I Am Abraham Pt. 1 | Jimmy Evans | Joni Table Talk | Joni Lamb

so how is your level of faith directly tied to the impact you'll have on this generation in the ones to come and what are some key biblical truths that will help you grow in this area well today's guest is here to answer these questions and share how you can leave behind a legacy of faith but first joining me around the table is kendra kelly dean you want to leave the legacy of faith don't you absolutely absolutely you inherited that from your father your grandfather i sure did and my dad said all things are possible plain and simple and you just trust him and believe in him and his will is always best but you have to put your faith in him the more we try to get involved and fix things out for ourselves it doesn't always end so great that's true you know dorothy newton faith is an important part of your life and your family and your voice you know what i've been walking by faith not by sight all my life yeah that's been the life lesson from my mom yeah you know who couldn't read the bible but believed in its word yeah and so yes i believe in it all right cindy we're going to be talking about probably one of your favorite bible characters today yes and you know i'm excited about the study we're going to embrace today because we do know without faith it's impossible to please god that's right i'm excited about this we have a stranger here at the table jimmy heavens i don't feel like a stranger probably sat in that chair more than anybody um abraham we're going to talk about that today yeah abraham is such an interesting character um you know in the old testament of course the lord came to him and said through you in your seed the entire world will be blessed and we have re received the bible uh through abraham the jesus our savior and the church and so the world has been changed through the lineage of abraham but i want to talk specifically just in beginning this series about hebrews chapter 11. hebrews 11 is talking about the hall of faith these are the heroes the champions of faith and abraham's mentioned ten times in hebrews chapter 11. yeah he there are important bible characters that weren't mentioned in there you know it's really amazing there are really some pretty bad bible characters that are mentioned i know but esther's not mentioned daniel's not specifically mentioned all these kind of people and so yeah but the but the hall of faith is taught first of all hebrews is going to tell us what faith is it's going to give us the definition of faith which is really helpful but then it's going to make five different statements about faith in chronological order from creation and so we find out what faith is but we also find out how faith operates from hebrews chapter 11. and it begins in verse one it says faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen now the word faith there means conviction it means belief okay faith my belief is the substance that means foundation substance mean this is faith is the foundation of a hope in god the word here uh in the greek literally means to hope in god so my my belief in god is the foundation of my hope in him and it says it's the evidence of things not seen if i could see i wouldn't need faith yeah so if if i could see god because he is here jesus said we're two or more gathered in my name there i am in your midst there are angels present i believe so there is an unseen realm but if all the sudden i could see jesus and i could see angels i wouldn't need faith faith is only necessary because i can't see second corinthians 5 7 we walk by faith not by sight okay so faith is necessary so here let me give you a paraphrase of hebrews 11 1. our strong beliefs based on god's word and promises are the foundation of our hope in god our convictions about god are so strong that we can act without physical proof okay unbelief is the opposite i'm not persuaded i just based on what i see in god's word or what i hear what i believe i'm not persuaded therefore i cannot act without physical proof okay and hebrews is going to tell us here in just a minute without faith it's impossible to please god you absolutely have to have faith in god to have a relationship with him because we commune with god in the unseen realm his kingdom exists within an unseen realm and i cannot step into that kingdom without faith i cannot have a relationship without faith and faith gives me the ability to act on my beliefs based on what the word of god says without physical evidence that's like um earlier today we had a great testimony of a mother whose son was in a horrible car accident and was not expected to live and actually the brain stem separated from the brain and he was on a machine and just to hear her story which is miraculous of how god stitched it back together yeah but as i was listening to you talking thinking about that story that was faith that propelled her forward absolutely to believe god for a miracle well listen to this so we're going to make five statements from from hebrews the writer of hebrews we don't know who wrote hebrews but the writer of hebrews now is going to make five statements beginning with the creation of the world and so this is hebrews 11 3 by faith we understand that the world's worlds plural were framed by the word of god so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible faith this is so this is my first statement faith believes that the word of god is the preeminent power of the universe i don't i believe that the word of god created everything we see this table was created by the word every element that is in this table was created by the word of god because this is john 1. in the beginning was the word the word was with god and the word was god he was in the beginning with god all things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made okay so jesus walked on the water jesus healed the sick jesus said that your servants healed they walked up his words were just doing miracles the whole time but this young boy that was healed okay you talk about that miracle remember in her testimony how many times they spoke the word of god over him 24 7. the angel who came and ministered to him and kept speaking hope into him but when you release words out of your mouth that are positive jesus said jesus cursed the fig tree and the withered up and the disciples marveled and he said have faith in god that literally means have the faith of god if you speak to the mountain and command it to be cast in the heart of the sea and do not doubt in your heart that it's going to happen anything you say can happen and what he's telling us there is the power of the spoken word so this young boy had a severed spine that was healed as they ministered the word of god to him now if you say it's hopeless it is hopeless if you believe it's hopeless it's hopeless but when you put your faith in god jesus said uh nothing is impossible with god when he cast the demons out of the little boy he told the disciples nothing is impossible with god so faith believes that the word of god is the most powerful force in the universe okay matthew 24 35 jesus said heaven and earth will pass away but my words will by no means pass away the word of god preceded creation the word of god caused creation and the word of god will be there after creation yes heaven and earth will pass away but my word is going to be here forever the invisible realm is the control realm okay the the what you see doesn't control things what you don't see is what controls things god in heaven from his throne controls everything that happens on the earth so when i'm dealing with a situation with faith my eyes see something yeah that needs to change my i see something that i don't like or don't want but that's not reality yeah see this is not going to dictate my spirit because what i understand is there is a god above that and his word is preeminent over that yes everything on earth is subject to the power of the word of god so the writer of hebrews defines faith for us and then he says to us by the by faith we believe that the worlds were framed by the word of god let me give you an interesting little account here so in the book of genesis there are 12 uh events of creation okay according to dr hugh ross who's an astrophysicist and a christian he's been here before he's wonderful yeah those are in the correct order now the chances of moses who wrote genesis putting those in correct order is astronomical wow mathematically it's impossible that someone who didn't know would do that he had to have been inspired by the holy spirit but what dr ross said was if it had been in any different order not only would creation not have happened it would have debunked the entire bible and by the way the way he became a christian is he decided to read all the religious major religious books in the world and he said when he read all the other books you know religious books he said it was just mumbo jumbo very vague and very general he said the only book he read that was scientifically correct was the bible and so the word of god is the authority over the universe that we can put our confidence in the second statement this is hebrews 11 4 about faith it says by faith abel offered to god a more excellent sacrifice than cain through which he obtained witness that he was righteous god testifying of his gifts and though he is dead still speaks now here's another fact about faith this is very interesting the higher god is in the priorities of our life the more faith happens naturally let me give you example now abel brought god the first of what he had and so abel just brought him an offering i mean kane just brought up an offering and so when karen and i got married karen was much closer to god than me and we went to church one sunday and the preacher preached on giving and it made me sick i made seven thousand dollars that year i made 600 a month and i mean we you talk about being broke and so uh he was preaching on tithing giving 10 of your income to the church i thought dude you're crazy i mean you're out of your mind i'm never are you kidding me i just thought i feel a lot more sorry for me than i do this church and so we we left the services that day and i mean i was sick i was physically sick and we got home and karen said i really like that message and i said what oh dear and she said no i like that message and i said what do you mean she said well i feel like i'm supposed to give 40 to the church i mean it was like an out-of-body experience we we only made it because of float we had checks out there floating around that we were hoping didn't hit the bank until i got paid again we never had money in the bank when i got paid i got paid every two weeks we were always just had checks floating out there so she said uh i'd like to give forty dollars but the way i felt was if i say no god's gonna strike me dead if i say yes we're gonna go broke so i've got two choices here so i chose to live i said okay okay if you want to give that's fine she gave 40 so the next time we got paid um i didn't get any money but nothing had happened miraculous except the next time we got paid we had money in the bank yeah that never happened before and she came back to me and said i'd like to give again and i said karen we we survived that first time that's what i said that's what i said i said we survived that first night you paul don't do it again okay well so this this is my testimony so karen she nat she just had this faith that i mean i didn't have any she just had this faith and she just kept giving well little things started happening and uh you cannot get closer to god than your concept of god will allow so good well i grew up with a distant father didn't touch me didn't talk to me never came to a ball game everything so the word father to me wasn't a good word so and jesus taught about god being our father and god taking care of it so i did not believe that god knew me yeah now when john 3 6 6 he said god so loved the world he gave his only begotten son i thought well god loves the world so he loves me i'm in the world but he didn't know me he didn't know where i live so in the next few months when karen started giving things started happening that it never happened before and and i noticed it little little things and big things that had never happened before and i woke up one morning it was one of the most important days of my life and i thought he knows me hmm [Music] wow he knows where we live and he he takes care of us and that was the first concept i ever had of having a father to take care of me had an orphan spirit when you grow up without a father you have an orphan spirit and orphans have to have too much to have enough because they always feel like they're on their own and on that day i exhaled i was terrified of going broke i was terrified of not having enough money but on that day what i realized is he's for us karen had a faith that operated because she knew god yeah the issue isn't your faith the issue is your relationship with god oh god but your concept of god if if you believe that god's against you you're not going to run and jump in his lap if you believe he doesn't care about you you're not going to approach that kind of a god and that's what i believed i believe first of all he's probably mad at me and secondly i know he doesn't know who i am and he hadn't come to anybody for sure well father you know that yeah he has the same name as that guy that did all that stuff to me yeah but what i learned is i had to disassociate my earthly father from my heavenly father but the other thing now you know i've had a relationship with lord now for 48 years he's the most wonderful father the most attentive loving father and the faith that i have i don't have to manipulate i don't have to conjure it up it naturally flows out of my relationship with god so the main thing that we do to increase our faith is to draw close to god and to get to know god so here's the third statement this is hebrews 11. by faith enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and he was not found because he had taken him for before he was taken he had this testimony that he pleased god but without faith it is impossible to please him for he who comes to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him faith can only be released to the degree that we believe that god is intimately present and ultimately good okay now enoch you know when when adam and eve sinned god did not leave the earth god was still on the earth and he was still walking with people and enoch was the unique person that drew close to god and built a relationship with him so much so that god took him this is why i believe that enoch is one of the two witnesses in the book of revelation because he didn't see death and elijah didn't see that yeah and so enoch walked with god the he had this intimate relationship with god but here's what it says he who comes to god must believe two things yeah that he is and that he is a rewarder okay for those who diligently see he is what do you mean he is he's with me right now the holy spirit is with me jesus with me god is with me he's intimately present he's not up there somewhere he's with me right now and he's a good god okay this is hebrews 13. let your conduct be without covetousness be content with such things as you have for he himself has said i will never leave you nor forsake you so he may boldly say the lord is my helper i will not fear what can man do to me here's what god has said this is covenant language here and god says to us i will never physically desert you and i'll never turn my heart away from you now you can be sitting next to a person that you've turned your heart away from okay i gotta get offended you offended me and so i'm gonna sit here and turn my heart away god says here i will never now when people say never they don't mean that many times when god says never it means under no circumstances yeah will i ever take my eye intimately off of you there'll never be a moment in your life and so here's the point you never pray and get a recording you know busy right now call you back you know i'm sorry we got a lot going on appears the end times you never pray and get a recording god is always listening and he's always caring to him that's right and he's a good god yes he's a good god he every thought that he has toward us is a good thought and so whenever we have faith it means i have faith that he's here i don't by the way the reason i don't have to yell or do anything to get god's attention is because he's here right yeah he's he's here i don't have to do anything to invoke his presence now worship and things like that can increase the anointing yeah but they don't increase his presence here's the fourth statement by faith noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen moved with godly fear prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world and became air of righteousness which is according to faith faith acts with confidence that god knows and controls the future yes so here god comes to know you think about the remarkable life of noah okay noah was 500 years old when the lord came to him and told him to build the ark okay and so god comes to noah it has never rained on the earth there's no water around and there's no way to get this he's building an ark on dry ground and there's no way to get that ark to the water and god came and said i'm going to destroy the world here's the future noah i'm going to destroy the world and i want you to act accordingly without any proof now every day that noah built that ark had to be more embarrassing than the day before oh man oh he and his family building this huge ship and his neighbors are going uh noah uh you want to build that down there where the water is yeah no the water's coming here now the day he looked like an idiot but the day the rain started he looked like a genius okay so noah obeyed god concerning a word in the future and jesus said when the holy spirit comes he will lead you into all truth and he'll tell you things to come on the day of pentecost peter stood up and said the holy spirit he's going to give your young men vision and your old men dreams even upon your maidservants when the holy spirit comes in our life one of the things that happened is he gives us a view of our future the calling on our life our future in many cases prophetic words that are telling us something very specific that's going to happen when i was 19 and i got saved i would a week after we got married i was sitting in the backyard and it was like and i was reading a book i've been saved for two weeks it was like a sheet drop down in front of my face and i could see myself preaching to a multitude of people and that's when the lord called me to preach at 62 years old i was preaching for joel osteen one sunday at his church a crowd of 15 000 people and i got finished speaking and karen and i went back to our hotel and lisa combs joel's sister sent me a text and said hey we took a picture of you this morning while you were preaching i just wanted you to have it and so i looked at my phone i looked at the picture and i said karen that's the picture god showed me at 19 years old okay listen when i was 19 god was standing in my future when i was 62 and he sent me back a picture and so god is standing in your god is not limited by time time is a prison that we're in yes god is not in that prison he is the i am he transcends time and what that means is god is out here why should i consult god to help me make decisions he's the only one standing in the future i don't know what's going to happen tomorrow he knows what's going to happen to me 10 years from now 20 years from now and so noah believed a word from god that was both directive and a warning and so when the holy spirit comes if we're going to have faith it means i have to have faith that my future is in god's hands and it's going to be okay jeremiah 29 11. favorite scripture i know the thoughts that i think towards you says the lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope and so faith believes that god's a good god and he's here and my future is good in god my future is good as long as i'll listen to god and as long as i'll believe him for my future and follow that my future is good here's the fifth statement this is hebrews 11 8 by faith abraham when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he was going by faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a life in a foreign country as in a foreign country dwelling in tents with isaac and jacob the heirs with him of the same promise for he waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is god faith focuses on more what is spiritual and eternal more than what is physical and temporal so faith focuses on on the spiritual so god comes to abraham and he said leave your home and i'm gonna go i'm gonna tell you a place to go that you've never been before and he goes and he wanders and tends now abraham is a very wealthy man and so he wanders in tents and lives his life like that it said he was waiting for a city whose builder and maker is god okay i want to say several things thank you about every song every time he saw him looking for us well just as a reminder to all of us this is not our home yeah right right that our home is in heaven our identity is not here that's right our identity is in god yes our security isn't here yeah our security this is the faith faith does not attach itself to objects right faith is not focused in this world faith is focused on eternity and an example of that is you know i'm going to live i'm 67 years old let's just say i love another 20 years and i die when i'm 87 years old i'm going to face god one day and the judge the judge of my life is going to be god himself not people whatever people say about me are great it doesn't matter what god says about me my eternity will depend on what god says about me and if i focus on you know every day when we pray jesus said pray like this yours is the kingdom yours is the power and yours is the glory here's what that means i'm not i'm not going to live my life trying to build a kingdom because there's only one kingdom that belongs to you god yes i live by your power i don't have power you have it and i'm not going to live trying to make a name for myself okay i was reading the book of revelation one day and it said i saw a c like glass before the throne of god and this is the body of christ and we're worshiping god and i was reading that and as i was reading it what i realized was everything in heaven is about jesus and here's here's the word i heard in my heart it wasn't about me it's not about me and it's never going to be about me nope so why am i going to waste my life trying to make myself into something i'm not yeah abraham was a humble man who lived his life for god the world's been changed the world is dramatically changed because of the faith of this man and part of the subtitle of this series is leaving a legacy of faith and i would just say to everybody listening right now without faith you absolutely cannot have a relationship with god you can't see him you can't see his kingdom and many of the things that he has for you even though they're real they're not going to manifest in your life until you begin to speak by faith and act by faith yes and pray by faith and relate to god by faith and so all of these statements that we're making here about the issue with faith the whole point is if i'm going to live my life victoriously as a believer i have to have faith yeah you know i was thinking you had to we only have a couple minutes but you had to have faith to believe god for your marriage but do you understand that when you're in the middle of that god saw you sitting here absolutely and this is the thing is you know we wanted to fix it and what we could see what we could understand and only when dusty and i both made god the priority in our marriage did things begin to change for the better and i think that's so important i love the way that you worded that and so how important is it that people focus on god make him the priority because you've made the statement that god gives things to us conditionally based upon our faith absolutely and him there's a book that's called when people are big and god is small and uh when the children of israel went into the promised land and they saw the giants they came out and said well we're like grasshoppers yeah yeah joshua and caleb came out they said they're going to be our prey because god has removed their protection from them so if you follow see the more i focus on god the more my problems become yes because it's not about me anymore that's right the more i focus on my problems the bigger that they get the smaller god gets so faith focuses on god and it just says there's nothing impossible with you you can you can take this boy's spine and heal his spine you can heal a marriage you can do anything you can do anything through faith you can help someone get through a very painful divorce absolutely you know speaking of faith just real quick a quick story that's so beautiful you know with with my kids when they were little we prayed got on our knees and prayed for their father who was not a christian at the time and i remember one of them saying mom you know we always pray but nothing's happening look at look at how he's acting you know and i said we just need to believe and keep praying that he will accept god as his lord and savior someday and just recently probably a year ago the youngest said you know we had faith we believed and look at what's happened now you know so and he did he accepted christ to that great story 30-second faith story for you well i am where i am today because i believed in the character of god that he truly was the lover of my soul yeah well we're going to continue on with abraham we've got more to go so what's coming up quickly five fallacies about faith okay this is five facts about faith we have five fallacies we're also going to talk about when abraham laid isaac down uh you know in all the different elements of his faith okay all right well we are out of time this has been so good it's like kind of going to bible school here on the table but again i want to encourage all of you watching to stay the course god has given you specific promises about your future and his plans for your life i want you to resolve in your heart to never give up continue growing your faith romans 4 20 says that abraham never wavered in believing god's promise in fact his faith grew stronger and in this he brought glory to god it is interesting that he is mentioned in that hebrews 11 uh you know heroes of the faith uh and it just shows how important faith is well if you're watching and you need strength to persevere through a situation or something you're going through that's why that toll-free number is on the screen we'd love to pray with you we have amazing prayer partners that are standing by if you do happen to get a voicemail leave your name and number and i promise you somebody will call you back you can also go to daystar.com if you'd rather send in your prayer requests that way we'll pray over your prayer request prayer is indeed a very important part of what we do here i want to thank our dear friend jimmy evans for joining us today for more on his ministry and amazing teachings be sure to visit him at endtimes.com uh if they do that is there a fee for that to get there's a there's a free side there's a subscription site it's seven dollars a month seventy seven dollars a year for the subscription site and there's a lot of information tremendous amount of content especially end time stuff all right well remember to join the conversation online by leaving us a comment on facebook instagram or twitter we'd love to know your thoughts about this new series and how it's impacted your faith thank you so much for watching i know you've been encouraged we'll see you next time bye bye for today [Music]

Channel: The Way Of Life Church

Views: 8,072

Rating: 4.9453926 out of 5

Keywords: the way of life church, groeschel, lifechurch, life.churchtv, church, god's word, sermon, Christian, bible, God, Joni Lamp, Joni Table Talk, Daystar, I Am Abraham, Abraham, Jimmy Evans, Jimmy, Evans, legacy of faith

Id: mssVjztgM-M

Length: 27min 51sec (1671 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 21 2021