(Music Playing) Good morning, class. <i> Class: Good morning, Brother
Keith.</i> Welcome to Faith School. I'm Keith Moore, and we want you
to come right on in and sit down. We've saved you a desk right
here in the front where we come together and allow the greatest
Teacher of all, the Holy Spirit, to teach us about the thing that
pleases God the most. Faith. It's the way of life He's chosen
for us; it's the way to overcome every obstacle and trial and
test. It's the way to receive all the
blessings of God. The Scripture says, "This is the
victory that overcomes the world even our faith." So, let's pray, let's release
our faith. Only the Lord knows how to speak
to us in a way that we get it. He's the best Teacher of all. And so, let's release faith that
exactly what we need, the answers, the direction, will
come right now. "Father we pray, all of us
together, You know who is watching when and where, and
we're asking for utterance. We're asking for anointing. We're asking for revelation. We're asking for light and life,
and the quickening of the Holy Spirit. We're asking for all of us eyes
and ears and hearts and mind that can see, hear, understand,
and receive. And we purpose to hold on to it,
to put it into practice, and as surely as we do, miracles will
happen. Changes will happen for the
best, for the good, and we'll give You the glory, in Jesus'
name. Amen." Thank You, Lord. Turn again please, this morning,
to Hebrews the eleventh chapter. We've been talking about, this
week, about What Faith Is. Now, if you weren't with us last
week, we spent five lessons on Why Faith? Why has God emphasized faith the
way that He has? Why has He chosen that as the
way of life we're supposed to live? We saw that faith isn't just a
set of theological position, or a set of things that we believe. Faith is not a group. Faith is not a movement. "The just shall live by faith." We saw that faith is how God
Himself functions. It's how He operates; it's the
way He lives. And so, there is no higher, no
better, no greater way to live, function, and operate than to
live by faith. So, if you weren't with us, go
back and watch the previous lessons. Get caught up with us. And this week we've been talking
about What Faith Is. We talked about Why Faith? but now what is it exactly? And Hebrews 11:1 is a Scripture
definition of faith; let's read it again. We'll read it in more than one
translation. It says, "Now faith is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen." Young's Literal translation
says, "Faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not
seen a conviction." So, the first thing we learned
was that faith is confidence, conviction; it is persuasion. We saw that Abraham, held up as
a preeminent example of faith, he was not weak in faith. He didn't waver about what God
showed him and told him, but he was strong in faith. He was fully persuaded of what
God told him, and that gave glory to God; no wavering but
completely convinced, fully persuaded. That's faith, in a word, is
"persuaded." But here we see, and we talked
about this yesterday, persuaded about what? These are two specific areas
that faith is persuaded about: it is the confidence of things
hoped for; it is the conviction of matters or things not seen. So, we saw this. Faith has to do with that which
is not seen, and that which is not yet. If it's hoped for, we saw in
Romans eight about verse twenty-four and twenty-five
through there, that if we hope for it, we don't see it yet. But if we're in faith and we are
expecting, then with patience we wait for it, and we are
convinced of it even though we don't see it and feel it. Faith in God has to do with
things not seen and not yet. And yet, we're persuaded about
it even though we don't see it. We're persuaded. Look with me in 1 Peter please. First Peter 1:7. It describes this in wonderful
detail here. First Peter 1:7 says, "That the
trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that
perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found in the
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:"
Our faith is compared with gold, and we're told it's much more
precious than that. Gold, to be the most valuable,
must be free from impurities. And so, when it talks about
tried with fire, he's talking about the refining process, how
that the gold is heated to a certain temperature, and so then
the things that are not gold separate from the gold and can
be removed, and it's pure. And the more refined it is, the
more pure it is. The more valuable it is. Well, our faith needs to be
refined-got good agreement on that. Our faith needs to be separated
from every hindrance and the things that are not pure. In fact, the writer in Timothy
talks about "unfeigned faith;" not pretend faith. And you could say it like this:
pure faith. Pure faith. Faith that is free from the
contamination of religious junk. There's a lot that is called
faith that isn't faith. Why would you need to say
"unfeigned faith;" faith that is not phony, faith that is not
pretend? Well, he describes faith being
tried, and faith being much more precious than gold, and
faith-and this is an amazing thing, verse seven, faith that
is, "Found to the praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ:" When the Lord comes, He's going
to praise our faith. Is that amazing or is that
amazing? He's going to honor our faith. So, whatever it would take in
this life to rise up and please Him by living by faith and
walking by faith, it's worth any exercise. It's worth any difficulty, and
overcoming every challenge. Verse eight describes how this
faith works. It says, "Whom having not seen,"
there are those words; faith is not seen and not yet. Having not seen, "You love; in
Whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your
faith, even the salvation of your souls." There's a time in faith where
you're believing, you're persuaded, even though you don't
see it and it's not yet. But if you'll hold fast and not
change, there will come the end of your faith where that
particular part of salvation is manifested, and it's no longer
not seen, and it's no longer not yet; it is manifested now. It is seen, and felt, and
experienced now. "Receiving the end of your
faith." Let's look at verse eight again. "Whom having not seen, you,"
what? "You love." Now, this is puzzling to
intellectuals. This is confusing to some folks. "Have you ever seen God?" "No." "Well, you talk about Him all
the time, and you say you love Him. You're telling me you've never
seen Him, and you love Him?" "That's right. With all our heart, all our
soul, all our mind, and our strength." Well, there's only one way you
could do that: by faith, right? You love somebody you've never
seen? You love them with all your
heart, soul, mind, and strength? You couldn't do that any other
way except by faith. And it goes on to say, "Whom,
though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory:" Now, we have faith in God, we
have faith in our Father Who sits on the throne. We have faith in our Lord and
Master, King of kings, Lord of lords, Jesus, Who's seated at
the right hand of Majesty. We haven't been there, we
haven't seen Him, we haven't touched Him, but we believe it. We're convinced. We believe He's coming again,
just like the Scripture said. The trumpet's going to sound,
the dead in Christ are going to rise. If we're still alive and remain,
we're going to be changed in a moment in the twinkling or
blinking of an eye. It's going to happen fast. We're going to be changed, and
we're going to be caught up together with Him. Well, when you get to talking
about and thinking about that, it makes you happy. You think, glory to God. This body that we have to wash
all the time, and try to do something with the hair, and try
to do something with the clothes, and it just keeps
getting older anyway, it's going to be changed in a moment, in
the blink of an eye. It will no longer be subject to
aging, or decay, or death. Well, if you believe that, it
makes you happy. You rejoice. And in fact, you believe all the
things that He has told us it can-it can cause a surpassing
joy to come up in you, and work in you. A joy that is inexpressible;
it's beyond words. A joy unspeakable. A joy full of glory. And yet, all this is over
something you never see, something that has not happened
yet. But, this is faith. This is what faith is; regarding
things not seen, and not yet, and it honors God. When there's-there are actually
billions of people on this planet they don't believe in the
existence of the God we worship. They don't believe in the
authority of these Scriptures, so they've got no time for it. And they don't rejoice in it. They figure, you know, we're
just goofy. We're just, you know,
delusional. But, when we in the midst of all
this darkness and all the people that have got no time for Him,
when we love Him with all our heart that we've never seen Him,
it honors Him. That honor-that honors Him
before those who are in heaven with Him right now. It honors Him before His angels. It honors Him, when in the midst
of all this darkness, you and I are shouting and saying,
"Hallelujah," and praising God about what? Something we've never seen. It honors God, because the only
reason we're doing that is because He told us that's the
way it is, and we say, "Well, that's the way it is then." He said, "I'm going to prepare a
place for you." He said, "Don't be afraid, I'm
going to prepare a place for you. It's going to be wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful. And I'm coming back, and I'm
taking you to Myself." And we read about it in the Book
of Revelation and we believe it. And so, did you notice this
phrase? "Though now we see Him not, yet
believing, you rejoice," say that phrase out loud with me. "Believing, you rejoice." Say it again: "Believing, you
rejoice." This is an indicator of faith, a
strong indicator. Look with me in the Book of
Romans, I believe it's the fifteenth chapter and the
sixteenth verse, I think it is. Romans fifteen. It talks about this very thing. Romans thirteen-I said the wrong
verse. Romans 15:13 it says, "Now the
God of hope fill you with all," what? "Joy and peace in believing,
that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy
Spirit." You can tell this is a faith
Scripture right here. It has all the elements. "The God of hope." Faith is the confidence and the
conviction of things hoped for, the conviction of things not
seen. The God of hope. He is a God of faith, but if
you're going to-if you're going to be involved with faith,
you're going to be involved with hope, too. They're together. They're connected. The God of hope. Confident expectation. "The God of expectation filled
you with," what? Joy. "All joy and peace in
believing." Now, you're not going to rejoice
over a heaven that you've never seen unless you're fully
persuaded of something. You've made a decision to
believe. You're not going to love a Being
you've never seen and never touched with your hand with all
your heart, soul, mind, and strength except you've become
fully persuaded of something that was told you. Something that you read,
something you heard preached. You've become fully persuaded. This is not a fairy tale; this
is truth. This is reality. Though I can't see it, and
though some of these things we're talking about, many of
them have not they manifested yet, yet when you believe it,
there's no more wavering, there's no more wondering,
there's no more confusion, there's no more waiting. You can go ahead and get happy
now. You can go ahead and rejoice
now. And it's not just concerning
heaven, it's concerning everything that you're in faith
about. When you're in faith about God
helping you pay your bills, you can rejoice before the money
comes in; faith always does. When you're in faith about your
body being healed, you rejoice before it feels any better. You rejoice before the tests
come back any different, or before the report comes back any
different. You believe God's heard your
prayer. By faith, you believe you
receive. You believe it's written, "By
His stripes I'm healed... My God supplies all my need
according to His riches in glory..." Etcetera, etcetera. "And the God of hope fills you
with all joy and all peace in believing." When you're in believing, you're
in expectation, and you're in joy, and peace. We've said this before but it'll
bear repetition. This little illustration that
when you're going down life's road in your faith mobile,
there's a couple of gauges you better keep an eye on; it's from
this verse right here. It's the joy gauge and it's the
peace gauge, because if we got believing in the tank, there's
going to be some joy and there's going to be some peace. I ask Phyllis, my wife, you
know, on numerous occasions, and we don't-we hardly go a day or
two that I don't say this: "What are we excited about?" What are we-because I know if
we're in faith about something, we're going to be expecting
something good, and if we're expecting something good, you're
going to have some peace that it's done. God's heard you, things are
working. And you're going to have some
joy, because of the expectation of the answer to those prayers
and the fulfillment of those things. What are we excited about? And so, as we go down life's
road, I mean there can be some potholes in life's road. There can be some slick spots. There can be some big hills. There can be some low valleys,
life's road. Sometimes you'll hear people
saying, "How is life treating you?" Well, life will treat you bad. You don't want to focus on how
life is treating you. God though, will treat you good,
even though there's some bad stuff in life, God will treat
you good. But as you're going down life's
road in your faith mobile, check your joy gauge. Check your peace gauge. Check them pretty regularly. Because if you get completely
out of joy, it's over sitting on E, you look over to your peace
and you got no peace; you're upset, you're afraid, you got no
joy, you're depressed, you're sad, well honey, you're not in
faith anymore. Your tank is run completely dry
of faith when there is no peace and there is no joy. Your faith mobile has run out of
gas and you will sputter to a stop and could be stuck on the
road side of despair; bad place. Which is why we need to come and
stop at the filling stations, right? God has ordained that we have
churches, that we have good meetings, that we have times and
places where the Word is anointed, where you can come and
get the Spirit's nozzle stuck in your ear, and get pumped full of
the anointed Word. And that will give you faith. And as your faith comes up,
comes up, comes up, you can see it on the gauge on the
dashboard. Man, the joy just comes right on
up there, and the peace comes right on up there. And when you're full of peace,
and you're full of joy, what else do we know about joy? "The joy of the Lord is our
strength." When you're full of joy,
strength is coming up in you and that's in spite of what you may
be seeing, what you may be feeling. There's all these things that's
not seen and not yet, but because we're so convinced of
what He has told us, we're happy now. We're rejoicing now. We've got peace now, hallelujah,
and that strength enables us to overcome. That's why He said, "Faith is
the victory that overcomes," everything, the whole
world-everything that you have to deal with, faith can overcome
it. Can you say, "Amen?" In Proverbs 27, excuse me,
Psalms, Psalm 27:13. Let's look over there because
this talks about the same thing. We mentioned earlier in the
week, these sayings that people have that they think is good,
but can be so wrong. "Well, seeing is believing,"
people say. "I'll believe it when I see it." Well, we know from the Word
that's exactly backwards, that's completely wrong, because faith
is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen. We love the Father though we've
never seen Him. We're excited about heaven,
hadn't been there, hadn't seen it, but we're just excited as
though we had been. That's faith. That's faith. And the Scripture says in Psalm
27:13, "I had fainted, unless I had," what? "Believed to see," it's not I'll
see it and then I'll believe it, it's believe it and then you'll
see it. But the believing is going on
before you see it because faith has to do with that which is not
seen. "I had fainted," so see, this
ties right in with our faith mobile with the gauges, because
what happened when we ran out of joy? We ran out of peace and our
faith tank is dry? You fainted, right? You stopped motoring, no more
propulsion. You rolled to a stop, sputtered
to a stop over on the roadside, and you had... you fainted. You got no joy, so you got no
strength. You got no peace, so you got no
rest. Got no faith, no faith. Friends, you just can't make it
in this life without faith. You will give up, you will quit,
you will despair, you will unhook. This is how people get suicidal
because they become so hopeless. They're like, "What is the
point? What is the reason to get up in
the morning and go on?" Well friend, you've been looking
at the wrong thing. You've been thinking about the
wrong thing. And you've been believing lies. There is a purpose for getting
up in the morning. There is a reason to keep
living, to be alive, to go on. You're a child of God. You're here for a reason. He has a purpose and a plan for
you. But the only way you find it is
by faith. The only way you lay hold of it
is by faith. The only way you take steps in
it and make progress in it every day is by faith. It is from faith to faith. And as you keep coming up in
faith, oh, you keep seeing more and more, and you keep-the more
you see the more excited you get, and the more peace you get,
the more joy you get, the stronger you get. Come on, say it out loud: "I'm
full of faith. I'm strong in the Lord, and I
give glory to God." Hallelujah! That's it for the day, class. We'll see you next time in Faith
School.
