Epistle Of James
Trusting God Completely | Standing Firm In Faith 13
[Music] Please turn your buttons for 1 Corinthians chapter 16. This is going to be the last little section of this series that we're looking at how to stand firm in your faith. I want to conclude it with this, you know, I was thinking we could do all kinds of things with this, could keep going on forever, so I decided not to. I've got something else planned following this, and I pray will bless you. 1 Corinthians chapter 16, let's begin in verse 13 again where the apostle Paul says, "Watch or keep alert, stand fast in the faith or stand firm in your faith." You know, I've been saying that for weeks, and we're still having problems with that. We need to learn to stand fast in our faith. Remember, we are in a fight. How many people know that? Okay, every minute they go, all right. And why he says to, you know, be brave and courageous and to be strong. Those are words that you use when you are in battle. Those are things that you need because you're in a fight, amen, and these verses remind us of that. And you know, this battle is fought in an unseen realm, and that's why it is completely at odds with what I call the natural order of things and what we've been taught all our lives. And that's what's so difficult because we are taught to use our five senses and measure everything and look at everything and, you know, make observations and everything else. And then suddenly we get to this place, and suddenly we are to walk by faith and not by sight. But all my measurements are in the sight, all my observations are in the sight. And that really is the battle that we have that we suddenly have to change our way of thinking. And the problem with that is God is in that realm. You know, we're talking about the spirit realm, you know, if we're not used to operating in that realm, how difficult is it to suddenly change everything that we think and trust to someone we can't see. I'm just telling you, I'm just bringing it out to you. This is the reason why so many people have so much trouble. And you know, they'll pray and then they'll say, you know, let's pray again, just in case God couldn't hear. You know, I was going to almost do a little thing with someone standing here and do a little demo for you, just to show you what this is like, but I won't. It is coming the time and we'll do stuff like that, but not today. But you know, if God was standing right here, you know, we were praying, remember, God is with you. He's wherever you are, you know, and when we're praying, he's not hard of hearing. God isn't standing there going, eh, what did he say? I missed all of that. It never happened. He hears everything we say. We might not believe that it's okay. And you know, that's the problem that we always seem to be facing. So I want to talk about trusting God today. Amen. Amen. I want to see what the Bible has to say about that and dig a little bit into that. So let's go to Proverbs chapter three. Now I did this before in a series that I wasn't happy with, so I wiped the whole thing out. So we're revisiting it now. I said I would put it in there somewhere. Well, here we are, okay? For those who have heard this before, pretend you haven't. All right. It's always good to go over things, especially if they are important. And this is one of the most important things that you can ever learn. This needs to be a foundation in every Christian's life. Proverbs chapter three, let's begin in verse five. It says trust in the Lord. Let's just stop there for just one second. Notice, it doesn't say trust in all the things that you see and everything that people say and anything that is contrary to the word of God, you know, trust in whatever. I mean, if the word of God seems to say something else, we'll trust what you see more than what it says. That seems to be the way people are wired. I know the Bible says that but, you know, there's the but. It's always getting in the way. And we need to understand that every time we seek a but in it, it's going to cause us problems. Amen. Because, you know, God's way is perfect. Whatever he said, that's going to be the way it is. And he won't change his mind for us. He won't say, oh, look, Rose, she's having a problem today. So let's change everything. So it says something else will never happen. When are we going to realize that we need to line ourselves up with what's eternal? Because 2 Corinthians 4, 18 tells us that anything we see is temporary. But what we don't see is eternal. It never changes. And if anything is going to change, it's not going to be that, it's going to be us. Amen? So notice the first, I mean, if we just stopped here, that's enough, but it goes on, okay? It begins again by saying trust in the Lord. You know, we need to meditate on this. We need to swallow this and we need to receive it and we just need to be at home with it. Just trust in the Lord, okay? Now watch, it qualifies as it says with all your heart. Did you hear all your heart? You don't subdivide. Okay? Now, Lord, you can have this part of my heart, but this part I want to keep, because I want to do some things over here, you know, okay, that's not going to happen. You trust him with all of your heart. You don't make a plan B. You don't just in case. If you do just in case, you better go totally with the just in case because if you don't trust him with all your heart, the thing isn't going to work. Keep going. I'll give you more scripture as we go, all right? And watch now, it says and lean not on your own understanding. The new living translation says do not depend on, do not depend on your own understanding. So lean not and do not depend is what it's saying. All right, don't depend on your education. Don't depend on all the experts or expertise that you might have and any advice that people might give you that is opposite to what God is saying. Did you hear what I said? Remember where men to cast down everything that exalts itself above the knowledge of God. We're meant to bring it into captivity, not let it run around everywhere. Be careful with those things because they can cause havoc in your life. You all know the word have problems, okay. And that's the thing that we never recognize that we allow thoughts to just run wild and then they start to, you know, all sorts of things begin to happen. And then we're wondering why things aren't working. Remember God looks on your heart. He knows where your heart is and he also knows where your mind is. Can I just say this? The reason you are not to lean on your own understanding. Now we know in Romans 12 and verse two that we are to renew our minds. And you know why you got to do that because it needs to line up with your heart. But can I say this while you're getting that thing lined up, you can still believe with your heart beyond your understanding. This is a hard thing to take in but just grab a hold of this if you can, okay. The Bible tells us that our heart and our mind of the two, the heart will always overrule the mind. How do you know that every single one of you got married, you know? Yeah, you know, hello, all right, I mean, what happened to my brain, yeah, okay. And then after you get married, you find it. And it says, if only you used me before, no, isn't it said, you know, you start this journey with your heart, continue it with your heart, amen, because your heart will forgive and your heart will just look over so many things. How do you know that? Because you did it before you got married. Everybody said, I don't know about this, you know, I'd be, oh, no, that's fine, it's okay, it doesn't matter. And all those things that didn't matter after you got married, oh, I just hated when dot, dot, dot, and everybody goes, we tried to tell you, we tried. But no, you wouldn't listen. But see, no, the thing is your heart was given for that purpose. It can go beyond what you can think. Listen to me, I've done this, I have believed further than my mind could manage. I know that sounds a little contradictory, but your heart can do some really interesting things. Do you know why that blesses me? Because it tells me that what you can believe for the way you operate in the kingdom of God isn't based on your intellect, amen. The genius isn't going to get more than you. In fact, you probably do better than them because the head gets in the way a lot of times. That's why Jesus said you got to come, you know, into this thing like a child without too much learning. You know, just simply trust and trust with all your heart. And don't try to figure it out. This is how you stand firm. The times that we don't stand firm is when we start to try to figure things out, when we say, you know, well, you know, if I don't understand this, I'm not doing it. And you don't have anywhere close to the information that you need to fully understand it. Get this. God sees everything. God knows everything. And he talks to you from that place. You only get to see what's in front of you, whatever experiences you have. That's all you can base your decisions on. And so if you feel led to do something that goes beyond what you think is logical, if God's leading you, do the thing because your logic will catch up somewhere and I don't know how many times I've done something just, you know, by faith, okay, just trust God. And then later on, I could see why he wanted me to do it. It made all the sense, you know, what do they say, hindsight is 2020. You can see so clearly when you look back and go, oh, that's what happened. And that, you know, that just applies to this more than we realize. I always say, trust now, figure it out later, because you don't have time to waste, okay. We're still not there yet. Okay. Let's, well, this is all a part of it. Pray that you're getting something out of all this verse. I want to get back to some of this, but anyway, verse six, it says in all your ways, acknowledge him. I'm going to look at this in some detail today. In all your ways, acknowledge him. It didn't say some of your ways in all of your ways. You know, we tend to do this. We tend to say, God, I've got this. Uh, maybe you do, maybe you don't know. Why would you want to do without God on anything in your life? That's my question. Why even go there? He said he'd never leave you or forsake you. So all you're doing is ignoring him certain times. When you say, well, I've got this God, did you get that? No. Okay. You know, he's with you all the time, all the time. Why not talk to him all the time? The little things and the big things in all your ways, acknowledge him or seek his will in all you do, and he shall direct your parts. He'll let you know. Number seven, he says, do not be wise in your own eyes. I love one of the translations says, don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Oh, I am so smart. Okay. Hey, we all do it. Says, fear the Lord and depart from evil. That's a reverential fear. And notice again that we are to trust the Lord with all of our heart. And again, not let our mind or thinking or logic get in the way of it, because that's when things go wrong. That's when the devil gets his foot in the door or here. In fact, David understood this so well that he said in Psalm 86 and verse 11, I'm reading from the new revised standard version, the NRSV on your computer, okay, it says, teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth, watch, he says, give me an undivided heart to revere your name. This is so key. He says, give me an undivided heart. In other words, he's saying, there are times when my heart is divided, and I don't want it to be. And we need to recognize that if we're going to fix it, amen, if we're going to understand how to walk in the fullness of God's blessing, if we're going to understand to walk in the things of God, the way God wants us to walk in them, then we need to understand that we can't have a divided heart. That's why it said again, you know, trust the Lord with all of your heart and don't think about it, okay, don't lean to your understanding. Don't let it get in the way. So your heart is what's so important in all your interactions with God. It's also where the power of God resides, and it can't be divided. Let's go to Mark chapter 11, let's go to New Testament here. Mark chapter 11, I want to look at verses 22 and 23. I could keep going all the way through 26, you know, there's a lot of stuff in there. I've preached in all those verses. Okay, I'm not one of those that stop at verse 23, but today I will, okay, because I need to make a certain point. I could make the same point with all the other verses. But anyway, notice Jesus, this is again following the fig tree incident. Remember, Jesus goes up to it, there's no fruit on it. He curses the thing, and you know, next day Pete runs up, checks because he wants to make sure that he isn't following a fruit cake. Somebody talking to trees. You know what I'm trying to say, okay, and so he goes and checks it. And it's, thank God, he probably went. It's dying, and it's dying from the roots because God always goes for the roots. He doesn't care about the branches and the leaves. Kill the root and the whole thing will drop dead, amen? And so he's so thrilled, and you know, instead of Jesus taking a bow, he begins and he says, and Jesus answering said to him, have faith in God, that's the beginning. The whole section begins with that statement, and we need to begin with that because a lot of times we skip over to the next one. But I want to see where it all starts, have faith in God. You need to start there because that's when all the impossible things begin to happen. Do you hear me? And then he says something very important here. He says, where do I say unto you, I'm reading from the King James, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be that removed, be the cousin to see, and shall not doubt in his heart or shall not doubt in her heart. If you say something and don't doubt it in your heart, not in your mind because your mind will calculate the size, the weight, the density, and all the stuff to do with that big mountain that's in front of you. And then it'll look at the mountain, look at itself and go, we're not moving there. That's not going to go anywhere. That's something you either walk over, go around or blow up. I threw the third one in. One where you can't do anything besides that. That's what the world says. But Jesus is saying something else here. And he says, but shall believe that where is believing? It's in the heart. He's just told you where to believe from. All right? It's in your heart. Okay? God believes those things which he says shall come to pass. He shall or she shall have whatever he or she says. But he's going to talk about prayer right after this because that's the way you pray. You say things out of your mouth and you need to believe that those things that you're saying. When you say amen, you don't go back and check to see just in case I say it again. Do you hear me? If you catch yourself in the middle of prayer that you're not believing and you wandered off somewhere, stop. Don't say amen to it. Apologize to God and start again. Okay? So many people are trying to, they weren't all there when they did it, they weren't believing anything. They were hoping you would believe, hello, that stuff doesn't work that way unless you tell somebody, unless, listen to me, unless you tell somebody, you know what pass, I don't have faith for this. But I have faith that you have faith. So you pray and I'll just agree with you and I'll just believe that God hears you. Today I need this. Today this thing is bigger than me. Are you all here? Be honest with God. Be hot or cold. Otherwise he's spitting you out. You know? I just kind of let him know, this is where I'm at. I do that with him. I don't play games with God. I don't do what some people go, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. Dear Lord, annoying, shut up. That's to myself. That's not to anybody else. Okay? Some days you got to tell yourself, okay, because we get caught up in things like this. It's, what, what, you know your confession, let me just deal with this very quickly. There are two times you use your mouth. Listen, listen carefully, don't get them mixed up. You use it to put the word in, okay? Meditating, part of meditation is muttering, which means you're speaking scripture to yourself. And then when it is in there, out of the abundance of the heart, your mouth will speak. It's no longer trying to believe something, no, that part was the meditating part. Once it's in there, when you speak it out, once it's in there and it has grown and has the power behind it, and then you speak the thing, mountains will move. They can't stay there anymore, because you just got this thing to such a place now that it's scared when you come. Do you know you are a lot bigger spiritually than you are physically? And mountains can recognize spiritual giants when they turn up. They can also recognize fakes. Do you know everything was created? Let me just take you down the road very quickly here. A God who is life in him was life, alright? A God who is life created everything. Everything responds to that. That life, all things came from there. Hebrews 11-3, I don't have it here. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, and all those things that are seen were made of things that are not visible. Everything was in this natural realm was created from something that was not seen. Get this now. So when you tap into that realm, that's the parent realm. You can take that and change things here. That's what Jesus understood when he spoke to the fig tree. He reached into that realm where everything came from, and he used what was used in the beginning, God said, and things began to happen. And when things get out of whack, God's still saying, and they get back into line. Jesus said, "Peace be still," because it was getting out of whack. And the storm ceased, and there was a great calm. He didn't just get a little better, you know, and we can kind of sail through this now. It was like a great calm means there was no hint that there was anything other than calm. Are you here? That's miraculous. That's supernatural. That's reaching into another realm, and changing and altering the course of what's going on down here. Oh that's in your heart. I haven't left my subject. Okay. I just want to show you the power of what's there. So when the Bible tells us to trust the Lord with all of our heart, it's saying this thing isn't going to work unless you trust with all your heart. And don't lean to your understanding. Your understanding will grow. In time you'll start to figure things out. In time you'll realize that if I do this, regardless of what science says, this thing will happen. And new little pathways in your brain will form. Amen. And you'll learn to do things a different way. And while people are trapped in this realm and trapped by logic and trapped by what everybody says is possible and impossible, you won't be. Well, they said this can't be done. You'll be like me. Yeah, actually it can. Just don't get in the way. I told that to somebody once. They wanted something and they said it's impossible, I said, I'll believe for you for that. Just don't get in the way. How do you not get in the way? Don't say anything contrary to this. Just hush about it. Let God do something without you. See, you are the only one that can get in the way of what God wants to do for you. You can't get in the way of what God wants to do for me, but you can get in the way of what God's trying to do for you. I'm standing there, sweetheart, and I'm believing with all my heart for you. Don't get in the way of that and then blame God for what you didn't get after you complained that it was impossible and it's never going to happen and I don't know how it's ever going to happen. I know the guy prayed, but gee whiz, look at the size of it. Walk by faith and not by sight. Now, again, your heart is of the utmost importance of what God is looking at when it comes to faith and trust in him. Accordingly, in his commentary, William McDonald writes this, he says in relation to Proverbs 3, Proverbs 3, "There must be an acknowledgment of the Lord's ship of Christ." We really need to start here. "There must be an acknowledgment of the Lord's ship of Christ, not the Lord's ship of intellect or reason or any of those things, the Lordship of Christ." In all your ways, acknowledge him, meaning every area of our lives must be turned over to his control. Did you get that? Everything needs to be turned over to him. We must have a single pure desire to know his will and do it. Okay, this is a huge problem. Our desires are on pure. It's kind of like, "Lord, I want to know your will, but if I don't like it, can we do something else? Can I get a fourth opinion?" Even if they threw them up there, they all agree. And a lot of times people are looking for that fourth opinion. And sadly, on this planet, there are some preachers that will give you a fourth opinion. That's not God. The Bible talks about it all over the place. Talks about prophets leading people astray and saying, "Yeah, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine," and sending people off to their destruction. Don't look for that fourth opinion, because it won't be God, it'll be something else that we'll give it to you. Let's keep going. So we must have a single pure desire to know his will and do it, not just to know it. Okay? You know, sometimes you find out what God's will is going, "I have no phone to do that." It's not comfortable, Lord, it didn't suit me for whatever reason. Wrong time, wrong situation, wrong something, it just, yeah. Can we hold off on that? Well, I do want your blessing now and later. It's all about you. Do you know, I said something to my daughter yesterday. She asked for help with something and, you know, always say yes. And so I had a lot of stuff on, okay, but always I just follow whatever God wants, you know, and the Lord speaks to me and that's important. And so I said, "Sure, I'll help you." And do you know what? It helped me. I won't tell you what, but this has happened so many times. You always think you're helping somebody else and, you know, God's saying, "Go help them." You would have said, "I am so busy." That's right. "I don't think I'm going to get any sleep tonight." Well, I got two hours. Hallelujah. But, you know, it was one of those things that was a lot on and I could have said no. But God said, "Yes." I said, "Yeah, okay, sure. Let's do that." And you do it with a good heart. You don't do it with a, "Mum, let's go, let's go, let's go." You know what? Just don't do it, okay? Whatever you do do with a good heart, please, otherwise you lose out on your blessing. So, you know, I just went along and praised God. I found an answer to something I was looking for and got blessed out of what I was helping her with. Don't lean to your own understanding, amen? Find out what his will is and just do the thing. Unnegotiate. If these conditions are met, the promise is that God shall direct our pods. Did you get that? If you meet these conditions, if you seek with a genuine heart to know what his will is and do it, he will guide your steps. I mean, he will make sure, please hear me loud and clear. He will make sure you don't do the wrong thing. I mean, you could be putting your foot down and he'll move it. Whoa, I'm facing another, okay? He will do that for you. But only if you trust him with all your heart, if you don't have a divided heart, because your heart will move your steps back to where it wants to go as opposed to where God needs it to go. I don't know, you know, the number of times before I understood this, that I would sort of go, okay, I'm feeling strongly, come on, okay, everybody can relate to this, I'm feeling strongly to go in this direction, but it doesn't suit me, so I'm going in this direction. And so I've gone in that direction, knowing that I should have gone over there. And it didn't work. Surprise, surprise. And now it's just like, sorry God, sorry God, sorry God. Let's fix the problem that has come out because I went the wrong way, hello. And now there's damage, you know, what do you call it? Damage control, that's what I was looking for. It needs to start happening now, because it's just like you messed up, dude. If you went the right way, if you listened and you just went where God told you to do, it would have been good. Please don't think I'm talking to people here and hammering down on you, but those little things that you hear that God's giving you, listen to them, amen? He so wants to bless you more than you know. He may do it through the Bible, through the advice of Godly Christians, through the marvelous converging of circumstances, through the inward peace of the Spirit, or through a combination of these. So he'll do it whatever way he needs to. Has that happened to you? You started going in a certain direction and somebody says I've had you on my heart and I'm really feeling like, "Baba-ba, that's God trying to talk to you." Because you're kind of going in the wrong direction. Some people have trouble hearing, okay? That doesn't mean that God won't get the message to you. Keep your ear to God. Even if you say, "God, I'm going this way and I can't tell it all whether it's you or not," somebody, somebody will turn up, somebody will say something to you, a sign will appear, a board will appear, a commercial will come on your radio, something will tell you go another way. And when you hear it, listen, if it goes off in your spirit, dude, that's God, amen? You know what? I have to tell you these things. It can, some people just don't get it, anyway, so, and praise God if you're getting it, hallelujah. But if we wait, he will make the guidance so clear that to refuse would be positive disobedience. To get, we drop out of something, oh, no, we're good, okay. Did you hear what I just said? He will make the guidance so clear that to refuse would be positive disobedience, I love that. Do you know why? God is not going to be held, if you pray, God is not going to be held responsible for your mistake. Did you get what I said? So let me just finish with this because I've so gone over time. Let me finish with this, we'll pick up next week. If things are going wrong somewhere, check on your heart. Don't blame God. Check on your heart and be honest. Please be honest. You really need to know if there's something inside of you that's divided. Are you all here? Be really careful that there isn't a division in your heart that you're unaware of and it's causing you all kinds of problems. What happens if I find that division? What happens if I acknowledge, like, see it? Well, acknowledge a thing. If we acknowledge our sin, it's faithful and just to forgive us of us sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then you are in a place of perfect righteousness before God. You're in a place of sinlessness before God. Did you know that? If he cleanses you all unrighteousness, it means there's nothing to be seen regarding the mistake you made. And so you're free and clear to move perfect before God in the direction that God has sent to you. And the devil can't touch you. He'll use your memory, but you need to cast down that imagination because it's exalting itself against 1 John 1 9, the knowledge of God, which says he is faithful and just. He's not only faithful, that he will watch over his way to perform it, but the justice of God, that Jesus Christ paid the price, it was paid in full, that justice demands that you be forgiven and cleansed. So Satan can't fight against that. It says if Satan knew he would never have crucified the Lord of glory, but he messed up. Okay. And so Jesus died on our behalf. And so we exchange all of our unrighteousness for his righteousness. Amen. What do you think that's worth? Wow. Own the store, man. You own the store. You don't have to buy nothing. It's all yours. Let's leave it there. Let's have a read about it. We thank you today for your word and we thank you father, but you help us in standing firm in our faith to trust you. This is one of the most powerful things that we can do in learning to stand firm. And father, we just thank you that as we learn more about this, as we grow in this area, that the enemy just has no way of deceiving us, regardless of how subtle he may be, that we decide, Lord, to commit all of our ways to you, in all of our ways we acknowledge you, God, and we allow you to direct our paths. Now, thank you that every single individual here, father, hears that word, that it is their desire to follow after your will. It's the safest place. It's the most blessed place. Hallelujah. Let me thank you for that in Jesus' name, amen. [music] [music] [music] [Music]