♪ (Music playing) ♪ Good morning, class. Welcome to Faith School,
hallelujah. Faith School is where our faith
gets fed, our spirit grows stronger, and we learn how to be
an overcomer. Friend, we've saved you a place
right here in the front. Got your seat, get your Bible,
get you something to take notes with, and we're going to learn
how to operate in the God kind of life which is a victorious-
living by faith is the most exciting, the most-the greatest
adventure. It is the most wonderful life
you could possibly have. It's the one that pleases God. It's the one that enables you to
overcome every problem that comes into your life and to
receive every good blessing. We're going to release faith. We're going to believe that God
helps us specifically for today, so wherever you are, give this
your full attention for these next few minutes and let
something change you, happen in your spirit on the inside. Let's pray together. "Father, in Jesus' name, we
thank You so much for another opportunity to get together. We acknowledge Your Holy Spirit
is our Teacher and our Guide. Your Holy Word is the ultimate,
complete, and final authority. What You say is the authority
for everything in our lives. We ask You to teach us about
this wonderful thing called faith; how to please You, and
how to live like You've ordained and called us to live. We ask for answers, for
direction and help. Only You know exactly what we
need right now. We ask for it in Jesus' name. Amen." Thank You, Lord. Let's turn again to Scripture
that we looked at on yesterday. Let's look at Hebrews the
eleventh chapter. If you weren't with us last
week, we spent a whole week in Faith School talking about Why
Faith? Why is faith God's choice for
us? And we found out faith is not
just adherence to a set of beliefs; what faith are you? What faith are you? Faith is not a group: faith
churches, faith ministries. Faith is not a movement;
something that happened and it was emphasized for a few years. "The just shall live by faith." Faith is how God functions. Faith is how God operates. It's how He's called us to live. So, if you weren't with us for
last week, go back and review; won't cost you anything but some
time. Get in there, get these-let that
foundation get built in you, because what we're looking at
now is built on that. We began yesterday though, this
week, talking about What Faith Is. What is faith, and not just
anybody and everybody's opinion and idea about it, what does God
say faith is? And we saw Hebrews 11:1 gives us
the-I mean, the perfect definition of faith. And Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen." Young's Literal translation
said, "Faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not
seen a conviction," so these two words are used "confidence" and
"conviction." We saw in Romans four, and in
fact, would you put that on the chalkboard? We have this amazing, invisible
assistant that puts things on the chalkboard that we're so
thankful for. Romans 4:20, Romans 4:20 lifts
up Abraham as such an example of faith and says, "He staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong
in faith, giving glory to God." And verse twenty-one said he
was, "Fully persuaded," everybody say: "Fully
persuaded." Fully persuaded, "That what He,"
God, "had promised, He," God, "was able also to perform." So, in one word, one word, what
is faith? Persuasion. If you have faith in something
you are persuaded about that; you're no longer wavering. You're no longer wondering. You're no longer vacillating. And we saw in the Book of James
that if you need something from God He said ask for it, and He
specified wisdom. He said if you need wisdom, and
man, we do every day of our life, we need to know how do I
do this? How's this going to turn out? Which way to go? He said ask, ask the Father for
wisdom; He'll give it to you. He'll give you wisdom liberally,
plenty. He won't upbraid you about it. He won't chasten you about it. He'll just give it to you. And it goes on to say though
that you got to, "Ask in faith, nothing wavering." Because, "He that wavers is like
the wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For the wavering man or woman,
don't, "Think you'll receive anything." And an unstable person, excuse
me, "A double minded person is unstable, He said, "in all their
ways." So, this lack of faith, this
lack of persuasion, results in instability. Now I'm not going to ask you if
you know of any unstable people in your life because truth is,
we've all had our moments where we were unstable. What makes you unstable? Being unsure, being unsure makes
you vacillate. Vacillating and wavering makes
you unstable, and being unstable prevents us from receiving, so,
this this is serious stuff. He said, "If you're wavering and
double minded, you won't receive anything; you're unstable in all
your ways." This is a condition we cannot
tolerate, because we need to receive from God. We need to be able to receive
what we pray for. We need to be able to receive
prayers for our children, prayers for our finances,
prayers for healing of our body, and any number of things,
direction in life. I mean, he's talking about the
basics of wisdom: just knowing what to do, how to handle things
to get through the day. And we won't even get that
wisdom, we won't get that knowledge, unless and until we
can stop wondering and wavering and get persuaded, get
stabilized, get rooted and grounded. The Scripture tells us in the
Book of Hebrews that, "It is impossible for God to lie," and
in talking about that, he mentions that that revelation
that God-He can't fail, He can't lie, is like an anchor - it is
an anchor to our soul. Well, in this world where the
waves can get high, and storms can blow, and the wind can blow,
you need something that stabilizes you, something that
anchors. And our soul is where we can
have the challenges: your feelings, your emotions, all the
thoughts that come through your mind. If you listen to the wrong
thing, think about the wrong thing, talk about the wrong
thing, watch the wrong things, you'll be blown all over the
place like James was talking about: like a wave being blown
by the wind. But the Word of God doesn't
change. It reads exactly the same no
matter what's on the news, no matter what anybody else is
going through, no matter what kind of upheaval the markets
might be experiencing, or government leaders might be
going through. When you open Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, when you read Romans, when you read Galatians,
anywhere from Genesis to Revelation, it reads the same. God doesn't change. His will doesn't change. His perfect ways don't change. And if we'll feed on this and
get our mind renewed to this, we will become so stable. We will stop all this
vacillation, and all this wobbling, and all this wavering. And when people talk to us about
certain areas of life-there are a lot of things we don't know,
and we can say, "Well, we don't know," and believe in the Lord
to show us, but when we do see something in the Word like it's
His will for everybody on earth to be saved, He's not willing
for any to perish, then we should stop asking questions
about is it God's will for somebody to be saved? We know it is. No more vacillation. Well, the same Bible tells us
it's His will for us to be healed. It's His will for our needs to
be met. It's His will for us to be
filled with the Spirit. It's His will for us to enjoy
life, be victorious, and have peace that passes understanding. The more we feed on faith food,
the more our soul gets anchored, and the more we get stable. We get like Abraham: fully
persuaded. Somebody say it again: "Fully
persuaded." Fully persuaded that what? That what God said, He's not
going to change it. He's well able to do it. Can you see what it does to you? It causes peace to come on you. You're no longer wondering,
you're no longer wavering, you're not guessing, you're not
asking everybody and their brother and sister what they
think about it. It's so wonderful. You know, if you get good
counsel from brother, or sister, or pastor, or friend, or
relative, if you really get something good, they got it from
God. God gave it to you through them,
and that's wonderful, and we can benefit things. I trust that you're benefiting
something through us and through this class right now, but, as a
child of God, you can go straight to the Source. Straight to God Himself. Everything He said in His Bible,
in the Word, it's forever perfect. It's forever true. They'll never come an update or
version 2.0 of the Scriptures. Never. Never. Why? Because when He said it the
first time, it was and is perfect. Perfect. And when we receive it, and we
get settled on what He said, settled on what His will is, we
get in a position where nothing can move us. We become unshakable. We become immovable. I like what Brother Paul said. The Spirit of God quickened him
to say it in the Book of Acts. You know, he had experienced a
lot of challenges and difficulties, and you know,
nobody said that there were never going to be any
challenges. The Bible said, "They that will
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," but the
thing is when you know God and you're settled in Him, you
overcome every time after time; you just keep overcoming. You just keep overcoming. You just keep overcoming. And if it didn't turn out the
way you wanted the first time, you're not done. You're not done. Here we go again. "He always causes me to
triumph." And so Paul had experienced, you
know, persecution: being stoned, being run out of town, being
whipped, being beaten, being put in chains, put on this ship with
these prisoners, caught in a hurricane, ship went down, all
these kind of things. Prior to this, when part of this
had already happened, he made this statement. He said, "None of these things
move me." Don't you like that? "None of these things move me." Well, how could he say that? Why would he say that? He must be stable, not unstable. What would make him so stable? He has fellowship with God
enough through His Word and by His Spirit, that he's become
fully persuaded. He's become completely convinced
about some things concerning God's will, and His character,
and His ways. And when the Lord told him, "Now
I'm sending you, some things are going to happen, but I got you. I'm going to take care of you. You're gonna be okay," he
believed it. He was convinced. And even during that
hurricane-he was in the cabin part of that ship,
praying. And an angel told him, he said,
"You've got to preach before Caesar. You must bear witness," and so
he realized, I can't die. I can't die out here in this
storm. Even when they got on the island
he got bitten by a poisonous snake, he just shook it off. Why? I can't die out here. I've already heard from the
Lord. Was He fully persuaded? He was fully persuaded, no, I
have appointments to keep, to do what God has called and made me
to do. And so, when we talk about
having faith and living by faith, can you see, again, it's
not just a theological position? It is a condition of spirit. It is what anchors the soul. It is what stabilizes the mind
and helps you to be completely unmoved by what is moving
everybody else. It's so wonderful. If you get a bad report, to
realize, this is not the final word on this. If you have some alarming
symptoms, or if you have a bunch of bills that showed up that you
weren't expecting and planning on, where other people become
unstable and start crying and start, you know, "What are we
going to do?" And, "Oh, no, and..." Faith will cause you to just
smile and go, "We've been here before. God has come through for us
every time and He'll never fail us. He cannot lie and He cannot
fail." And so, my soul, I feel the tug
of that chain and that anchor, that anchor of His faithfulness,
knowing He can't lie and can't fail. Can you say, "Amen?" Thanks be unto God Who never
fails, Who always causes us to triumph. We can be fully persuaded. Let's look at it again. It says that faith is, of
things, Young's Literal, "That faith is of things hoped for
confidence, of things not seen conviction," hallelujah. Things not seen, conviction. Confidence and conviction,
confidence and conviction. Put up on the screen, please,
Hebrews the tenth chapter and the twenty-third verse. Hebrews 10:23. One of the most practical ways
that we live this out is described in this verse. Hebrews 10:23 said, "Let us," do
what? "Hold fast the profession of,"
that's King James. A lot of your modern
translations will say "confession," referring to what
you say. "Hold fast the confession of our
faith," how? "Without wavering." Why? Why would we not waver about it? Because the One that told us is
faithful. Faithful is He that promised. You can tell that you're being
moved by your words. If you begin to waver, that'll
show up immediately in your mouth. "Well, I don't know... I thought so, but I don't
know... We'll see... Maybe it will, maybe it
won't..." That's not holding fast the
confession of faith. The confession of faith if it's
based on the unchanging Word of God, then if God's Word doesn't
change, what I'm saying shouldn't change. I should be just as persuaded
tomorrow as I am today because if it was true yesterday it's
still true today. It's still true tomorrow; it's
not going to change. Everything around me will
change, but that doesn't change. That's the anchor to my soul. "Let us hold fast the confession
of our faith without wavering." I know in our own life, Phyllis'
my wife, and myself, whether it's personal or whether it's
ministry, makes no difference, faith works the same. We've learned that the beginning
of a thing-when you know you got a need, you know something needs
to happen, the first thing we got to do is hear from the Lord. Because how can we be persuaded
of something He said unless we know what He said? How can we be persuaded He's
going to do this if we didn't hear Him say He's going to do it
either by His written Word or by His Spirit? So, step one is ask Him. Go to Him. Go to the Word. Go to Him in prayer, "Lord, what
about this situation? What about it?" But then as you do that, you'll
get a phrase, you'll get a Word. It could be a part of a
Scripture, it can be a phrase that the Spirit of God quickened
to you. Sometimes it's as simple as,
This is going to turn out well... All of these all our needs are
met... I call my," whatever part of
your body that hadn't been working right, "I call my
kidneys perfect... I call my lungs clear..." There will be a phrase that'll
come to you, that'll stand out to you, and when you think about
it or you hear it, you get a quickening on the inside. And when you get that phrase,
that's your Word, that's the thing you want to hold fast to. And God doesn't change. He's not going to tell you one
day this is going to turn out well, and then after a week He
tell you, well, it may not turn out well. He's not going to do that. He that's not Him. He doesn't change. When He tells you something and
you heard it from Him and you get that phrase that quickens
and excites you, that's the thing you must hold on to. That's the thing you must hold
fast to, without changing, without wavering, without being
moved, without vacillating. And you just-you just get
tenacious about it, and you just keep saying it every time, every
time. I know every project that we've
had in the church-we will get on something and the Lord will give
us a phrase. He'll give us a Word, and we
stay on that. And it may be it may be a year,
might be three years, might be five years, but, we sink our
teeth into that, so to speak, and we wrap our arms around
that, and we don't let anything change us. We say, "We are persuaded of
this. We are convinced of this." And so our confession of faith
doesn't change. We don't waver with it. I know in the church now for
some time, oh, for the past several months now, we've been
saying this. "We have extra coming in." These guys are agreeing. "We have extra coming in. And we're paying everything off
quickly." Now, why would you say that? Why would you say that? Because over the course of time,
we've become convinced that that's the will of God through
His Word, through numerous verses, and His Spirit has
quickened that to us. And we've been just getting
every week-they read before the offering time, testimonies of
this very thing happening. We just recently read of people
that paid off their houses, and paid off their cars, paid off
their credit cards. And what were-what have they've
been saying? "I got extra coming in. I got extra coming in. I'm paying everything off
quickly." That was and is a confession of
faith. But you don't say, "I got extra
coming in," and then something happened that bothers you, that
you see, or feel, and tomorrow you go, "Man, we never have
enough. We never have enough. I just, man, we're always
behind." No. See, you're wavering. And what did James warn us about
the wavering person? Won't receive; unstable, double-
minded. We cannot be on today, off
tomorrow. Yeah, God's good today, tomorrow
we don't know. Got extra coming in today and
tomorrow, man, where does it all go? We've got to be consistent. God is consistent. The Lord is the same yesterday,
today, forever. His Word reads the same every
day of the week, every week of the month. And when we are fully persuaded
of what He said, and we got that Word, or that phrase that's
quickened to us, we've got to hold fast that confession
without wavering. And if we do, we'll give the
Lord something to work with in our lives. We will give the Spirit of God
something to anoint. We'll give the angels something
to work and accomplish in our lives. Let's give God something to work
with. Can you say, "Amen?" Thanks be unto God. You can be persuaded. You can be established. You can be unmoved, unwavering. If you read in the Psalms,
you'll see Psalm number one, and then others beside that, it
talks about the person that's established in Him will be like
a tree planted by the river of waters, and no matter what kind
of drought comes, your leaf won't fade. And no matter what happens in
the world around you, you keep bearing fruit every season. Can you see that? And no matter what the world may
be so scared of, and so unstable about, in the midst of it you
and I can be anchored. We can be strong in faith, fully
persuaded, giving glory to God that what He promised, He will
perform. Hallelujah. Praise God. Well, that's it for today,
class. We'll see you next time in Faith
School.
