Hope Church LV Sermons
Not By Sight :: Imperfect Faith
How many of you would like to see God at work in your life in such a way that it could not be described in human terms? You'd like to see the activity of God in your life in such a way that humanly you couldn't even explain it. That's what I thought, right? Do you really believe God works that way today in the lives of people? You see, I think one of the real challenges that we have in our day today is we've begun to limit our view of what God can do. We read stories in the Bible of God's activity. We read stories of God doing things that can't be explained in human terms. You can't really put an explanation to it. You can't describe it. There's no reason or rhyme. It was just God did that. I don't know about you, but I want to see God at work in my life. I want to see His activity in my life in such a way that there's no explanation except God did that. How does that happen? It happens by faith. You see, God does work that way today. God does things. God is at work in the lives of His people, and sometimes God's at work in our lives in ways that aren't earth-shattering and it's small, and maybe if you're not even careful, you'd look right past it, but God still works in the lives of His people in ways that can only be explained as the activity of God, and the way that we get in on that is through the vehicle of faith. Listen to this quote by John MacArthur. John MacArthur said, "Faith is powerful. Faith sees the invisible. Here's the inaudible, touches the intangible and accomplishes the impossible." What a good thought. What a good statement. Faith is powerful, it sees the invisible, it hears the inaudible, it touches the intangible, it accomplishes the impossible through faith. You and I are allowed to experience God's supernatural divine activity in our lives. And there's no greater example of God doing something supernatural, God interrupting the course of human nature. There's no greater example of that in the Old Testament and then in the life of a woman named Sarah. If you're visiting with us at Hope, we are currently studying through a wonderful chapter in the New Testament. If you have your Bible, you can go ahead and open it to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 is a chapter of the Bible that describes men and women of God and their life of faith and God's activity in response to there being people of faith. In this series, we're understanding what it is for ordinary people to have extraordinary faith. Now, one of the questions that we answered early on and we've kind of revisited it every weekend is what does it mean to live by faith? And I want to put that question and answer back up on the screen again and I want you to read it out loud with me. I know that we've done this every weekend, but we do that by design, okay? By the time this series is over, you're going to know this statement. You ready? Here we go. One, two, three. To live life, not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in his very life in me. So far in our study of Hebrews chapter 11, we have looked at several examples of men, men like Abel and Enoch and Noah. And last weekend, we began to look at Abraham. So in Hebrews chapter 11, we come to the first woman that is listed in Hebrews 11. So Hebrews chapter 11, verse number 11. Here's what it says, "By faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life. Since she considered him faithful, who he had promised." There are three things that I want to point out this weekend about the extraordinary faith that Sarah exhibited that we have recorded for us here in Hebrews chapter 11. The first thing I want us to understand is this, through extraordinary faith, Sarah experienced the supernatural activity of God. Sarah saw God do something in her life that could only be attributed as an act of God. Only God could have done what happened in Sarah's life. Last weekend, Pastor Travis preached and he began to unpack for us the story of Abraham and Sarah. They are together. They go together. Abraham and Sarah were husband and wife. Last weekend, we began to look at the story of Abraham. But you can't understand Abraham's story without Sarah. You can't understand Sarah's story without Abraham. They're linked together. And initially, we were going to deal with them as one subject and then move on to the next set of verses. But as I was listening to Pastor Travis preach last weekend, I just couldn't get away from verse 11. I just kept reading a couple of these phrases over and over and over again and wanted to come back to this verse and really unpack a little bit more of what's here in these verses. One of the things you may not know, there's a whole lot that gets left on the floor of our study every week when we study to preach God's Word. When you study and you prepare and you put in the time to really extract the truth of God, there's way more information that you pull out of those verses and you can ever deliver in one sermon. So we wind up leaving a lot on the floor and only giving you the stuff that we kind of skim off the top to be able to make sure that we're able to get done and get out of here and get you home before Monday morning, right? So what we're going to do this weekend is digging a little bit deeper into these verses that we looked at last weekend and we understand the story of Abraham and Sarah. Now Travis told you last weekend in Genesis chapter 12 that God gave them a promise and he did. God gave them a promise and it was twofold. Now what we learned last weekend was the promise of land. God promised them a place and he said to Abraham and Genesis 12, I want you to leave your country, I want you to leave your people, I want you to leave your home and I want you to go to this place. Now the kicker was he didn't tell him where. He just said go and he said you'll know you're at the right place when you get there. Now that's a difficult way to take a journey but that's the way Abraham, he had to step out in faith. God didn't tell him where he was going to send him. He just said he was sending him, pack your stuff up, start heading this direction when you get there, I'll let you know. But there was a second part of the promise that God gave to Abraham and Sarah. It was not just a place, it was a people. You see God promised them also beyond land, beyond a place, God made a promise that he was going to make of them a great nation, a great people and through that people, through that nation, God would send ultimately the Messiah, Jesus Christ would come through their lineage. Let me show it to you. Genesis 17 verse number one, I'm going to put it on the screen if you don't have a Bible can turn over there. Genesis 17 verse one says now when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am God Almighty. Now you may want to take note of that, we're going to come back to that a little later on, I'm going to mention it again, but that's a pretty good way to begin the promise. I am God Almighty. When God Almighty says something, you've gotten a promise from a good source. Amen. I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. I will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly. Abraham fell on his face and God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. Or I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. Now skip down to verse 15, then God said to Abraham, as for Sarah, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarah, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and indeed I will give you a son by her. And I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations, kings of peoples, will come from her. Now if you read that and you miss the opening line, you don't see the supernatural nature of what we just read. The opening line was when Abram was 99 years old. The surrounding context tells us that when Abram was 99, Sarah was 90. So here's a promise to a 99 year old man and a 90 year old woman where God says, I'm going to give you a child. You're not going to just have a child, you're going to begin to give birth to a child that will become a mighty nation. He says to Abram, I don't want you to introduce yourself any longer as exalted father. I want you to begin to introduce yourself to everybody as Abraham, father of a multitude. You imagine how embarrassing that would be at 99 years old with no children to introduce yourself as, hello my name is Father of a multitude. Now what Hebrews 11 tells us is, by faith Sarah received the ability to conceive beyond the proper time of life. And let's be honest, if somebody told you this story, anywhere other than church and used any name other than Abraham and Sarah, your response would not be amen. Your response would be what mine would be. Have you lost your mind? If you opened the newspaper the Sunday morning Las Vegas review journal, if you open it up tomorrow and on the covers of a 99 year old man and a 90 year old woman holding a brand new baby that was born down here at St. Rose Hospital, that's going to raise an eyebrow. That's not normal. That's not the way that things normally happen. You and I hearing that story in any other context would say what? Impossible. Let me remind you what Jesus said in Luke chapter 18 and verse 27. The things that are impossible with people are possible with God. Let me ask you a question. Do you have some impossible situations in your life? Do you have some circumstances in your marriage, some circumstances with your children, some situations with your job? Do you have some situations and circumstances in your life that appear to be impossible? Listen to this quote by William Barclay. I love this. "Men spend the greater part of their lives putting limitations on the power of God." Faith is the ability to lay hold on that strength which is made perfect in our weakness. That grace which is sufficient for all things in such a way that the things which are humanly impossible become divinely possible. With God all things are possible and therefore the word impossible is a word which should have no place in the vocabulary of a Christian. Nothing is ever impossible with God. By faith we are able to lay hold of God's promises. By faith we are able to see God do things in our lives that cannot be explained in human terms. Let me tell you a couple of things about Sarah's extraordinary faith. Number one, it was an active faith. Extraordinary faith is an active faith. The Bible says by faith Sarah received. The word received there is a word that literally means to take or to lay hold of. You see it's faith that is the vehicle by which you and I lay hold of that which is mine as a child of God. Faith is the way I appropriate God's promises into my life. When God promises I must step out in faith. The Bible, the Word of God, think about all of the promises in this book. Think about all the things God says about you and God says about me. I appropriate those things. I lay hold of those things by faith. Let me say it this way. God didn't just put a baby in Sarah's womb. Abraham and Sarah came together as husband and wife in faith that God would do what he said he would do. It was an active faith. She received it. She laid hold of the promise of God and took active steps to clean God's promise. Same thing is true in the story of Abraham. Abraham stepped out in faith. God told him to go to a land of promise. Now, God didn't just pick him up and drop him down there. Abraham had to take one step, then another step, then another step and every one of the steps on that journey was a step of faith. He didn't have all the answers. It seemed impossible to him. He didn't have all the direction. He just knew what the next step was and he stepped out in faith. As you read in the book of Exodus, the story of the children of Israel leaving the land of Egypt. They got down there to the Red Sea. Have you ever read that carefully? God told Moses to raise his staff up over the sea. When the children of Israel got to the Red Sea, God didn't just part the water. You know when the water parted? When Moses raised his staff. You know what that took? Faith. It's not every day Moses had seen somebody hold up a staff and an ocean split, right? He'd never seen that before. How did he have confidence? I bet some of them thought, "Man, here comes this army. We got water in front of us and Moses holding up his rod because he lost his mind." What was that? It was active faith. He was taking the step that God had called him to take. It may not have made perfect sense to everybody, but Moses had heard clearly from God. In the Old Testament story of Elijah and the widow and her son, you remember that story? It's in 1 Kings chapter 17, Elijah comes into the widow's house and Elijah says, "I'm starving. I need you to make me something to eat." And the widow says, "I only have enough flour and oil in the pot for one more meal. My son and I are prepared to eat that meal and then die." And Elijah said, "If you'll make that meal for me, then God won't let that flour and oil run out." In faith, she actively took that flour and oil and she made a cake for Elijah. And then when she came back, it was full again for her to make stuff for her son and for her. And the Scripture tells us that for many days they lived and they survived based on God providing out of thin air, supernatural activity of God. That happens in our lives. Our giving is an act of faith. Most of the time when we give, it's not because, "Hey, we can afford it and we've got all this extra income." We give as an act of faith, because God said to and when that offering basket passes and I put my offering in that basket, I'm giving it an act of faith that God's going to provide in a way that's outside the realm of normality. God's going to make a way. When we worship, many times our worship is an act of faith. I understand that some of you are living in places and in circumstances and situations right now that when you walked in this building, your exaltation of God is an act of faith. We're taking a step of faith, listen, extraordinary faith is an act of faith. I don't just sit back and wait on God to zap me or drop it in my lap. I'm to obey and take the step, he's called me to take. So let me ask you a question. What step is God calling you to take by faith? Sarah, by faith, received. She laid hold of, she appropriated God's promise. The promises are true, but you must step out in faith and lay hold of those promises. What step is God calling you to take? Secondly, extraordinary faith is a dependent faith, it's a dependent faith. The Bible says by faith, Sarah received since she considered him faithful who had promised. The word considered there is a word that means to think or to reckon or to view. Sarah recognized the faithfulness of God and not because she understood all of the situation, not because she could answer every question, but because she reckoned God faithful. She stepped out in faith. Here's what I mean by that. It was not the amount or the greatness of Sarah's faith that made it extraordinary. It was the object of Sarah's faith that made it extraordinary. It was not that Sarah had this unbelievable amount of faith that made it extraordinary faith. It was the God that she put her faith in because the reality is what happened in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 11 is not Sarah's faith at work. It was the faithfulness of God at work in her life through her faith. You see, Sarah had clearly heard God's promise spoken into her life. You know what that means? That means extraordinary faith demands the ability to hear God's voice clearly and that ability is born in time spent with Him. You know the reason many of us are not stepping out in faith? Because we've waited until the moment of crisis to try to learn how to hear His voice. If I wait till the moment of crisis to learn to clearly hear the voice of God, I'm going to struggle to step out in faith. At the end of the day, what enabled Sarah to take that step of faith was because she considered the one who made the promise to be faithful. Do you know Him well enough? You see, if I'm just claiming my dream, my plan, my hope, my desire, my wants, if I'm just saying, "Well, this is what I want to happen, so I'm going to step out in faith." That is not faith. And God is not obligated to bless my plan. But when I'm stepping out and the only thing I can hold on to is the promise and the spoken word of God into my life, then it's faith. It's totally dependent on Him. It's not me trying to get God to do what I want Him to do. It's me throwing myself totally on what He's spoken that He wants to do. I gave you a quote a number of weeks ago, "I want to give you again by 8 of your tozer." Listen what He said, "Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from but stand in sharp opposition to each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing. It simply reckons upon that which is already there. Faith is a response to what God has spoken in my life. And extraordinary faith is active. It's me stepping out. It's me laying hold of that promise. It's me taking whatever that next step is, but it's also completely dependent. It's trusting in what God said and hanging on to the promise of God. If it doesn't make sense to anybody else, if it appears impossible, I'm hanging on to the promise of God. To extraordinary faith, Sarah witnessed the supernatural activity of God in our life. Let me tell you the second thing I see about Sarah. Extraordinary faith is not perfect faith. Now that ought to be encouraging. Extraordinary faith is not perfect. Go back to Hebrews 11-11. Look how it says about Sarah. By faith, even Sarah herself, he doesn't introduce any of the other characters that way. When he talks about Abel, he says by faith, Abel offered. When he talks about Enoch, by faith, Enoch was taken up. Noah, by faith, Noah being warned by God. Verse 8, by faith, Abraham when he was called. Verse 11, by faith, even Sarah. Why do you say it that way? I encourage you. We don't have time to do it tonight. We're not going to do it. But go back over to Genesis and read the several chapters surrounding Sarah's life. There is no evidence when you read the book of Genesis about Sarah that from an outsider looking in you would have looked at Sarah and said, "Wow, she's got great faith." Sarah was ordinary. I looked the word ordinary up in the dictionary. It says, "Of no special quality or interest, commonplace, unexceptional, plain." So those words sound familiar to you when you think about your spiritual journey, unexceptional, plain. Sarah's faith wasn't perfect. Sarah struggled in this journey of faith. I love that they included her in Hebrews, chapter 11. She's not a spiritual giant from the outside looking into her life. Let me give you some examples. I'll give you two. Number one, she tried to help God. We don't have time to read it. But over in Genesis chapter 16, after they were given the promise that they were going to have a child, several years went by and no child yet, and so Sarah, although she believed God's promise, she had a little struggle with God's plan. And so Sarah decided she would help God. You can read it for yourself in Genesis 16. She tells Abraham, "Abraham, I think what God meant is he would provide a child as you came in and have relations with my maidservant. God will give us a child that way and she can bear a child for us." That doesn't sound like great faith, does it? She was struggling. She tried to help God accomplish what he said he was going to do. You ever tried to help God? They've forgotten tired of waiting on God and tried to just help move things along a little bit. When we started down this road of the big journey, we were going to build a permanent campus. We began to interview different companies to help us come in and talk about, "How do you do a project like that?" Some of the companies suggested to us that as a part of the process we needed to identify all of our largest donors and have private meetings with our largest donors so that we could really help them understand our need. You know what they're saying? You just need to help God out a little bit. Just help him. If you just tell the largest donors the same thing you tell everybody else, they may not get it. You need to help God out a little bit. We chose not to do it. I'm not saying it's wrong to do that. It didn't feel right to us. Let me give you a life-changing application statement, "God doesn't need my help. God deserves my trust." I want you to say that out loud with me. You ready? Here we go. One, two, three. "God doesn't need my help. God desires my trust." Sarah tried to help God. Let me give you another example that her faith was not perfect. She doubted God. Over in chapter 18 of the book of Genesis, it'd been nine years, nine years since the promise that God had given them, nine years since this promise of this child, and God sends a couple of angels to remind them of the promise. And he says, "This time, hey, within a year, you're going to have a child." You know what Sarah's response was? She laughed. She laughed, as if to say, "Yeah, heard this one before, right." Has God's direction in your life ever seen crazy? Is it causing you to doubt? Sarah is somebody like you and me. She wrestled with it. She struggled with it. Why did she struggle? I think if we can answer that question, it'll help all of us to understand why we struggle, because I don't know about you, but I can identify a lot more with Sarah than I can with Noah. Somebody who for 120 years just stayed faithful, never questioned. There's no evidence in the Bible that he ever had reservation, 120 years, nobody responds, he just kept his nose of the grindstone, never looked back. I can identify with the Sarahs of the Old Testament and the Simon Peters of the New Testament, a lot better than I can a lot of the other people. They got it wrong as much as they got it right, and that's the way I feel sometimes. And I think if we understand why Sarah struggled, it'll help us to understand why we struggle. What had spoken to Sarah, she knew the truth. It's not like she didn't have the promise and yet she still struggled. Let me give you three reasons why I think she struggled. We're just going to walk through these quickly. Number one, her present circumstances were more real to her than God's presence. She was so overwhelmed by the reality of her situation. She had totally forgotten the promise of God. If we're not careful, we can be so consumed with our circumstances that we lose sight of the reality of his presence. Moses had led the children of Israel for 40 years. They were getting very close to the promise land, and Moses received the news at the end of 40 years that he would not be allowed to enter the promise land with the nation of Israel. There were a few battles left, and Moses wasn't going to get to take them in, so Moses spoke to them. And a lot of Bibles, the little heading, it says Moses' final or last counsel. And what Moses said in Deuteronomy chapter 31, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or tremble." And I've inserted a blank here. The blank's not in the Bible. What it says in the Bible is at them, because the obstacle that stood between the children of Israel and the promised land were these armies and these cities and these enemies that they had to face. So he says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or tremble at them." But I put a blank because I want you to fill in that blank. In your heart, what's your "them"? Maybe for you it's "be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or tremble at your health situation." Maybe it's "be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or tremble at the bills that are now laying on your kitchen table." Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or dismayed at the reality that you don't have a job. Listen what he says, "For the Lord your God is the One who goes with you." Listen to me. When that's the next sentence, it doesn't matter what your blank is. For the Lord your God is the One who goes with you. Now listen to what it says, "He will not fail you or forsake you." What's your blank? Is whatever that is, becoming so big in your life that it's more real than the reality of his presence. The second reason I think Sarah struggled is she was so focused on who she wasn't that it overshadowed who God is. Sarah became so focused on who she wasn't. She was not someone that you would expect to be bearing children. She was 90. Not only was she, the Scripture says, "past that season of life," but she'd been barren her entire life. She'd never been able to conceive. When Sarah became so focused on who she wasn't that she forgot who God is, remember how he began the promise, "I am God Almighty." Matthew Henry says that little, that title, "Almighty," refers to God as the all-sufficient one, meaning that he is a God who is enough. You see, as you look at the situations and circumstances and obstacles in your life, it's not about your ability, it's about his ability. It's not about your resources, it's about his resources, it's not about your power, it's about his power, it's not about your wisdom, it's about his wisdom. The reality is all that God is, now dwells in me, the one who said, "I am God Almighty by His Spirit," now dwells in me, and by faith, I can lay hold of who he is. I want you to compare two verses. The first one is the last phrase of John 15, 5. We've said it here a lot of times. The Bible says, "Apart from me, you can do what?" Nothing. Now, that is true, but I want you to compare that with Philippians chapter 4 and verse 13 that says, "I can do what?" All things through him who strengthens me. Yes, it is true, apart from him, I can do nothing. But the reality for you and me is I don't have to live apart from him. He now dwells in me, and by faith, I can lay hold of all that he is, and through him, I can do all things. The third reason I think she's struggling, what God spoke to Sarah didn't fit her plan for her life. Let's be honest, we all have a plan. We see our life working out a certain way. We envision where we're headed. We have an idea of the way things are going to turn out. The Bible says about Sarah in Hebrews 11, "She was beyond the proper time of life." Now the word "time," there's an interesting word, there are two words in the Greek language for the word "time." One is the word "chronos." We get our word "chronological" from it. It describes the succession of minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. That's not the word that's used here. The word that's used here is the word "tyros." It's a word that describes not time but seasons of life. The Bible here says that Sarah was passed that season in her life. She had a plan and at this season it didn't involve children. That was passed in her life. Do you trust God with the seasons of your life? Well, I used to serve the Lord in this way, but I'm at a different place in my life. You see, one of the reasons Sarah struggled was because what God said didn't fit the season she thought she was in. I've heard parents say, "Well, I can't, my child, they're just in high school, they can't go on a mission trip. They need to wait until they're, that's not for this season of life." That's what God's speaking into your life, conflict with the plan that you have or do you trust Him with the season? Let me give you the last thing and we're finished. God uses imperfect faith to accomplish His perfect plan. Listen to me, it's okay to struggle, it's okay to struggle, it's okay to wrestle. You see what God's really doing in our lives is deepening our fellowship relationship with Him. And so part of the struggle is God revealing more of who He is so that I can know Him more because when I become overwhelmed with who He is, it removes the struggle. I love verse 12, after, after He introduces her in verse 11 with even Sarah in verse 12, it says, "Therefore," now we've said anytime you see the word "therefore" in the scripture, you need to look and see what it's there for, right? Because the word "therefore" really means, because of what I've just said, now here's the conclusion I want to draw. What did He just say? He said, "By faith, even Sarah, with all the struggle, all the doubting, all the questioning, all the trying to help God, even Sarah, reached a point where she just trusted God, and therefore, there was born even of one man and Him as good as dead, as many descendants, as the stars of heaven and number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. God through Sarah and Abraham, even with all the struggles to her faith, did exactly what He said He would do. Let me give you one last scripture, Philippians chapter 1 verse 6. Paul says, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus, aren't you thankful that God uses our imperfect faith, that God invites us along on this journey of faith, and though we may struggle, and though we may wrestle, and though we may even doubt at times, God continues to draw us to Himself, where we can yield and surrender, and walk not by sight, but by faith." [BLANK_AUDIO]