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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Chad Kreuzer

Faith

I'm going to share with you a story and then I'll pray and then I'll share the rest of the message.

I'm going to be talking about faith this morning.

And I could tell you many stories of where I've been faithless.

You know, especially early in my walk coming into the faith, I would at times, you know, there would be arguments that would cause me to doubt the existence of God.

And then after growing in my walk with God, understanding maybe some things of apologetics that there are solid reasons to believe.

Over time, that issue of faith went away.

That wasn't really an issue anymore, whether there is a God.

Now, it's not even a question to me whether there is a God, but it's more about, am I right with God?

Am I walking with Christ as I ought to be?

Because the issue of is there a God, to me there's just no question.

But I can tell you many experiences of being faithless in different ways, but that issue by God's grace has gone away, but it's am I being faithful to God?

But 1 of the experiences I had with my wife before we were married, we worked together on a team doing ministry for years.

We were out in an area of Mississippi, backwoods Mississippi, just camping.

And while we were camping, we went on a walk, maybe something like, I don't know, 11, 12, 13, 14 miles.

And she helps correct me, But my wife and I were on a walk, actually it wasn't my wife, it was a friend of mine.

And while we were walking through the backwoods of Mississippi, near DeSoto National Forest, in the distance there were these dogs barking and we're out in the middle of nowhere and the dogs are probably barking at us at this point.

And so my thought was, I'll tell you, I'm not the best with dogs.

So if dogs don't have an owner and they're barking I'd rather not go by them.

And, but they were in the direction we were going and my, you know, this young lady that I'm walking with says, well let's just keep going and I said, no let's not.

And so I grabbed a stick because, you know, I've always learned, especially in the world, you've got to take care of yourself.

That's what I, you know, in the world, it was always, I never in the world thought about, even though I believed there was a God, I've always believed there was a God other than the doubting times, but I never, I never, I mean I always believed he was there, but I always took care of myself.

I didn't talk to him, I didn't ask him to take care of me, I didn't, you know, I wasn't in prayer for his help or whatever.

And so in all situations I learned you just got to take care of yourself.

And so I grabbed a stick and as the dogs were coming and they're barking and they're coming at us I'm holding the stick and I'm yelling at the dogs and They would stay just far enough away.

And I thought if they bite me I'll hit him with the stick and obviously that's not Yeah, funny, huh?

Now I wasn't you know, I'm sorry if you're I I do care for animals and I don't think you should smack animals with sticks, but if you're absolutely trying to save your life, it might be a good idea.

Well, we passed that, but the trouble is the way to get back to where we came from, you had to go through the very same area.

And while we're going back, I kept having this, it wasn't like I heard the voice of God, but I kept having this impression, throw down the stick.

Do you believe that I can actually take care of you with these dogs?

Because honestly, I was literally going through this trial and just so you know, I'm not telling you not to carry a stake, this is not, don't defend yourself against animals.

But at that point, I had this impression in my heart, you need to just let go, you need to trust me.

And I was struggling with it because I'm sitting here thinking I'm not even talking to Fadi because I'm going through this almost an anger situation because it's it's easy as a guy to just think I can control things I can handle I can do what I have to do and so I'm not really talking because I'm going through this battle this war inside of my heart And should I let go of the stick?

And finally I'm wrestling back and forth with God and in the end he typically wins unless I cling to self and finally I took the stick and I just threw it off to the side.

And so Fadiya has a stick in her hand at this point, and she's struggling, do I throw my stick away too?

And finally, she just decides, she threw her stick away, and she was really bummed later because it was a beautiful stick and She wanted to use it for carving.

And so she regretted letting go of the stick.

But nevertheless, they were coming closer to the dogs.

And my heart is racing, but I just decide, if they tear me apart, they tear me apart, what do you do?

It seemed that God has told me I got to let go of the stick.

And so we're walking and we're getting closer to the dogs and finally the dogs are coming and finally this drunk man comes out of this house and he says, you know, he just starts coming out.

Well, you know, you could tell the guy's drunk and he just before in this situation he comes out and he stops the dogs from getting us.

And I knew God had brought this drunk man out just at the right time, because he didn't bring him out before.

The dogs barked and barked, but this time God took care of the situation.

And this is 1 of the few times I can't look back on my life and just say, man, yeah, over and over I had all these, you know, I was strong in faith every single time.

Like I said, now there's not a question of does he exist, But am I walking in faith?

But before we begin, let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word.

And Father, I pray that you would increase our faith, that we would not just believe in righteousness by faith, but that we would actually experience it.

Thank you so much for being out here in nature where we can't even hear a car.

I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to us in a way that it cannot when we're in an area with all kinds of noise.

What is the first verse that typically comes to your mind when you think of the word faith?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of what?

So faith is believing in something that you what?

It's not what you think of as blind faith because it's evidence for something that you have not seen.

So faith is not just like I believe in the tooth fairy.

Well you have no evidence that there's a tooth fairy.

Well there's evidence that the tooth is gone in the morning when I put it under my pillow.

But faith is something much deeper than this blind faith that you would typically think of.

Faith is having evidence to base your belief upon.

So faith is believing in something that you have not seen, but also having a good reason for it.

If you believe in the message that we have, I believe that it is as sure that we have the truth as that God lives.

It is sure that we have the truth as that God lives.

I went through in the beginning of my faith experience, doubts, questions.

If I went to somebody and I was sharing with them about, you know, hellfire, state of the earth or whatever, and somebody had a verse, they had an objection that I didn't have an answer to, immediately I would begin to think, maybe we're wrong about everything.

You might think that's a little bit overboard.

But the reality was, is that I didn't have enough evidence.

But as you begin to grow in your understanding, you learn for yourself and your faith increases.

So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

So you can actually increase your faith by the Word of God.

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Faith

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