Pastor Larry continues the series "We are Stronger Together."
Sunday, October 11, Pastor Larry's Notes
Hebrews 11:1 LB, What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead.
The Bible says that faith is a way of seeing.
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people." (Ephesians 1:18 NIV).
"This was their report to Moses: 'We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. 28 But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak!
30 But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”
31-32 But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” 32 So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. 33 We even saw giants[b] there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” (Numbers 13:27-33 NLT)
1. They exaggerated the challenges.
Numbers 33:13, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
2. This led to everyone getting discouraged.
Numbers 14:1, “Then all the people began weeping aloud, and they carried on all night!”
3. They gave up and Blamed God.
Numbers 14:3, "Why is the Lord bringing us to this land to be killed with swords… We'd be better off going back to Egypt!"
Good old days of Egypt. Good old days?
Psalm 78:41 NKJV, Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel.
Let's contrast what the Bible says happens when we live our lives seeing everything by faith.
4. Faith makes my problems smaller.
5. Faith prepares me for a miracle.
Mark 11:22-24, "Have faith in God! If you have faith in God and you don't doubt, you could tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it would. Whatever you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you only have the faith."
6. Faith moves God on my behalf.
Not saying: God becomes a genie where you rub the bottle and you pray the prayer or you drop the 50 cent piece into the slot machine or whatever, and then you hit the jackpot.
Matthew 9:29, ”According to your faith it will be done to you."
Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it”.
7. Faith unlocks the PROMISES of GOD
2 Corinthians 1:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are all "Yes" in Christ!”
2 Timothy 1:12, “I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day”
Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
8. Faith gets me through the difficult times.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we're not crushed and we're not broken. We're perplexed, [that means we’re confused and we don't know why this happened. We're perplexed,] but we don't give up and quit. We're attacked but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we're not knocked out. we get up and we keep going!”
Larry Neville
Contact me: larry@praisechapel.com