Walk By Faith - Pastor Nathaniel Haney - September 5, 2021

church can we stand to our feet today let's worship the lord right now let's raise our hands wherever you are the building the presence of god it is true in this place it is heavy in this place hallelujah come on somebody worship him somebody worship him somebody give him glory today it's not about us it's not about you it's about god this morning we've come to praise him today hallelujah you are worthy of it god this morning you are worthy of it god this morning we have gathered here to glorify you jesus we have gathered here to recognize you lord god we have gathered here to magnify you lord jesus you're a worthy god of it today [Music] i don't know what it is but i have been feeling a special touch over the people of god for the past few days i've been feeling it in the holy ghost and i don't know quite know what god is intending to do with his people but he wants to do something with his people hallelujah but he needs a people who are hungry to meet with him did anybody come in the building this morning determined to meet with god come on did anybody come determined to meet with god you want to encounter him come on does anyone want to feel his presence this morning does anyone want to entertain the spirit of the lord today hallelujah shall we do that right now before the praise team comes let's just entertain his presence with worship this morning lift up your praise to god just lift up your song to god praise him with your testimony praise him with your testimony praise him with your testimony today [Music] what we've came to do god today that's what we came to do god today we've come to meet with you god and we've come to praise you god we've come to worship your holy name that's why we are here this morning god receive it lord receive the lord today in jesus name [Music] hallelujah praise your name jesus let's keep the praise going hallelujah he's worthy [Music] [Applause] [Music] put your hands together amen [Applause] hey [Music] he shall have the power he shall have the power he shall have the power he shall have the power [Music] hallelujah come on keep you every day i'm sure the holy ghost has come upon you he shall upon you oh shall have a power [Music] [Music] what a heavenly encounter when they came down from [Applause] is uh [Music] [Music] oh time [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] shut up [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] how [Music] [Music] true [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] oh power [Music] right [Applause] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Applause] you gotta have the holy ghost [Music] so look what the lord has [Music] [Applause] is look what the lord has done [Applause] [Music] each day just like [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] i've got it [Music] i can't explain it got is [Music] come on [Music] [Music] [Music] look what the lord has done [Music] [Applause] is [Music] look what the lord has [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i can't explain it [Music] [Music] situation why [Music] [Music] i [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i got it [Applause] i've got it [Music] [Applause] i can't explain it [Music] and after you get the holy ghost amen he touches you amen he touches him in every way hallelujah he touches our mind he touches our hearts he touches our spirits he touches our very lives amen hallelujah he's so worthy he deserves the praise [Applause] [Music] ah [Music] you don't have to leave [Music] i am no longer [Music] he touched me [Music] me [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] he cleans and is [Music] i will shout for allah [Music] he's [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] hallelujah hallelujah come on church don't stop now can you feel his presence in the building right now [Music] hallelujah i'm so glad i don't serve a god that i just know in my mind but i know by experience because he touched me amen i serve a god that when i reach for him he reaches back amen there's people that serves god they don't they have ears but they do not hear they have eyes but they cannot see but when i reach for my god james says it this way draw near unto god and he'll draw near unto you and you can feel god drawing near to us right now would you lift your hands one more time and when you just draw near [Music] we need you lord we need you lord [Music] oh [Music] hallelujah song they sang a minute ago to repeat the phrase it says there's something about the power of the holy ghost i can't explain it but i've got it amen and you can't always explain everything that happens you can't even explain what you're feeling right now but you know that you've got it amen and i'm so pr i'm so glad the power of the holy ghost is in this building can i get an amen praise god now we're going to pray a prayer we've been faithful to pray we're going to pray for our city more than ever our city our state our nation our first responders our government officials they need prayer amen so where you're at would you lift your hands if you're with the family member would you bind up with them and let's go before the lord one more time dear heavenly father we come before you lord one more time coming boldly before the throne of grace asking you god that you pour out us your spirit on our city god i pray lord jesus that we would see revival like we've never seen it before god turn the hearts of this nation back to you let there be a revival of righteousness a revival of right doing a revival of right living and right thinking lord jesus i pray lord god for for our first responders our mayor oh lord god our government officials we pray for this election lord that your kingdom come and that your will would be done o lord we pray for our president our vice president for congress oh lord and for the senate for the supreme court that your will would be done and we pray to the north and to the south and to the east and to the west and not by our authority but in the name of jesus we command you give up the souls that belong to christian life center we pray expecting we pray believing we pray knowing it's going to happen because you are a god that is faithful to your word [Music] if you believe it would you clap your hands to the lord this morning [Applause] hallelujah praise god and praise god i feel the lord in this place i believe that this is an atmosphere where the miraculous can take place amen the slogan of christian life center has been and as long as i can remember has been the place where miracles happen amen amen if you need a miracle i need you to slip your hand up to heaven right now whether it's a financial miracle or a physical miracle i feel the holy ghost god's getting ready to meet a need in this place right now hallelujah saints of god look around there's hands lifted all across the building would you stretch your hands in their direction and just share your faith with that person right now in the name of jesus lord we come before you one more time lord we speak to every sickness in this house right now and we command them to be gone for the glory of god's sake we speak to cancer right now lord cancer has taken too many of our saints uh lord that cancer would not take another life at christian life center in jesus name we believe it lord that by those stripes we have been healed i speak to every mountain in an impossible situation and i command you to be gone to be cast into the sea we believe it in jesus name we believe you're still a healer we believe you're still a deliverer you're still a way maker we know lord that you're able to do exceeding abundantly above according to the power that worketh in us lord we speak it into existence right now lord expecting for it to be done and we give you all the glory and all the honor and all the praise hallelujah thank you jesus one more time clap your hands to the lord thank you jesus thank you jesus praise god praise god praise god you could go back to your seat but remain standing because we only have one announcement this morning all the ladies say ladies advance oh let's try one more time all the ladies in the building say ladies advance all right it's coming up it's coming up october 29th through the 31st it's a new season amen god's going to do a mighty mighty work it's going to be done in our ladies but you know what it never just stops in the ladies amen every time i've been experi i've been here ladies and gents it always bleeds to the entire congregation amen and this church is getting ready for a special exciting season so ladies please go out into the lobby and get registered you do not want to miss it because it is filling up amen everyone said praise the lord praise the lord we're going to take our sunday morning tithe and offering amen praise god let's bring the tithe and offering before the lord in prayer dear heavenly father we thank you jesus that we have the opportunity to give lord we give out of an abundance in this nation it's nothing for us to give a tenth of our income lord and above and beyond that the offering lord and we know that you're going to rebuke the devourer and open up a window of heaven and pour out a blessing that cannot be contained we thank you lord for being our provider lord and help those that give out of necessity today lord jesus that you would bless them and provide for all their needs we love you lord and we give you all the glory in the wonderful name of jesus we pray everybody said amen amen on the lower floor you can march balcony they will wait on you god bless you as you give as soon as you're done giving turn around give someone a big cheesy smile to them it's good to see them in the house of the lord [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] follow me [Music] [Music] [Music] all over me [Music] all over me [Music] i feel your prayers [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] down in my [Music] [Applause] feet uh [Applause] [Applause] [Music] i feel your power all [Music] [Music] all over [Music] [Applause] it's in my head [Applause] oh [Applause] [Applause] moving on hallelujah [Music] hallelujah hallelujah thank you jesus hallelujah glory hallelujah why didn't you just give god [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] praise the lord good morning everybody would you just lift your hand to the lord and love him a little bit this morning before we go any further in this service precious lamb of god we do worship you and we do praise you today and give honor to you what a dear friend you've been what a great great god we are so thankful to know you to walk with you so thankful for your presence we bless you today we honor you give you glory there's nobody like you jesus amen amen amen you may be seated [Music] this morning i want to [Music] uh read a few verses of scripture and then we'll talk about our faith thank you sister melissa i appreciate it i want to take you to second corinthians chapter 5 and read a verse of scripture and then we're going to go to the gospel of matthew and read some passages there today so ii corinthians chapter 5 and [Music] verse 7 says for we walk by faith not by sight we walk by faith and not by sight and we can deduce from that verse of scripture that faith is not part of the five senses we walk by faith and not by sight so our five senses we have human ways of learning and functioning and one of us through our sight probably the strongest that most of us have is our sight we have feeling we have hearing we have the tasting so we have different ways that our body is able to connect with the material world that we live in and in doing so we're able to believe we're able to learn we're able to function in this world that we live but faith is something that is stronger and greater and beyond the senses that we use to develop our belief system and so there's a spiritual belief and there is an intellectual belief and there is a belief that comes from experience and experience faith is both natural and it is spiritual in its own way so we would talk about that today uh let's also go back to matthew chapter 14 today and let's uh look at first verse of scripture here so matthew 14 verse 21 or 22 through 33 is the story of peter that gets out of the boat and begins to walk on the water and in doing so while he's walking on the water uh he loses his faith in god and he begins to sink into the sea and his demise is at hand and so we want to we want to read just a little bit of that and jesus is walking by the boat and straightway jesus spake unto them saying be of good cheer it is i be not afraid and peter answered him and said lord if it be you tell me to come out on the water and the lord said come on peter and peter went down out of the ship stepped over and walked on the water to go to jesus but when he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried saying lord save me and immediately jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him oh thou of little faith wherefore didest thou doubt oh thou of little faith wherefore did his thou doubt let's talk about faith for a little while this morning and let's uh see if god will not help us to build our faith in him and in his word so that we might be able to please him for hebrews 11 6 is very clear that without faith we cannot please god and faith is the currency that god works with in christianity and you have to have faith or you can't please him and that would be synonymous you've got to believe him or you cannot please him because faith is the same as god speaking to you and talking to you through his word and faith cometh by hearing and hearing is through the word of god so these are intricately connected they are in some ways the identical and so when we have god's word there is faith that is issued forth to us and we make decision if we're going to believe the word of god so peter is with the disciples in a boat and a storm has hit that little sea and the waves are high the wind is blowing and it looks like it is going to be a terrible terrible uh fight for survival to get the ship out of the sea and to the shore where they will be safe because the waters are violently attacking the ship because of the storm they're in jesus being on the mountain looks at him and he sees him and he comes down and he begins to walk on the water and he makes as if he will pass them by and when they see him they are afraid they believe in spirits and they believe in ghosts and they believe in angels and they see this uh person walking on water so obviously if you were out on the lake fishing and somebody come walking by the water you would immediately think that uh that's not a human being even though it has the form of a human being something's not right it just doesn't happen and or you would think maybe there were stepping stones that you didn't know about that were right below the water or something there would be some explanation your mind would reach for because naturally it's impossible for a person to walk on water and here we have this man that looks like jesus walking on the water and the disciples are scared that they have run into a spook out on the lake not only is it stormy not only is the wind blowing not only is it in the evening time i mean it seems it's a perfect setting for a ghost story or a haunted house experience and all of a sudden to make matters worth something actually does start walking on the water and there is this release of fear through a scream and a cry and a yell that we are in trouble and then that thing they thought was a ghost speaks to him and says don't be afraid it's just me now they knew that voice they knew the voice and when they knew there was kind of a an evaporation of the panic that just kind of began to leave them and peter just to make sure that the wind wasn't changing the sound of the voice says if it's you tell me to get out of the boat and walk to you on the water that's pretty good test if it's god or not and the lord said come on peter and peter gets out of the boat and he starts walking on the water and he made his journey toward the lord obviously he got very close to jesus because the lord just simply reached out and he was that close it amazes me that however many steps were taken it did not really seem to affect peter's ability to walk on water until he began to mix what he could see with what he had heard and when he began to mix what he saw with the word it was not sustainable for the storm that he was in and so we learn a tremendous lesson here as jesus walks back to the boat gets in the ship with them which is just a little 14 15 cedar but it's a fishing vessel and he says to them oh you of little faith now there's a lot in that and i'm sure that he's talking about the storm and the fear and and not believing and just but but ultimately he's pointing at peter and he's saying you have little faith there now peter obviously had more faith than the others and maybe they didn't have much faith but he had more faith to get out of the boat but we learned something here first peter heard god's word before he moved and if you move before you have the word of the lord you will start sinking immediately because you don't really walk on the water you walk on the word and if you just go without being called or sent the water and the gravity has the force to pull you under but if you're on the word of god it's more stable than the ground you can normally walk on and so peter is walking on the word come here peter you can walk on the water come to me and he gets out and on that word he begins to walk on that and that is somehow created a barrier between the water and between his feet there is an invisible thing that is there that's holding him up it's called the word of god he couldn't see the word but he had heard it he knew the voice of the master and he began to walk on the invisible word of god but then faith is in the word he's walking on the word and his eyes are on jesus you can't hardly get a more perfect scenario than to have god's word to have jesus as your focus and to be walking in faith on the word i mean i mean it was just perfect but in that little perfect moment of time where peter was walking on the word of god over the top of the waves with the focus of his eyes jesus his eyes begin to wonder and begin to stray and he begin to bring in other images besides the image of god he began to bring other things out of the corner of his eye and as these other things were dancing around the wind was blowing and the waves were moving his corner of his eye his peripheral vision is catching this and he's doing everything he can to keep his eyes on jesus but he just can't resist the urge to look and to look at that he had to take his eyes off of jesus and when he took his eyes off jesus now he brought something into his life that is not compatible with the word and that was the sight the senses and he brought in the things that his flesh could understand storms darkness hardship fear death sinking he brought it in and he tried to mix it with peter come and walk on the water and he found out like a lot of us have found out life that we cannot mix faith with the world we cannot mix our faith with storm the two do not go together and somewhere in this immediately peter realizes his mistake as he begins to plummet down under the waters and he cries out lord save me meaning that he put his eyes back on jesus and when he did the hand of god reached out and pulled him back up and together they walked back to the boat and when they got to the boat the lord was not getting on to peter for getting out of the boat he was not getting onto peter for crying out to him but he was getting onto him for trying to mix what he could see from his natural senses with the word of god and he said that is little faith because little faith wants to use what is around me to mix with what i can't see and produce supernatural events and it just can't sustain in our life and so we have a definition of little faith here is when one mixes the word of god with the things of this world that's a little faith and then we go over to chapter 15 verse 21. and jesus went to vince and departed into the coast of tyra and sadan and behold a woman of canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him saying have mercy on me o lord thou son of david my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil but he answered her not a word now i'm going to make we're going to talk about crumbs here in a minute but notice that the emphasis is on the fact that he wouldn't speak that's what this is all building up to he would not speak to her a word it wouldn't talk to her because anything he said she might be able to hang on to and so he wouldn't give her his word he wouldn't talk to her she's asking for a miracle and he would not speak to her and so the disciples came and said would you send her away because she is bothering us she's crying out to us she's pestering us she won't leave us alone and she um she wants a miracle and and we're on vacation and we don't expect to be spiritual when we're at a seaside resort that's only when we're down uh in israel but we're on vacation want to dress the way we want go where we want leave god back home and just have a nice little vacation from god they were learning that when you're with jesus it's never really a vacation as you plan because the kingdom of god is everywhere present and you're part of that kingdom and so you can't just like take it off like a coat and leave it at home real christianity is 24 7 so they close the lid on the casket and they're saying we we want you to tell her to leave us this is our vacation and we're not doing miracles this week that's when we get back and we open the church doors or we get back in one of those big uh meetings of years and open air meetings then then we'll get back spiritual again and uh he didn't reply to him in this story we don't know what he really said to him but he answered and said so he's speaking to the woman directly i am not sent to the lost sheep of the house of israel now that's a negative word when you're trying to get god to do something for you but she knew something she had him talking and if she could just engage him long enough she was going to find something that was positive that she could latch on to now let me give you just a little modern day example of that you can't just read one or two verses of scripture a day and find something that's going to feed your soul but you got to get in this book and read it and read it and read it and read it until god starts speaking to you through his word you read story after story chapter after chapter digest this word feed on this word until something begins to stir when you read one of those stories you know okay god's beginning to move god's be getting to speak to me some people they you know they kind of play russian roulette with the scripture they they want to just kind of guess along when they might find a scripture and find one here that's not the way it works you've got to immerse yourself in the word of god and this woman understood that that's not the word i need but i got his word flowing and so i'm not going to stop till i hear something that's good that i can lay hold on that will take care of the situation i'm in and so she kept him engaged in conversation and she said lord i need your help and she worshipped him and so he softened his tone and he said look lady i can't do for you what you're asking because you're not a jew you're a dog and that was the appropriate title for the relationship between the jews and non-believers and and those outside the household of faith they looked at him as that and he said said i can't get engaged with you now she just keeps the conversation moving along she doesn't get offended oh this is good too i got to talk to you about this when you read the parable of the sowers does the sower in the four soils there's there there's there's one soil there where when he interprets it he says it's those that receive the word and get offended see this woman didn't have that stony soil this woman didn't have that soil that didn't have depth in itself she had deep good rich soil because no matter what jesus said she couldn't get offended at him and some of us read a little scripture or we hear a little preaching or a little teaching and something is offended in us toward god and his word and when we get offended we cut god off from working in our lives when we don't understand or we don't want to accept we're cutting god off and we're that soil where it springs up fast but it withers quickly [Music] where that soil where the devil comes in and says it can't take root and it pulls the word out of our lives and it never produces in us because offense came to us through the word of god but this woman had it right and she hadn't had a bible study she wasn't of the household of faith she never sat in a synagogue she never heard the scribes or the rabbis teaching but she heard stories of jesus and she said i will not be offended because what i need is greater than myself and you can talk to me all you want about how bad i am but when it's through i want to see receive forgiveness when it's through i want the word to work in my life when it's through i want to be accepted of christ when it's through i want my daughter here you got to get past the offense and say god i'm opening up to you pour it on me [Applause] and she said truth lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master's table now there's a lot it was is the crumbs the miracles and miraculous i in some ways it was but probably really what the crumbs are is in the dogs eating the crumbs is the food is the word of god in this and it's his word talking to her and she's saying i just need some little bit of the word some of you got so much word that you honestly if you if you never came to church again never heard another message and were locked in a cell for the rest of your life you got enough bible in you through preaching teaching what you've read you have no excuse to backslide and go to hell and yet the first little ripple tomorrow you act like you never heard the bible once and you're a brand new convert oh this is good preaching amen [Applause] some of you need to mature in the lord grow up in jesus and realize that that word you've heard week after word or week in that bible you've read it's not for you to just throw it out so you get some more but it's to use what's in there to walk in the journey of life and be victorious and this woman said it's true lord but uh you got a crumb or two for me and the lord was so moved he said oh woman now notice great is thy faith now we got the disciple peter that's going to preach on the day of pentecost who's helped the lord and and made all these promises and god says you got you got little faith why do you have little faith because you're mixing the world what you can see with my word and that will always no matter who you are whether it's the pastor the saint the sinner or something in between there you will never have great faith when the world and what your senses can lay hold on mix with the word this woman kept throwing the world away he was throwing prejudice at her he was throwing old wounds at her he was throwing all kinds of things at her that fit into the culture he was politically uncorrect and culturally wrong because he was just laying it on her and she said it's just not going to get in my life i'm not going to mix it with the word i could be offended by what you've called me you know some of you got called some of the names that they call out in the world each other and someone in the church called you that especially the pastor you would just check out on god that's the truth and she said i just refuse to be offended you call me whatever you want to what i'm after is greater than the names and the insults you can throw my way you see i believe jesus was testing this woman to see just how bad she really wanted some crumbs and so he did everything he could to give her an excuse to find a reason to walk away and god oftentimes does that with us he allows us to go through things he tests our faith by allowing life to throw things at us that don't seem fair or don't seem right and he gives you an opportunity to get disgruntled in your spirit he gives you an opportunity to get bitter at god or to get angry at god because it didn't go the way you planned but what he's really doing is he's testing your tenacity and to find out just how bad you want to walk in the word and walk in faith he wants to see if you got the goods and the want to that's strong enough to overcome what's going to come against you because one of these days you're going to have a real trial and you're going to face a real devil and you're going to go through a living hell and you better have something to you more than just a fair-weather religion you better have faith that god is able to do what his word says it will do and it don't matter who you are if you walk with god long enough i promise you the storm's coming and when you get through one there'll be another one because this life is full of adversity it rains on the just and it rains on the unjust that means a sinner has bad days and the saint has bad days but when it's all said and done if jesus is in the storm eventually the storm is going to abate and you're going to be safe back in the ship hallelujah [Applause] and so we're learning here in these two passages of scripture that if we want our faith to be what it should be pure faith we can't mix it with impurities that our flesh can get a hold of and peter saw the wind he saw the storm and he mixed it with the word and the word would not sustain him this woman had the world coming at her from the master himself the slurs and the prejudice and all of the wounds that were between the nations and he was just pouring it on her and she just kept deflecting it i'm not going to mix it with my faith i know you can do it all i need is a little crumb you can let the words of this world and bring up everything it just ain't going to get in my heart it's just not going to get in my soul i'm not going to mix it with the word i'm waiting till i have a word and i'm not going to mix all of this world with it and i just want to tell you you cannot feed on the word and be a woman or a man of faith you you just cannot feed on that and be a man or a woman of faith unless you block the world out i know people that read their bible but they put everything else into their life not just god's word and they think somehow that that makes it okay god's looking for a people in 2021 that begin to boil out the impurities until the solid gold of his word is what they are built upon a mixed word doesn't work in a storm it's all right when everything's going good it's all right when the weather's nice it's all right when there's no problems at home it's it's all right when you got a little money in them it's all right when you got a job it's all it's all right when your car's got a little gas and your insurance is paid it's all right when things are well when there's health in your body to look around and say boy that's a beautiful this and da da da da but when the storm starts up you don't have the luxury of looking at the things that you were able to look at when the storm wasn't there and peter hadn't quite learned that but this little woman without an education from bible school without an education from a synagogue without an education from one of the great rabbis who did not even know the god of israel other than the person of christ had this understanding that i cannot mix what is in this world with what comes out of his mouth because if i want the miracle for my daughter i can only have the one that speaks life what he gives me is what i got to latch onto and she latches on to it now last week we talked about the man that had a son that was demon-possessed and in that the man says something he says lord i believe but help out my unbelief the reason that he said help my unbelief is because as a child he had watched the demon effectively destroy he saw this year after year after year that when that boy was a baby when that boy was a toddler whatever it was as a child that demon came and got a hold of that son of his and what we learned from that is that our experiences in life can work for us or against us and if you have had an experience redundantly or seemingly redundantly of something that is against the word of god it's hard to let go of those things and say i'm going to believe in the word and i'm not going to mix those experiences with the word i'm doing a little teaching here there's things in our lives that have happened that affect the way we accept the word of the lord in the present and god's looking and he's greater than our doubt he's greater than all of those things and as he we saw the mercy of god last week was able to help and the restoring the building that faith but sometimes god asked us to empty ourselves out of past beliefs and experiences and things that we have formed ideals and concepts and belief systems from around the world you you is probably the greatest education you could ever have because of what you experience and see and move into it's in class for years and never get the experience of travel there's just something special about tasting it touching it immersing in it hearing it and feeling it and different cultures and people and religions and and i studied world religions when i was younger and and and saw the uh we saw clips and videos and we heard lectures and we took tests and we were exposed and but it was nothing like actually stepping into the soil of those countries and seeing their religions in action it brought something alive i remember the first and only time i ever went to mecca be very hard to do today it was very hard to do then and it was during the ramadan where they were coming from around the world on their fast and they weren't letting gentiles and i and and they were just all kinds me it seemed like millions and millions of people i remember the first time i saw a hindu temple in in and saw the the worship and the prayers and i could go through different cultures and different types of religions and seeing it and i'd read about it in a book and i had studied and heard the lectures and even seen some clips and but it was nothing like stepping out of the classroom and stepping on the soil and hearing the chant and hearing the prayers and seeing the people and smelling and and just it it became alive and what i saw what i experienced with my natural eyes and and my uh my five senses taught me things that if i were to learn today were not so would be very hard to unbelieve to push away and say no no no i read about it and i experienced it and it has to be true some says it's not true it was all an illusion it was all a fraud it would be almost impossible for me to disengage from that and walk away from it and say okay i'm not going to believe any of that that i've seen or i've experienced i'm going to believe just what you tell me and in christianity we have the current of life's experience that is flowing against our faith because there are so many things we have experienced that are contrary to the word and there's this struggle in this fight in us to say i choose to believe the word and the word only rather than trying to find something by experience and find a place in or next to the word to accept or make them compatible with each other that's why seeing a miracle is very important in life some people have never seen a miracle but once you have seen real miracles happen it's impossible to convince you they don't happen even if you can't have them and even your prayers are not answered even if you don't aren't the one that's producing them if you have seen real miracles happen you know there is a god and he does miracles even if i don't see one this time you can never take that from me that's a good experience that brings a good strength to my faith in the word of god when you pray a prayer and the prayer is answered and you know that it's a direct result to the prayer because the way you prayed it and the way the situation was it had to be god that heard you and did something about it it's hard to remove that experience for the rest of your life that god doesn't answer prayer may have been the one and only prayer you can ever put your finger on but something that you know that god can if he wants to answer prayer and they'll never make you believe that god doesn't and can't answer prayer but what happens is those experiences on either side of the spectrum should not be in the long run what we use to determine if god's word is true or god's word is fake because if i am basing what i believe on an experience for good a bad experience can counteract the good experience but if i believe in the word for the word and trust in the sayings of jesus because jesus said them and refused to allow experiences one way or the other then it doesn't matter how many failures in the past and it doesn't matter how many setbacks in the past my faith is not being motivated or being manipulated by what has happened but it's working based on what thus saith the word of the lord and that's where the core of faith between little faith and great faith is one uses experience to mix with the word and one uses the word and refuses experience and says it doesn't matter what the experiences are the word says and if the word says it i will believe it i will trust in it i will do what god says we are in a battle in this world as human beings and the battle is against our faith it's against our faith you can take my money you can take my house you can take my health you can take all the material things of life from me but if you haven't got my faith you still haven't got me but you can give me the wealth of the world and take my faith and i'm gone i'm lost i'm in captivity and the devil knows that better than i know that and better than you know that and so he works consistently against your faith to take it from you and to destroy that faith because if he gets your faith it's not very long till he gets you in the bondage that you can't get free of and so your faith is vital to the battle and the journey of life and you've got to come to the place where no matter what life throws your way no matter what experiences you have you are going to believe what thus saith the lord in spite of everything else that is in your way and in your world at the time if god said this i will put every ounce of energy and every bit of belief i can muster in what god has said and say lord i still believe i believe your word no matter what i may see out of the preferable vision of my eyes the word of god [Applause] one of the things that make us have great faith is that we keep our senses and our spiritual man focused on jesus let's go to first samuel chapter 17 and we want to read a story about david and goliath now i want to tell you that it's not always easy in the early stages to have great faith and there's no real condemnation in not having great faith so i want to make that clear nobody's condemning someone that's in the journey but where the condemnation of the level of faith comes is when we either digress backwards or we refuse to grow in faith that's where the lord becomes frustrated with us that's where the grace of god is frustrated when we refuse to grow and move forward not at where we're presently at and so someone that would make you feel bad for being at a level of faith that you've been working and growing to it's really none of their business that's between you and god but if you begin to walk away instead of moving forward or you begin to say i refuse to grow in faith but i'm just going to stay here then you are bringing to yourself condemnation because god is a god of faith and he expects us to mature and be perfect which means a place of maturity or place of growth in him now let's look at this story and we'll we'll hitchhike on what we just said a little bit so david in verse 31 is speaking and telling about the bear and the lion he has an experience it's positive he uses it but if you'll read the experience carefully verse 37 it says david said moreover the lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw the bear he will deliver me out of the hand of the philistine the emphasis is not so much on the bear or the lion but it's out of the deliverance of the lord that was present in those situations so the focus is even in the retelling of a past story is on the lord not the miracle itself but on what the lord did to produce the miracle some of us get enamored with the miracle instead of the lord of the miracle you've got to get your eyes on jesus that that's the message in the retelling of a past story is not what you did to to overcome not what happened when you overcame but what god did to bring you to where you're at today that's the message that's got to come out of a past experience and too many people don't go far enough back they either love to tell what they did to make it i'm here i've been struggling i've been holding on and they put the emphasis on themself what they did or they talk about what god did and they mentioned god about one time then they spend an hour and a half telling you about the miracle but god's more interested and you going back beyond the miracle to the miracle worker and lifting him up and saying the lord that delivered me you see the miracle the deliverance comes after the lord not the other way around the lord that delivered me he will deliver he again the lord will deliver me out of the philistine now let's look at this closely and in uh verse 42 it says when the philistine looked about and saw david he disdained him the world disdained you if you didn't know that it doesn't really thank a lot of you as a pentecostal oneness apostolic christian for he was but a youth he was ruddy that means he was red colored and uh of a fair countenance so he's a nice looking boy and he was at that uh little red reddish tint that gets a hold of him when he and the philistines said unto david am i a dog that you come to me with sticks and the philistine cursed david now notice by his gods even the world has enough sense to give honor to their gods i'm going to say that again even the world has enough sense or reverence or understanding that things are spiritual to give credit to their god he cursed david by his gods not just custom good but he used his gods that he served to invoke their power in this battle to help him just totally annihilate this child as he saw him just as young and the philippines said as philistine said to david come to me and i will give thy flesh into the files of the air and to the beasts of the field and david said to the philistine you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield. now you notice something's missing he doesn't acknowledge the god of the philistine he starts the battle by invoking the name of his god against david so he didn't come out there against david just in his might he came against david by the power of dagon and the rest of the philistine gods david never acknowledges there's another god he acknowledges there's only a man in front of him that wants to hurt him we could learn a great lesson from that and david said to the philistine that comes to me with a sword with a spear and with a shield but i come to thee in the name of the lord of hosts the god of the armies of israel whom you have to fight this day will the lord deliver thee into mine hand now he has acknowledged thoroughly where his strength is coming from he has clearly stated who's in charge of the battle and once he puts it out there that it's the lord it's the god of the host of israel's armies then he takes the bold step of saying this is what i will do based on the god that is with me you've got to get the order of it right and what we see here is that his faith was in the lord and why he saw those things on the battlefield and he saw the enemy coming at him he refused to allow the enemy his might and strength and power and talent in a in in in in in size and to [Music] be mixed with what he was going to do he said yeah i see the sword but i got my eyes on the lord i see the shield but i got my eyes on the god the host of israel yeah i think that constitutes the pure faith that is strong in the battle when we don't allow what we can see to be mixed with what we know in the spirit and from the spoken word i think of uh the story of jehoshaphat in second chronicle chronicles chapter 20. and the bible says that three invading armies come against him and jehoshaphat feared he was afraid and set himself to seek the lord when you are afraid the proper response is to get alone with god and in his word some people when they get stirred up they got to go talk to someone and get some encouragement that's pretty human nature actually we got to get some others involved with us and but this man knew the secret of dealing with fear was to get alone with god because ultimately god is the only one that's going to get me out of this predicament where my life is at stake and so he says the bible says that he set his face he set his heart after the lord and he proclaimed a fast and he said you need to get old now notice what he does in verse six and he said oh lord god of our fathers art now art not thou god in heaven now actually that is a paraphrase of several different verses of scripture where the lord has made it clear that he's the god of heaven that he fills the heavens and the heavens above and he's taken all of this and he's talking the word back to god and rule us not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen did not the psalms talk about how he was the god that over and the king over all the kingdoms of this earth so we're learning something he got alone in his prayer he got his focus on the lord and he began to put his word back to god and in thine hand is there not power and might so that none is able to withstand thee god said i kill and i make alive neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand this man's taken the word of god that's been put into him through the years and in prayer he's putting it right back at god now god you said this aren't you not the god of heaven aren't you the god over the kingdom of the world aren't you the god that has all power in your hand and he begins to quote the word in prayer back to god art now art not thou our god who did his drive out the inhabitants of the land this was the word of the lord when john when joshua brought him in god said this is what i'm going to do this is the word of the lord to moses and this is scripture and he's praying the word of god back to god i think too many times and and i don't want to be too harsh because i think it's a it's a reality of humanity including my own prayers at times we we we lay it all out only from human perspective and i think you need to you need to you need to shed your tears and you need to tell god what's going on but you need to make sure that the word does not become just a little byproduct but it becomes the focus and the center of why you've come to god in the first place because you believe that he's able to do what he said he would do for you verse 12. i'll skip through some of this he says our god will thou not judge them for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us neither know we what to do now this is the key but our eyes if you don't have your bible open go there please i'm not just going to read it to you imagine what it says but we're going to read it together second chronicles 20. i want you to open your bibles i love this book i love the nuggets and the flow that just comes out of it it's good now let's look at what he said he said in that last part of verse 12 he said but our eyes are upon thee peter has taught us life has taught us when we go through things we as humans want to look at the adversity am i preaching to anybody's commodity quiet this sunday morning huh but is it not true that when we go through something we want to just get all wound up and talk about this and talk about that and the problem and the and the more we talk about it the bigger it gets and peter sees the storm and the more he keeps seeing out of the side of his eye he takes the looks and and the waves get bigger and the wind gets stronger but as long as he had his eyes on jesus it wasn't strong enough to do anything to him but when he finally got enough of the world's activity in his eyes then the word was not strong enough to sustain him and this jehoshaphat understood this he walks first and he sees the armies that are coming the fear is there by what he saw he heard he knew that these armies were coming to destroy him and when you have your eyes on those things you are going to be attacked with fear but once he got in prayer and he started bringing forth the word that he had put in his heart then the fear began to shrink down the the enemy and the size of the armies begin to lose their menacing power that it had before he got in prayer and before he got to quoting the word of god and he sums up the prayer and he says our eyes you got to know where to put your eyes i said you got to know where to put your eyes if you want your faith to sustain you when you go through the storm he says our eyes are upon you they're not on the armies they were when i started praying i saw the moabites i seen the ammonites i i saw them when they were coming and i was full of fear but now that i've been praying your word i got my eyes on you and when he got into that perfect position of faith with god then the spirit started moving and the spirit of the lord moved upon the prophets and one of the levites stood up and began to prophesy one of the one of one of the great priests stood up and and began to prophesy a word of the lord you see when you take the word and you get into prayer with the word and you begin to remove what the world is bringing your way and you only see the lord and get your eyes on him and get to praying the spirit of god gets stirred up in those situations and has a word of the lord you can stand on and here he'd been quoting the lord his word back to him said are not you this and aren't you this and didn't you do this and didn't you promise this and all of a sudden god said now i'm going to give you a very specific word for your situation and you may need to get in there and just pray the word and take the word of the lord and it may not seem like much has happened you stay after it because if you stay after it long enough the spirit's going to get stirred up when you begin to pray his word to him when you begin to put his word back to him god's going to get to moving in your life huh and then he looked at that situation that jehoshaphat was in and he said listen jehoshaphat i got a very you've been giving me a general word from my bible you've been talking to me what the torah said and the prophets have written and and the worship music's been saying that that they wrote about but now i want to give you a word of the lord very specific and i tell you may not have a specific word of god in your trouble but if you'll take the word god has given you and be given to give it back to him in prayer god will develop a word that will meet the need that you are going through and bring you out of that trial and that situation oh hallelujah and these men one he he just kind of lived in the spirit david he was too young to have any you know he just didn't just wasn't worried about what he saw because he was so in tune with god the other was a king you know what that means that means he had to he couldn't stay in prayer and fasting all day long he had to manage the kingdom he had to do politician stuff he he had to do supervision stuff he had to he had to he had to judge over this and he had to run the court system of the country and he had to make sure the finances were there and and he's going through all of this but what he did have put into him was enough to know where to go when the trouble came and he went to god and he brought god's word to god and he set our eyes i got my eye i got my focus back i'm all right now lord i was getting a little worried that i was scared what we was going through i didn't know but now that i've been quoting your word and i got focused on you it's all right and god starts moving and says not only is it all right but i want to tell you the end from the beginning right now i'm getting ready to give you a very specific word for the the children of judah that you've been shepherding over from me because you've sought me and you brought my word i'm giving you a special word now i want you to go out there and this is what you're going to do and i will be with you and you will have the victory i want to tell you the word of god will produce victory in the storm [Applause] hallelujah let's go to another passage of scripture let's go to luke chapter 7 if we would i'm working on the faith of this church i'm working on our faith today and others that may be watching uh not just our church that watches because that's part of the church i'm working on but people that we're in a we're in a time where faith is under siege the people of god are under great attack to destroy their faith but i know what counteracts the attack of the enemy it's called the word of the lord it's called the bible it's called thus saith the lord and you get in a situation you take this word and you go after those things this thing works there's power in the word of god and it is the builder and the developer of our faith now this is the story of the centurion i preached from it many times and i will preach from it a whole many times more now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience we're at luke 7 of the people he entered into capernaum some some of you in fact several of you have been to tours of israel you have been to capernaum so you just picture that uh where that synagogue is at where the house of peter where they built that catholic shrine over supposed to be and then that those little houses and you can kind of just see where it's at to there amen isn't nice to be able to kind of bring that all together and say you know i stood there i might have been 20 feet away i stood in that synagogue where jesus stood and taught that lesson and healed that man there's something special about that but if i'd never been i'd still believe the story if i'd never seen it i'd still believe it because i believed it before i ever saw it and then i got to see it and that just added to it it was very nice experience and so we have him in this city of capernaum and he's sitting there and he's talking and a certain centurion servant who was dear unto him was sick and ready to die so we have us we have a situation in a man's house that is friendly to israel but is not a child of the household of faith verse 4 says and when they came to jesus they besought him instantly saying that he was worthy for whom he should do this now notice they are in prayer anytime anyone approached the lord and asked him for something that was prayer i wish my prayers could speak directly to jesus in his person i have to speak to him through the spirit because he doesn't come down and manifest in person where i can talk to him like they did but it doesn't matter if he's in the spirit like we pray by faith or if he's standing there in the natural if you're asking him something and beseeching him that's a prayer because that's what prayer is you're asking a higher power a greater power than yourself to do something on behalf of you or a friend and so the ceterian as friends are asking jesus that's what we call prayer in case you didn't know some people they make prayer kind of this mystical thing nothing mystic about it it's understanding that god's able and if you can get to him in faith and ask him you're liable to get god to respond to you it's really really simple there's different types of prayer there's different ways to pray but the bottom line is you got to communicate with god you've got to communicate with the lord and talk to him about your problem if you want god to hear you and answer you and these people they said they said hey this guy is worthy that you should do this for him this guy's worthy so they're building their little prayer here for he loves our nation now notice how they include jesus in our nation you know why because jesus was born in the flesh a jew he had just told as we read in matthew i don't know if he just told but in other words he eventually told the of a woman from tire sedan he said it's not meat to give the children's bread to the dogs so he he aligned himself more than once when he talked to the woman at the well he said woman you worship at the wrong place but we jews worship at the right place jesus constantly affirmed he was a jew and part of the jewish nation and when the pharisees attacked him i was reading it early this morning when the pharisees attacked him for his disciples going through and eating the corns he talked at it and talked to him as his own and then the scripture sums up and says not only is he under the sabbath but he's lord of the sabbath and then it makes this grand statement that he didn't come to destroy but to fulfill why because he's the one that moved on those prophets to write he's the one that moved on moses to write that he come to fulfill what they wrote when his spirit had moved on him prior to his birth in bethlehem and so they're saying to him they understand he's a jew and they're saying to him hey this guy's worthy he loves the jewish people he's good to us not all the romans were good to the jews at this time in fact this guy loved us so much that he built us a synagogue now centurion was sent by the romans to different provinces and areas to work as kind of a police government over an area to represent rome to the local people that lived in that area and so many of them were corrupt or mean to the people they were sent to rule over and oftentimes took physical advantages of them and sometimes the soldiers took advantage of the people and they didn't have anyone to appeal to because they were a subject nation or they were a nation that was a vassal nation under a great power and how can they get justice and so to have someone from another nation that's been sent to rule over you that takes a liking to you and goes as far not only to be fair with you but to actually the thing that is the center of your community is your house of worship well that would preach for some of us christians christians get up and pack off and move across the country for a job and backslide six months later because they don't move to a house of worship they move to a place to make money and when you let the money drive you instead of the place of worship it's not long before you get off track i've seen people say it's bad pastor i got a job down here i understand sometimes and so but a lot of times people are actually moving because it is pressure and it's easier and it's money but if the house where you worship is not the center of your life it's easy to uproot you and move you out of the will of god that's why you need to be faithful to your church and you need to log into it you need to make sure this is home and i'm not going to move anywhere no matter what happens i'm here for the church not the state not the city i'm here because god has me here and since god has me here he's responsible to sustain me through my journey in this place anyway that part was for free let me get back to my lesson and he tells him he says he built us a a synagogue a house of worship i love this jesus went with them that's the next sentence that moved god when you give now you understand the new testament wasn't yet so the synagogue was the house of worship when you give to the things of god you will sometimes get things beside just money back i've been paying my tithes i've been paying my offerings why hasn't god made me a millionaire he's probably given you so many blessings but you're so focused on money that you forgot that god gives other things to you you see the seed that you sow financially opens doors in every other area of your life because if god got your wallet that means he got your time that means he has your allegiance there's something about somebody that is faithful giving god a tenth and an offering they're telling god you have of me and this man he wasn't even a saint he wasn't even the household and he was giving to them and jesus said i'll go anybody build a synagogue where we can talk about the scriptures unscroll the the torah on on on saturday and pull out the prophets and read the psalms and read through the bible and and train our our children and our family i'm gonna do something for them and jesus went and when he was now not far from the house the centurion sent friends to him saying unto him lord trouble not thyself for i am not worthy that thou should enter under my roof i believe i read a scripture that said god resist the proud but he gives grace in one place more grace to the humble you see he he started out on the right premise humility i'm not worthy that you a great rabbi should come into the home of a sinner i know your customs i know your laws and you're not supposed to enter into a gentile's home and and uh and i'm not even worthy of that god in christ was all ears anybody that starts with that kind of humility i gotta hear what else they have to say the guy built us a a a synagogue the guy showing humility to a teacher that's performed miracles this is some man wherefore neither thought i myself worthy to come unto thee not only my house but if i can proxy through some other jews to talk to you in other words i respect all the stories i've heard of you i never met you but there's something about you that intrigues me and i believe in you you see you've got to have the right how can i say this you got to have the right concept and faith and belief and understanding and view of jesus if you want him to do great things for you many people have made jesus so common through using his name in vain through desecrating churches calling themselves christians and living like sinners hypocrisy and there's a huge world of christendom out there that has the name but they don't have the mark they have the name but they don't have the lifestyle and the world don't know what christianity is so when you step on the scene and you live the life they may not embrace you and they may not love you and they may not be converted by you but there'll be something in the inside of their heart that will respect you and when they get into trouble and i've seen it happen many many times they know who to go to some of you at your workplaces there's a lot of christians but when a trouble you know many times they come to you because you've been living the life not just professing it with a mouth and they know there's a difference in you and they come to you and they want to get you maybe alone because they're embarrassed but they know where to go you see you you've got to have a certain reverence and respect and fear of the lord and this man had humility he had respect he had honor he believed in these people and what they were doing even though he wasn't part of it and so he gave his money and his finances and and maybe uh may let the the soldiers help in the labors i mean there was a lot of things this man was doing right and he said something god was already in christ going to heal the servant that was a done deal he was going to walk in that house walk into that room like you did jairus daughter and he was either going to take the man by the hand or he was going to rebuke it and tell him to get up he was either going to speak the word he was going to take him and speak the word and he was going to be healed it was already a done deal he was on his way but then the man says something that stirred jesus like no other conversation he had yet had in his earthly life he said i gotta hurry i mean i can get caught up in these stories these are incredibles worship in and you know you read this why it's alive you kind of it's the time machine of life you can get back in there and it comes alive and you can hear the voice and see it in and and it just is living and he said but say in a word and my servant will be healed for i also am a man set under authority having under me soldiers and i say unto this one go and he goeth and i say to another come and he cometh and to my servants do this and he doeth it this servant or this centurion understood something the jews did not jesus was a man under authority now we know that he was both god god was manifest in the flesh but he was also completely and fully human and he said i do nothing except what i see so jesus given this example of keeping your eyes in the right place see my father do and then he says something else he says the words that i speak they're not my words but they're the words of my father so we learned that if we want things to walk in the proper harmony we got to get our eyes on the lord and we got to speak the lord's words and then life is different than being just a regular mortal like everyone else on the planet and when this man said you're under authority he understood that god see he didn't understand the oneness of god like the jews but he understood they had a god and this man must be hearing from god and must be under the authority of that god he didn't know that was god in flesh and yet that was a human he he hadn't quite got that revelation nobody had yet even the prophets didn't quite understand it all and when he said that it was something touched the core of the lord you understand as a gentile that's never been in a synagogue other than maybe the dedication of it who's never probably touched a tor because the gentile hand would desecrate it you understand that i'm under the god of israel's authority and being under that authority it gives me the power to speak and if i tell that sickness to go it's got to go and if i tell that sickness to come it's got to come and if i tell this problem do this it has to do this how is it that somebody that's not of the household of faith can have that kind of faith in me and he makes this statement that should stir every one of us i say unto you i have not found so great faith no not in israel that was the church before we were the church is it that there's people out there that have greater faith in us with less knowledge than we have is it that there's people out there have a greater understanding of how god works we have less experience than we have he said oh that couldn't be it happened there they went to saturday service like we go to sunday service they read tor for seven eight ten hours a day we don't read our bible that much and here's a guy didn't do any of that but he had some kind of understanding by just observation and god said i've never seen anything like that that is great faith what's great about it the entire thing we've talked about the understanding the reverence the humility who he's under and able to speak and speak and and and to cause this to happen and that and and jesus said i've never seen anyone that understood the miraculous in the spirit realm and faith like that and he said it's done and that very hour that man was healed and he was raised up and that servant was made whole god today is looking in our hearts as his people to find great faith he wants to be the same god that we have read about from genesis to revelation and he wants to do the miraculous for you and i as he did for others through the ages he's not looking for an excuse to get away without performing and doing for us but he's looking for an invitation that he might come in and show himself to be the same yesterday today and forever that's what god is looking for in our hearts at christian life center and those that are watching online is to be your god the same as he was david's god and jehoshaphat's god and peter's god and this spire and the woman with the sick daughter he wants to be that god to us i am burdened to preach and stir and teach faith i feel that this is what god has spoken to my heart in 2019 it was the end of that year i remember we had our evangelists had been with us for a long time and it was getting time for that season to end it was a great great time with brother sanders he ministered he's still a friend of mine he's a great spiritual man doing a great work those kind of men are rare in the kingdom that is a real prince of a man and i was praying to god what i should preach what should the things i should the direction i should go starting in 2000 and i'll never forget just sitting up here as i got ready to go to the pulpit for the first time he was gone for a sunday and i was supposed to come up and i didn't have a message which many times i don't have a message to get in the pulpit but it's not that i don't study i just don't have know what i'm going to preach yet but i live in that word all the time because you have to be instant in season out of season but you can if you're not putting it in all the time you can't bring something out that's not there so i understand that principle walking in the spirit and then once that lord touches that i just start pulling all this stuff out but because i've been eating it all week long i've been absorbing it in it through the years and it's there and i'm not against having messages i have some that need to be preached every so often some lessons that need to be taught i believe in all that but i also believe in the inspiration aspect but you better not just get up and gab and blab you better have something to say bible school preachers and ministers people don't want to listen to somebody that don't have the word a real church does it anyway they want to hear thus saith the lord and i remember walking up and i remember as i was getting ready to come up the lord spoke to me and said i want you to preach faith to the people and then he give me several things that was going to happen and i made notes of them but that was the first thing he told me i want you to preach faith to the people now i have endeavored from that time to this almost every time some real plane like today and last week and then some in a roundabout way to bring faith to bring faith to bring faith and many other things that we have to have but ultimately for our faith and focus on jesus christ and then the covet hit and i just kept hammering away with faith preaching faith and faith and faith and faith and faith not always a prayer line some people think that's faith and always getting a bottle oil out and dumping it on someone that that that's a part of faith but that's not the whole message of faith but faith begins when we take the word and we get our eyes on the lord and i've endeavored to do that i'm still at it i haven't felt the release to deal with some other things and to move some other places every once in a while the lord will give me a sunday or a wednesday to vary from there looking back i i more understand why god told me what he told me the sustaining of clc with all that we have has got to always be [Music] that we have a uncommon and a unique faith in god beyond what the average christianity has i know some people may hear that and that may sound pretentious or not sound right i really don't care because i mean it in the most kindest way but part of the hallmark of who and what this church is has been our long-standing faith and relationship in jesus christ we're just as human as anyone else for anyone that may not be a member we don't claim to be anything better but what we what we strive for is to always believe against so many impossible odds and when the day is done to still have our faith that's been something that can be said of clc we are a people of faith and we're not going to change it and it comes because this word and the author of this word which is the living word is in our midst as a people and so today god is reaching to find faith in our hearts and i've given you some scripture instruction clues whatever you want to say and some stories that help us to see how we can sustain that faith i don't know what's coming in the future it doesn't matter if it's a big storm if it's a big giant if it's a big army but i know what has to happen with us we have to keep our eyes on jesus i said we have to keep our eyes on jesus we cannot take our eyes off jesus i don't know what's coming there's already been a lot of stuff thrown our way but we have to keep our eyes on jesus day by day hallelujah let's stand if we would like our musicians to come back if they would i feel the lord the lord is please how many believe in jesus you believe in the lord look at that jesus we just want to say we believe in you this morning we trust in you today you're our lord and our god as you were to thomas hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah praise god praise god praise god amen thank you if you um have a need today you could stay where you're at or you could come down to the aisle or step out in the aisle and just stand there just some kind of movement toward god to let him know that you're engaging i want you to get prepared because we're going to talk to him about those needs i know that some of you in this church and some of you watching online today you're literally at the end of the road or the end of the rope as a man my heart is a pastor of my heart which is so bad i could just fix it for you but i'm made of flesh and blood just as you are oh how i wish i could do something more than just pray for you [Music] i wish somehow i was god and could work the miracle for you i know how bad you need it [Music] but i know a god that one time wore flesh and blood to who still touched with the feelings of the infirmities of his people [Music] and i know that he's the same yesterday today and forever and that his word has not changed and that his power is still the same and what man cannot do he is well able and willing [Music] hallelujah hallelujah don't let go of your faith don't let go of your faith put your eyes on jesus bring him into focus and don't let the world get in between you and what you see in him hallelujah i want you just to reach out in your faith if you're at a level where the world and experiences of struggle and tried to steal your faith just say lord i believe but help my unbelief if you're dealing with fear i want you just to say lord your word i want to bring your word to you yeah i need a specific word of the lord but until i have that i'm just going to give you your word back to you [Music] go ahead sing if you would hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah i believe in you jesus i trusted you this morning i trust in you jesus i believe in you lord jesus today [Music] bless me [Music] me [Music] jesus [Applause] [Music] me [Music] my god [Music] every hour [Music] [Music] [Music] i need i need [Music] [Music] [Music] i [Music] let's stay down is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is let everybody lift their hands and just sing it together tell him that you need him as a prayer this morning i need you jesus come on make it a prayer this morning i need you lord this morning i need you jesus this morning i need you jesus this morning [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] monday [Music] i need to [Music] yes [Music] my [Music] day [Music] [Applause] [Music] me every night [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] jesus [Music] you

Channel: Christian Life Center

Views: 4,529

Rating: 4.9515152 out of 5

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Id: IXSgoMfn2R8

Length: 139min 35sec (8375 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021