Participating Faith | Pastor ChiChi Bismark

today I want to teach you on faith it's gonna be my theme for Sunday and I chose favor because there is a ritual that is going on this morning called Palm Sunday and my history my background is the Catholic Church and I know today that they have raised up a cross I don't know what they do here in the United States of America but throughout Africa everyone that is Catholic is going to be taking to the streets today and they do that today and they have palms that they wave while they are walking around the cities in Africa I'm from southern Africa they do it also in West and East and Central Africa and I know that next week when it's Good Friday when we are having a time of communion they have the Stations of the Cross where they raise up the cross and they got a kiss kiss the frick the feet of Jesus on the crucifix we know we have a risen Lord amen and so um it is a Holy Week and with that in mind I thought it would be best if I could just speak to you this morning on faith because it's something that's really close to my heart a lot of our I think doctrines go by the wayside simply because we don't realize that when we are taught prayer or we are taught fasting or we taught Bible study to separate yourself and go into the Word of God and just have a notepad and pen next you to take notes it's not so much people trying to impose or force a way of life on you even though it is it is part of what is called Christian discipline it's your just every religion has disciplines and I think the Christian Church fights discipline we fight it and it's not a negative it's just that we don't realize that it's part of who we are so we we get saved we come to the knowledge that we need a savior we acknowledge him to be Jesus Christ we then come to an altar give our hearts to the Lord we apply the blood of Jesus to wash away our sins and it's it's all an act of faith but we don't stop there and Christian growth is not just going to church it's taking what you hear at church and applying it to your life when you away from church that's what makes it a discipline so you don't come to church to pray you actually go home to start your your life and this is what we call sanctification you are now growing in the spurt and you are literally living alive with Christ outside of the church the church is your anchor the church is your home the church is the place where you come and fellowship come and experience levels of worship and Thanksgiving that you won't do most times outside of this building but when you are on your own now it's your responsibility for sanctification when you go from one level to another level I've taken scriptures and I'm gonna ask if the team can put them up for me let's go to Hebrews 11:1 I am I've got a very weird way of teaching I will teach and then I'll remember that I haven't given you scripture so let me just give you the scriptures ahead of time so that we I know that I'm not gonna get there and beat myself out and said and give scriptures now faith Hebrews 11 verse 1 now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen and I'm sure that Bishop is Abele taught you on faith and in the second verse I have taken his but without faith it is impossible to please him for he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him I've also taken Romans 1 and verse 17 I love this scripture because this is where I've really taken what I want to teach today it says for in there is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith so everything that we do in Christianity should be by faith everything we do by faith when we are engaging in our disciplines to take us from one level to another level we must know we are doing it by faith so our disciplines what our disciplines number one it's prayer prayer is a discipline pray is not an option you don't have an option to pray you have to pray the Bible tells us in in the word that we are to pray without ceasing and it's it's not a case of having to be here for hours and hours on your face it's more like God I need to communicate with you I need to talk to you I need to tell you what I'm going through and sometimes we think that prayer is complaining it's not it's having a conversation just like you would I would sit down at lunch this afternoon was sister with lady Renee and talk to her but then I have a deeper understanding is when I now make an appointment to see her and I have to tell her I have to tell all that I'm going through I made that appointment to have a conversation with her so we have the same kind of understanding about prayer the second discipline is fasting fasting is not an option Amen fasting is a Christian discipline Amen if Christ himself had to fast and he had to fast 40 days we do have to take up a fasting time and I'm not interfering with what the ethos of this church is I don't know specifically but I do know that it's a discipline and the thing that we need to understand about everything that I'm giving you now it's not just a discipline to the Christian religion it's also a discipline for all religions whether these Buddhists or Shintoists or Hindus or Muslims they all have their disciplines they also pray Muslims pray for times a day they all so fast they have a holy time that comes up for 40 days where they fast and so we have got to understand our own disciplines the third thing is praise and worship praise worship Thanksgiving our discipline these are not options these are things that we need to be practicing in order to have a faith to faith experience amen we God will say without faith it is impossible to please me and then the first one and I'm going to leave us there is that it's of giving giving tithes offering special offerings however you want to give to God there's also a discipline the Bible tells us in Romans 12 this is our reasonable service this discipline these disciplines that I've given you is our reasonable service so we mustn't sidetracked him or push them aside we need to engage them the next scripture I'm going to give you is Romans 4 and 20 so if you've been in boil in 1 and 17 just slip a cross and go across to Romans 4:20 and this will be our last and then I will teach you I'm watching time so that we can give time towards altar corn and whatever else needs to go on it says this is about Abraham and be not weak in faith he considered not his own body now did when he was about a hundred years old neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb 20 he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith strong in faith giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what he had promised meaning God he was able also to perform ok so we need to keep those scriptures in the back of our minds while I take you on the journey so this is where I want us to begin we need to understand some things about our walk with God and that everything that we go through as Christians is not to harm us or hurt us but it's to draw us closer to him so if you face tests you face trials or you go through any kind of temptation we must understand that it's God pushing us in our faith to faith walk so you have different levels of faith not all faith is the same we can have faith but not all of it is the same we walk by faith amen and not by sight we are told but we still have to go faith to faith in other words we don't all get the same level so let me go this way some of us have no faith we are at the starting level there's not even ankle-deep and then we can grow a little we come to church quite often we're getting the law or the word settled in our spirit in our hearts and we apply some of the word not all of the word and we are watching how we going through our tests our trials our temptations and we find we have moved from no faith to at least a little faith which is about ankle-deep where you can believe God for some things but you may not believe God for bigger things and then we go from little faith on to great faith and the last one I'm gonna give you is participating faith I may not get there I'll get there and in Nederland probably but one of the things that we need to understand is we all start with no faith and then we are given the opportunity to move on little great and then participate in faith all right so we know that when God puts us to trace through tests and temptations and trials it's mainly to grow our faith so watch this is something that you need to understand there's so many cliches in the body of Christ so we will say there's no message without a miss and we'll say there's no testimony without a test and these are all cliches and we have one is called church jargon so much so that we know how to say I'm blessed I'm highly favored but we don't know how to apply through faith the very things that we are saying and I have an understanding all right when our faith is tested it has to go through fire and when we come through the fire by faith then favor is released this is something that we need to understand because God is walking you through it he's not gonna leave you he says I'm with you always and that's one of the promises that God will give us is even though you are going through a hard time he will be with you in that hard place even though it seems that he's backed off because he has to let you go through it it's like a father something's a father gonna let go kind of always be with his children somewhere they're going to have to fall they're going to have to bleed a little and that what makes them had what helps him to grow up even though he's there waiting to pick him up even though he said when she was a with a band-aid or somewhere if he's crying or a daughter is crying in same with the Kleenex or a tissue paper he still has to let them go through some things and God allows us to go through that so one of the things I wanted to share with you is how we view God also determines how we will have faith in Him okay so let's let's move across the way I want to take you number 1 please write this down about faith we have to believe in the law of God's existence we must believe that God exists that's basic that's bottom-line but how he exists is also important if you believe in a weak God when you go through the test or the temptation or the trial then you feel that God is not able to take you through but when you see God in the way he wants to be viewed in other words I'm God that is able I'm god that's omnipotent I have all power I go I'm God that is all-knowing I'm God that is ever faithful I don't slack in my faith I'm god that's infinite I've got this immense yeah by immense I mean that he's not bound by time or space I've got that's eternal that means that God has no end has no beginning the way you view God in his existence will determine what you believe of him can have a name in out there Amen so he wants to be active in your life by what you believe of his existence number two we have to believe that God rewards those that go after him that will search him out that will seek him that's why the prayer discipline that's why the need to separate yourself for conversation God wants us to diligently seek Him he says that there is a reward when you come after me and everyone may not always be things but I tell you what a greater reward is when you're growing spiritually that's true riches when things don't matter but true riches come and be attached to you number three we have to believe in the law of the invisible the law of the invisible this is all part of faith you must be prepared be prepared to believe in things that go beyond the experience of your senses it's not always by sight we love not by sight amen we live by faith not by sight so we go beyond our senses beyond what we can touch beyond what we can taste by beyond what we can smell or see or feel we have got to get to the place where regardless of what I see in the natural what I don't see is more important than what I do see that is what builds faith because if we always anchored in what we see then we can falter or we can stumble and some of us we start going to the back of church and then out the door because what we see affects our faith I know I know that this is but like something you've always heard amen but it's okay then there's the law of future preparation you must believe that God is working for you and with you and he's preparing things in advance for you so you didn't just arrive in God says Oh teach easier on the planet Gabriel what do we do know I was in the mind of God before I came into existence amen so everything was made ready for me I sometimes think that I exhaust God amen there's a number of reasons I can say that number one I Drive too fast that's not yeah I do not drive here if I drove here you would not see me behind the pulpit amen I would have a place in a in a sanctuary called jail I I Drive too fast I'm sure most of my angels just say okay let it go today we'll meet the wind she gets me to that where everything I was like that from the time they told me my my instructor to say to me you know you have a 95% chance of failing your driver's test because I would just he would just come up I mean me not gonna pass but anyway that's where I'm at so God wasn't in in shock when I arrived and he also knew my 5-foot frame would be full of spice it's what it is I'm I'm a nice mixture I have got Greek blood in me I have Irish blood in me I have Italian blood in me so this there's nothing going to be less than fire in me am i right everything shows that I should have a temper and you can ask Bishop if that's true or not amen you can also ask Midori she's sitting there she'd give you out she'll give you the truth as it needs to be given a man Alleluia but God wasn't shocked at who I would be and you did everything that he had to put together would have to match my temperament because he knew how my faith had to grow so God didn't arrive here in shock so you have to believe that God knows everything as pertains to you number five you have to be patient the law of patience God wants pain I found a very powerful scripture in Romans 8:22 all the way to 28 in the message Bible talking about how creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of men but in the in the message version it tells you to be patient with the waiting because while a woman is pregnant she waits for the manifestation for nine months and she says they don't see that baby but that patient waiting even though we are growing larger and larger there is an endgame - there patiently waiting so we have to apply that number six we have to have the ability to realize that God is not us God is not human so what we think is impossible is not impossible for God he has already overcome it's just a case of manifestation so we have to remember that as far as faith is concerned and then we have to know that we have to work with incomplete knowledge we are not shown everything so our work is a blind walk it's not something that we know we have a sense of where God is wanting to take us if we are working with him but we don't completely know so when Abram is asked to leave Earth Cal DS and God is going to show him a place that he has made he has to leave without completely knowing where he is going he is truly a father of faith amen so we have got to have the same application we are here in triumph this morning and God is taking us on a tremendous journey and we know that it is a walk by faith and we cannot all see what what God is doing in and through us but God attaches us to an assembly because of what he knows he has placed in you so being drawn out by every wind of doctrine that comes won't establish you in faith where God plans you is where you need to be rooted and remain amen in order for you to have faith to faith manifestation all right let's go on to the eighth it's the law of the Rhema word of God in your life there a God will give you logos yes that's when you come to church that's why I'm saying that prayer is the discipline fasting is a discipline because most of us have read my words that are pending over our lives they haven't been released because a Rhema word means that it's not anchored in Scripture it's given to you by the power of the Holy Spirit we God will speak to you a simple word I remember I was going through a trial of faith when I was we had a lawsuit come against us for the building we were occupying and we found that we were owners of the building except that you know it goes and so I was really discouraged coming from the the law firm and I parked my car at the parkade what is a parking garage and I was so discouraged in my spirit and as I went to go and open my door I read a scripture on the back of the car that was parked right next to my car and the Bible gave me a proverb scripture proverbs 326 if I'm not mistaken it says lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge him do you have an understanding of what I'm saying God will give you a Rhema word so you must look for that Rhema word when you in your private time with the Lord amen he doesn't give it to you because you have a title he gives it to you because you are seeking amen and then it says you have to have an understanding of God's heavenly ambition that's number 9 God has a purpose for you and God has an endgame for you and so when we have different rituals in our church calendar Christmas Palm Sunday Easter Sunday all these things is God's purpose and plan for you to focus focus focus focus on what it was all about amen and then of course all things are possible with God so I gave you all of these to show you what God will put aside for you help you to grow your faith I have this understanding that I have got to make sure I make my faith work for me I don't kneel down and pray I have 24/7 prayer room I also teach a ladies prayer group 9:00 to 11:00 on a Tuesday I've expanded that to Thursdays 1911 on a Thursday but now imagine every time I kneel remember prayer is earthly act and making a heavenly connection every time I kneel down to pray I don't believe that God is able to answer that doesn't make sense here's a name it's just to me it's fruitless in other words it's a waste of time let me just put it so bluntly it's a waste of time so I want to show you what faith is not let me give you the easier let me give it to you quickly what faith is not number one faith is not anxious fear okay you cannot be fearful when you are trying to exercise faith so if something if sub circumstances are bigger than you you've got to understand you are not to fear this is a God problem this is not your problem so sometimes we face things that we make our problem but they not our problem they still belong to God and so long as you make it your problem fear sets in because you cannot match the problem you are facing most times we can't match the problems we are facing we are in a strange country called Zimbabwe that's where I come from very strange country because we seem to go in cycles just round and round we got a huge mountain and we just come round the mountain don't seem to want to come out from going around the mountain so I have to have this understanding that if God has placed me in Zimbabwe he knows I am a match for the problems that I am facing so when I see our money I was explaining to the ladies just this this weekend our prices went crazy we went to the shop one day and cooking oil was three dollars we went we went to sleep and woke up and cooking oil that was three dollars was now eighteen dollars we went to the garage we fold up our tent at a dollar we went to sleep and woke up and fuel and this is a dollar not a gallon hey this is a dollar Elita that would be about five dollars a gallon I think we went to bed and it was three dollars eighty a liter three dollars thirty four cents a liter that's about maybe fifteen dollars and I'm thinking to myself oh my god what's going on with us Oh is the best one soap was 75 cents we then went to sleep woke up it was nine dollars for a bar of soap so you wondering whether or not you need to bath every day sorry about that story hahaha you understand what I'm saying so I live in that kind of a nation that you never know what's gonna happen from one day 201 year to a next and we've been like that for forever since 2002 we've been in that kind of what kind of thinking 17 years but we are not fearful do you understand and we are not anxious because we understand that God had placed us there from the very beginning knows what we would enjoy God doesn't wake up and say my goodness did you see the prices today it doesn't do that he is quite confident that because he placed us there we are able to endure can have a name in everybody that understands touch your neighbor and say be anxious for nothing come on come on say with conviction be anxious for nothing number two what faith is not faith is not unbelief it's not unbelief unbelief says that God is not able and we cannot work God is unable we have to see God as able he is more than able he tells us he tells us he can do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask think or imagine so there is no room for unbelief we have got to believe what he says amen number three doubt doubt is not faith when you believe one day you go talk to somebody and they change your mind and you don't believe then you believe another day that's doubt that's doubt that stuff when you are firm in your knowledge of what he's able to do there can be no doubt okay let me show you doubt so say for instance you have an idea just begin a business and you know that God is speaking and you know you've got all your ducks in a row and you know you have the ability and capability you've got all the plan together and then you go show someone who doesn't fully understand what you are planning to do and so what they do is a one-by-one knock off all the things that you are trying to do how you put it together and when you get back on your own now you are at the place where you began when you don't believe that it can be done because someone has knocked your belief system or take away your anchor to say I had belief in what I'm doing but now I don't believe any longer that's doubt and then there's presumption making something up and trying to trust in that made-up thing we have a lot of false prophets in our in our nation and they they operate in presumption they've got people drinking petrol and they got people eating grass and people believe in that and trust in that because they are in the movement of presumption we don't believe in the attend to your neighbor and say we don't believe in that come on I need participation we don't believe in their turn to your neighbor and say we don't believe in that amen so let me move you now and I'm going to take you yeah and then I'm gonna sit down the way we need to understand growing faith is to understand this year what faith will do number one faith clears the promises of God so when you have little faith you say that God's promises won't come true for me they'll come true for so-and-so but they won't come true for me but God is no respecter of persons that's one thing you need to understand if you can work for someone in one area it can work for you in this area you just got to believe that God has separated all of us we don't all come up with him because we are triumph we come up with him because we have a name and your name maybe Jack or it may be Susan or it may be Sheree or somebody but each one of you comes individually in your level of faith before God you don't come because of Bishop brandy Klark or because of Lady Draenei clock you come as individuals and you don't come all together as triumph I think triumph the responsibility of faithful triumph rests on the oversight but individually it is our walk so we have got to know the promises that God has for us for ourselves that's the first level moving to little faith we have to believe what God wants for us okay and then we must know once we know the promises we cannot give up on God we have to believe that once he has promised us regardless of the time factor remember he's not bound by timeless ways God will perform what he has promised he will do so what happens is when we are little in little faith we only see circumstances and don't see God's truth so all we do is we see problems and we don't see solutions and it's just unfortunate that we are made up or we are constituted that way that we gravitate towards more negative than positive and I want to change some things in your spirit today that God doesn't wait for you to make up your mind he will just only does is he leaves you stewing in your test in your temptation and in your child until you figure it out father the self is beyond me so I need a vessel or I need someone that's bigger than me to take care of where I'm supposed to be going it can I have a name in everybody that understand like I'm facing a situation that is so much bigger than me and I need to engage you to make sure that you can take care of the problem for me so this one moves us from little faith little faith unfortunately limits God because you keep telling yourself it's not possible it's not possible it's not possible but I'm telling you that it is possible we had a debt that needed to be met just two days before I was leaving and I want to show you how God will work God spoke to me and gave me one name said she'll be able to take care of your problem but because I didn't believe that it was God speaking to me I delayed three days to ask him now I want to show you how God will work I then telephoned her and I told her I've got six minutes left I've been told her I said you know we have this debt that needs to be servicing you asked me a few days ago what the sum was but I'm afraid to tell you that the sum has grown almost four times more and so when aya approached her she says done a problem I'll get it ready for you so she started sending me off remittances money was sent to the account so that I could make some payments I sat down Sunday morning Bishop clock and God spoke in the service as I was sitting down second service they at home and he said to me why were you disobedient I said disobedient he says I told you to ask her I didn't ask you to ask anybody else I told you to ask her and he says you took your time asking her so I said God please forgive me I've done rectified it I've asked and she started sending he says I it was not about you that I told you to call out her name it was about her Sharon her name is shad it was about Sharon now can I tell you why so Sharon calls me Sunday night I haven't told her the story of God rebuking me in service and she says this to me she says you know mom I was in prayer and is something that the Holy Spirit led me to ask God to make me a multimillionaire we to give him a figure and I said father I want to be worth 10 million US dollars because 1 million u.s. dollars got to go towards the church says and I don't want you to stop there I want you to make me extremely wealthy so after I build this one church I can go and find out who else needs a church to be both I was really taken aback I now understood why God rebuke me and why he said it wasn't about you it was about Sharon he told me she needed to release her seat to give Amen so that her prayer now could be answered by her giving to me can I have a name in everybody that understands we have to believe that all things are possible touch your neighbor and say all things are possible come on say it with conviction I've got four minutes left or they put it into the atmosphere all things all things are possible all things are possible all things are possible you never know how God is working and he's always working for your good and so long as we keep our mind focused on the trial so long as we keep our eyes focused on the circumstance and don't see how God is working for us and our behalf our faith remains small okay I'm gonna close with this I'm gonna give you four pointers for great faith number one I won't do participate in faith I'll do that in the next session okay great faith means that you persist regardless of what you see around you people will leave people will come and go but you remain you that tree that is planted by the rivers of living water you are not based on oh people were coming today are going here you don't you want to come no I am planted I am growing my faith if I uproot myself I'm going to remain small so I have to remain planted all right so you persist great faith means you put you push against the wind the wind today was so bad I thought it's going to lift me I mean I'm not that light anybody can tell him it but I I felt it and push against me have you get your guys wind is so strong today and that's the type of faith you need to have that push back kind of faith that persistent faith that no matter how strong the wind Amen Alleluia I am going to push back against whatever is coming my way that's the one level of great faith number two seeing believing seeing believing and then even I don't see I still believe that's the type of great faith sometimes things don't come clearly but God will get you the man that was being delivered from being blind God puts put him Jesus would spit on the ground he was seen men as trees walking it is healing didn't come one time and the next time you put it on him there the healing came so sometimes you will not see clearly but you got to continue believing it's called great faith number three you got to believe their God with God nothing is impossible nothing is impossible with God everything is possible with God if you put God it's always the majority if you don't have God you don't have a majority so you have got to believe that both God all things are possible and I can tell you one story after the other after the other how we have seen God's hand amen and number five is that you must remember great faith means that glory goes back to him if I don't get any kind of accolade but so long as glory goes back to him that he gets the praise he gets the glory he gets the honor that is great faith can I have a name in everybody that is here this morning all right let's stand it stands it's time to close [Music] the world will not understand us the world is not meant to understand us the world is meant to understand him so if we love Christ through our lives the world is drawn he says if I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me if I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me so how you manifest Christ is drawing men how you manifest Christ is drawing them so if you carry an attitude of no faith or little faith why should you trust that they would believe God you've got to believe him in every circumstance you got to show that what you believe is what you believe I'm not sure to be staggered I'm not sure to be swayed I am here because I believe what I believe and that my God is more than able all right so let's raise our hands let's raise our hands this is it cross the church I'm going to pray a prayer over you and it's the safe faith continues to be the father we speak faith over everyone that's here this morning in this congregation faith to believe it will always believe we raise up the spirit of faith in every member here every attendant here every attendee here father we continue to believe we continue to believe father we do not live for this world we do not live for the swirls approval faith means that the world is seeing how we serve you father we thank you for faith as our treasure this treasure in earthen with vessels this Freight that believes that your son died for us gave us salvation gave us resurrection powers with the power of the Holy Spirit faith believes baked this faith that I'm praying for everyone here today is to see the invisible not so much the tangible as to see the invisible we can see father that you are working with no one sees you are working this faith in everyone that's here today means that they are being made complete in Christ hallelujah today this faith is taking them on a journey so that they walk out their levels of faith faith to faith glory to glory in Jesus matchless name in Jesus matchless name Amen and amen can we give God a hand of praise can we give God a hand of praise hallelujah today hallelujah today hallelujah today one of the words in a song was talking about the lion roaring and our faith can be that kind of a lion roaring so that we can not be intimidated by our circumstances or by what we go through what we see we can walk by faith may the Lord bless you this morning amen

Channel: Triumph Church

Views: 944

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Church, God, Triumph, TriumphChurch

Id: paHduEdAwgc

Length: 41min 5sec (2465 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2019