How can you know if you are lukewarm? Do you have faith that will take you through difficult times? This message challenges listeners to closely examine their faith in the light of the Spirit.

<p>How can you know if you are lukewarm? Do you have faith that will take you through difficult times? This message challenges listeners to closely examine their faith in the light of the Spirit.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Beavercreek SDA Church

Felecia Lee

Living by Faith

I have my laptop up here instead of using, actually before I get to that, the main point of my sermon actually came to me when I realized I needed to use my laptop.

Can I see the hands of those of you who are Android users?

Can I see the hands of those who are Apple users?

This morning we're talking about faith, living by faith.

And I was praying, I was like, Lord, I know what it is that you want me to share and I know what it is that you're trying to teach me, but there's something called head knowledge and there's something called heart knowledge.

And heart knowledge usually comes to me through analogies.

And as I was sitting there, I have my sermon on my phone, it's comfortable and I can easily text.

My phone is started on 100%, it's already on 28% and the more that I use it is just going to die on me.

And I realize, you know, it's really nice to have an Apple and when the time really comes I cannot rely on it.

My phone cannot go half a day without me charging it.

When it comes to faith, The faith that you have may look really pretty, may be very convenient.

A lot of people might have it, but when the time really comes, will it keep you charged up?

And so that's a little bit of what we're gonna be talking about this morning.

No hate on Apple users, I still love Apple, you know, but it forces us to ask ourselves the question, when it really matters, the faith that you have, will it stay charged?

Let's pray and then we'll get right into the message.

We praise you because when the time comes, you keep us charged up.

You fill us with your power, and no matter what comes our way, you will never fail us.

Belief in the world, belief in ourself, our own strength may fail us, but Jesus Christ never will.

We need your help now to open our understanding as we open up your word.

We also pray that your command in James chapter 1 would become a reality, that we would not just be hearers of the word, but doers of the word.

Too many times, we just hear a sermon, and then we walk away, we go to potluck, we return home and go into our week not even remembering your words to us.

I pray, Father, that today would be different.

I pray, oh Lord, that our lives would not be the same because we had an encounter with you today.

So please help us to be receptive to your word.

A lot of us here might be going through difficulties, through hardships, through pains, through sorrows, anxieties that no 1 else knows about.

We might look really pretty on the outside, but we're suffering on the inside.

Sometimes those suffering can deafen our ears to what you have to say.

So silence those, and may we give you our full and undivided attention and allow your spirit to have his perfect way in us.

So if you've, as you listen and as the spirit convicts you, you'll have an opportunity to either commit your life to Christ if you haven't, or rededicate yourself to Christ.

This is 1 of those topics usually when I'm sitting in church and I see that sermon title, I zoom out because I'm like, I always hear about living by faith.

You always hear people talking about faith, pastors preaching about faith, but it doesn't really make a difference in my life.

I hope that when you hear that title it does not make you zone out.

We're gonna start this morning in Hebrews chapter 11 because when we talk about faith the first thing is that we need to know exactly what we're talking about and what it means.

And I'm going to start with a common scripture that we use to define and understand faith and try to break it down a little bit so we can make it practical in our everyday life.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And now I want you to go back into chapter 10, and we're gonna read verse 38.

Now the just shall live by, the just shall live by, when it says the just is talking about people who have been justified.

You have been declared righteous by God, despite your sin, despite your faults, because of faith in Jesus Christ, you believe in his blood, he declares you righteous, he declares you justified.

Now, whenever we're reading the Bible, it helps a lot to look at the original language or the original word, and you can easily do this by going on a website, Bible Hub, and it sort of breaks down the Hebrew or the Greek, and it gives a clearer understanding.

That word for faith, essentially, is the word for persuasion.

You cannot birth this kind of persuasion in and of yourself.

It is a gift that God gives to you, a persuasion about a particular thing.

So, 1 way that we can look at this faith or persuasion, or belief in God, belief in God's existence, his word, his character, it's like fuel.

So for those of you who have cars, or if you have a vehicle that requires diesel, Would you ever put gasoline in it?

For those who have diesel, you would not.

I wonder if it's because you ever did that by mistake.

So most of us, if we drive, we don't really think about it, we just know the car needs fuel.

We don't understand why you're not gonna put water in your engine or why you won't put olive oil in your engine because all...

Well, water isn't fuel, but oil is like fuel.

The thing is, if you have, let's say, a diesel engine, and you say, well, gasoline is fuel, so I might as well put it in there, you are going to damage your engine.

It's going to shut the power and cause great damage to the car.

Faith or belief is sort of, it's like fuel.

So you may wonder, well, what's the point if I believe either in myself or I believe in what the world is saying?

Does it really matter where my persuasion lies?

The thing is, because faith is like fuel, if you use the wrong kind of fuel in your relationship with God, damage begins to happen.

1 story that will help us to understand this, Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 to 2.

Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 to 2, it gives the brief story of 2 brothers, Nadab and Abihu.

And God, who is a holy and just God, you can't approach God any sort of way.

Just like a diesel engine, you don't want to put any kind of fuel in it, it causes damage.

And so God has specific guidelines in how people are to approach him.

1 of the guidelines he has for the priest is when you come to offer a sacra or incense, they are to use a specific flame.

And we read this in Patriarchs and Prophets, where Ellen, yeah, they're supposed to use a flame that was lit by God.

Nadab and Abihu take it upon themselves and the Bible says that they offered strange fire before God.

And in Patriarchs and Prophets, she outlines and says that that strange fire was common fire.

It wasn't the specific fire that God directed them to use.

That fire, 1 way that we can look at it is either trust in yourself, that's common fire, depending on your own strength, your own knowledge, your own wisdom to offer a sacrifice to God, to do something for the Lord.

God wasn't so much looking at weather because we get caught up in this sometimes.

We think as long as my heart is in the right place God will accept what I do.

As long as I am doing this for God it doesn't matter how I do it.

But that is not how it works when it comes to the Lord.

Nadab and Abihu were offering incense to God, not to some pagan, not to some idol, not to themselves, but to God, and it was still unacceptable because they did it in their own strength, not relying on the fire that God gave or on God's strength.

So you can either exercise, build your life as a young person, as an older person, build your life believing in yourself, your experience, your education, your power, or choose to build your life in faith in God.

And that's what we wanna break down a little bit.

So there are 3 main points that I'm going to make, or 3, how would I say it, analogies to faith, and how we ought to respond to this faith.

Faith is like the sunshine, you have to receive it.

Faith is like sunshine, you have to do what?

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Living by Faith

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Broken but Loved

1h

Jesus Friend of My Wounded Heart

The Healthy Mind

39m

Faith and Works

42m

Plenary

Pentecost Repeated

55m

Lessons from the Life of Paul

Three Years in Arabia

37m

Hostages No More

40m

The Man And His Mission

49m

Plenary

The One Thing Jesus Can’t Give You

55m

I’ll Have a Diet Pepsi

58m

Prepare to Meet thy God

4- The Plan of Salvation

1h 47m

Look Up and Live

Look Again

40m

Sound Doctrine