have victory over the grave.”

There are going to be times in this life when you and I feel like losers. Peter was writing that to a bunch of people who had been tarred and feathered and burnt on stakes at Caesar’s parties. These people weren’t just suffering various kinds of trials; they were dying for their faith, but in those moments to them, and in those moments to us, God is faithful. His love is unfailing; His promises are true, and we have all that we need to make it through.

For me to be able to serve you with this truth today is such an incredible privilege. As I walk through my trials, as I suffer through my things, I need this word just as much as you do. I need the encouragement and the power of God’s Word just as much as you do, so please take this truth; hold it close to your heart; because through your faith in Jesus Christ, as weak and as tenuous as it may feel sometimes, you have already overcome the world. I’ve said these things to you that in Him, you may have peace.