Inland Empire: Riverside
Transforming Faith - Audio
Good morning, welcome again to the Inland Empire Church of Christ. It's great to have everybody back in town, Teen Ministry. Amen, it's great to have the Edge Ministry back in town, the campus ministry back in town. It's great, of course, to have Mike and Libby and all those that went out on our mission planting or mission trip to the Middle East, not a planting yet, but we went on a mission trip. How many of you guys went out to the Middle East? Alright, I know we're going to hear from you guys next week, hopefully a number of you at the regional worship service out next week together with our Desert City's ministry, but it's great to have Tom Bundy back from Jerusalem. God is working in a great way, certainly we're still really filled with faith from our campus ministry conference out in Colorado, the title of the campus ministry conference was higher and certainly it lifted all of our faith much higher. And you know, I was thinking a lot about faith and I really believe none of us want to stay the same in our lives. We all want to make changes, right? We don't want to feel stagnant in life. We need to be growing. We need to be changing. We don't want to stay the same person. I hope you don't want to stay the same person. I hope you want to grow in the likeness of Jesus. Amen. And with that in mind, I started thinking our theme for the year is a great thing, you know, transformed. And what we really need is a transforming faith. And I want to share a story a little bit about the power of true belief and true faith. And it's a story that was told by a college student. So I'll read it from his perspective. He said in college, I was asked to prepare a lesson to teach my speech class. We were to be graded on our creativity and ability to drive home a point in a memorable way. The title of my talk was the law of the pendulum. I spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is a pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released because of friction and gravity. When the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings, it makes less and less of an arc until finally it is at rest. The point of rest is called the state of equilibrium where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal. Our physics majors would, you know, agree. Yes, that is correct. The law of the pendulum. That makes sense. I attached a three foot string to a child's toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard in the class with a thumb tack. I pulled the top of one side and made a mark on the blackboard where I let it go. Each time the top swaying back and forth I made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When I finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard proved my thesis that the pendulum when it started here would go back and would never swing past where it began. I then asked how many people in the room believed the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their hands and so did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun. Hanging from the ceiling ceiling beams in the middle of the room was a large crude but functional pendulum. 250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500 pound test parachute cord had been attached to the ceiling so that it would act as a pendulum. I invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a cement wall. Then I brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose with some help. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face I once again explained the law of the pendulum that he had applauded only moments before. If the law of the pendulum is true then when I released this massive metal it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger. After that final restatement of this law I looked him in the INS sir. Do you believe this law is true? There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered yes. I released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arched across the room. At the far end of its swing it paused momentarily and started back. I never saw a man move so fast in all my life. He literally died from the table, deftly stepping around the still swinging pendulum. I asked the class does he believe in the law of the pendulum and everyone unanimously answered no he doesn't. True faith is a transforming faith and allows us to stand in the face of fear because we know what our faith rests on. True faith transforms us. Turn me to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews 11 we find one of the greatest passages in all the world on what real faith is. We're going to draw today from this text and go back and look at the Old Testament where the writer of the Hebrew letter gained his insight from the book of Genesis. Let's read together Hebrews 11 verse 1 through 7. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man when God spoke well at his offerings and by faith he still speaks even though he is dead. By faith Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death. He could not be found because God had taken him away. For before he was taken he was commended as one who pleased God and without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. By faith Noah when warned about things not yet seen in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. We need a transforming faith in our life because none of us want to stay the same. Even if your life is awesome right now give it a week and what you feel is awesome you know I got to keep growing I got to keep changing I got to keep transforming. God made us to want to keep changing no matter where us some of us are going through some difficult times and we are like yeah I need to change we need transforming faith and that is God's intention for all of us. You see without faith it is impossible to please God. Without a real faith a transforming faith a faith that is more than words but it is one that will live be lived out in your life. You cannot please God. You know he says those who have that kind of faith they believe he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. We need to put our full confidence in who God is in his word and what it means to have faith in him we need a transforming faith to change us and we got to all keep changing. To the day we die we got to keep being transformed into the likeness of our hero which is Jesus Christ amen. So I want to make three main points on this transforming faith and I want to go back to the Old Testament to Genesis let's go to Genesis chapter four and we are going to look at the three different patriarchs that were mentioned just in those first verses here of Hebrews. We need a transforming faith and the first one we find in Genesis chapter four is the faith of Abel. Let us go there and we are going to begin to study that. My first point is a faith to worship. A faith to worship transforming faith is a faith that really worships in the way God wants. I want us to begin to read there in Genesis chapter four verse one. He says Adam lay with his wife Eve and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said with the help of the Lord I brought forth a man. Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil in the course of time. Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord but Abel brought fat portions from some of the first born of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right sin is crouching at your door. Cain desires to have you but you must master it. Now Cain said to his brother Abel let's go out to the field and while they were in the field Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain where is your brother Abel? I don't know he replied am I my brother's keeper? The Lord said what have you done? Listen your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Let's stop right there. A face to worship. You know what is interesting here as we come upon you know the sons of Adam and Eve. You know the scriptures nowhere in Genesis mentioned that they are supposed to bring an offering to God or that there is God has a desire for that. There is no mention of a need to sacrifice. You know we hear about Cain and Abel certainly we hear about Cain and we see what he did and we see that murder that he commits right there. But you know what is interesting is that Cain was the first man to bring an offering. You know he was the first it says right there to want to honor God or please God in some way. Yet as you dig into it and you begin to evaluate you know man does have a desire to worship God. We were made to worship God. Sadly though even as you look in the text it seems clear especially in retrospect as you see what he did in response to how his offering wasn't accepted that his motives were probably more to please himself even in his worship of God. See often our interest in God is the self-is interest. You know he was a farmer says he worked the soil and he needed rain and he needed the sun and he needed the soil and he needed things outside of his control to produce a crop. And so he thought you know I'm going to give some kind of offering. I'm going to give something because I'm hoping I'll get something in return. You know he expected something. It's kind of clear though that he expected God to repay him. He was thinking you know my worship. I don't do something because I need this for my own sense of self-esteem. My sense of I'm the first son. I need to have success in the work that I do. And there's something outside of my control maybe if I give a little something here I'll give a little something in return. And he finds a God that is not really interested in the offering itself but in the heart of the one who offers. And since his motives were selfish he didn't give his whole heart. You know see God is not interested in religious service. He's not interested in dudes and don'ts. You think about other texts in the Bible you know Psalm 51 as David is reflecting on a sin he says you know you know you do not desire sacrifice. You know the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit. A humble heart willing to surrender itself to its creator. A trusting heart that's not looking for something in return but just looking for a relationship. You know in Cain is really he's all too like we are. Wanting something in return. Right one little summer you know why do we worship God what brought you out today was it duty. Was it cause you had to. Was it cause you've been conditioned to do it. It's scary to me as I reflect on Cain that he's very much like myself. His self esteem caught up in in how he accomplishes things and doing things so that he can get something in return. And then what happens is he doesn't get the favor of God right he doesn't get the blessing. God didn't look upon what he did with favor. Although God you know later comforts him and says hey you know come on. He does want to encourage him and say if you do what is right come on if you do what's right things are going to work out for you. But he didn't get what he wanted. He didn't get what he thought he deserved. And he got mad. And decided you know I'm going to take revenge. I didn't get what I wanted. Things didn't go the way I planned them to go. So I'm mad now. I deserve this. I gave you something. We're like that aren't we. As Christians. As men and women that want to serve God we can be just like that. Things don't go the way we want. Well then I'm quitting. Didn't go the way I wanted. I didn't get held up enough. I didn't get praised if nobody recognized what I did. I'm quitting. I'm moving. I'm going somewhere else. We have within our minds a sense of self-esteem that's based upon our own standards. And the higher we see ourselves the more we think we deserve and then when we don't get it we get mad. We are very much like Cain. And God wants us to look past him. He doesn't need a thing from us. What he wants is a relationship. What he wants is our heart. And of course you see the example of Abel. We read there in verse four of Genesis 4 that he brought fat portions from some of the first born of his flock. And you know when I read that and then I thought fat portions and I always think of I like steak. I don't know about you but I like some good steak. You know a good T-bone steak or a good you know New York part of it and especially get that T-bone with a big part of the fillet on the other side right. You want that. I love steak. But you know on the New York part of the steak there's always that big layer of fat on the side. You know that part. So when I read this text I thought he gave the fat. That's a part I cut off. Now you look more in depth into the actual you know the Hebrew wording right there. You find that the word fat it doesn't mean the same kind of fat. The concept there that the Hebrews would have understood is the good portion right. The choice parts and other versions of the Bible use the term the choice parts. The filet mignon of the best and most healthy part. You guys with me. That's what he gave. That's what he gave. The choice parts. Do we give our very best. God look with favor on Abel and says I love the way you pray to me. I love the way you worship me. You know I hope that's how we can feel in our in our days. I hope on your way to church you can sing in the car with your kids and just say you know what God favors upon us. I hope you can pray regularly with your family. Just feel the favor of God upon you. God wants to look upon us not for all the things we do but because we give him our whole hearts. See God is looking at us and thinking he sees the heart. Remember the story we read it often times even in our offering talks about the widow who gave her last penny. And when Jesus who loves was not the penny but the heart. Everything she had. God's looking at our hearts. Do we give God our very best. Our heart. Our mind. Our soul. Our strength. Our best time. Our best talent. Or do we give our best to all the distractions in our culture. And American culture has a lot of distractions. All of us got to pay our bills. All of us got to have jobs. Make money. Pay your bills. And God wants us to be responsible hard working people. But they give your best to your worship of God. Do you worship God even in the way you perform your career. Everything I do I do it to the glory of God. Do you say that to yourself? On a practical basis. You know life gets tiring. It's so easy to cut corners and what we perceive to be our offering. You know Cain right there. You know he gave some he gave some some of the fruits. But he but he maybe didn't give us best. He gave something but he didn't give us best. And see God is asking us to have a transforming faith that calls us to give our best talent. Our best time. Our best energy. Our best effort and responsibility. Does your faith make you bring your best to God. It comes out not just on a Sunday morning. It comes out every day of the week. You know do you do your best when it comes to finding somebody of the opposite sex. My edge and campus ministry. Is that our priority. You know a lot of times that's what we get excited about. Some of us you know we do our best just simply for education. You know I got to get it got to get my degree. And we'll give our best to that. We're like I'm tired of getting our little bees or seeds. I'm getting some A's. Amen get A's. But don't substitute career advancement for worship of God. That doesn't mean you can't worship God. You see God expects you to do what you do for his honor and glory. And at times there are sacrifices. Sacrifices of time. Sacrifices of energy. Sacrifices of mission and purpose. Do you give your best to your kids. Be of above and beyond your worship to God. You know I believe absolutely. We got to give everything we can to be the best parents to the glory of God. But it's our worship. And I want you to evaluate right now. When people say about you you're normally just feeling awesome about life because you're worshiping God. You're giving it all. Even though things aren't always perfect in your life. There's a sense of peace in you. So it needs to be more peace than us because of a transforming faith and then you know the Buddhists. Then you know then the pagans. We need to have more joy in our face because of a transforming faith that's hard before God than people that are making 10 times more money than us. Or are you stressed? Are you down? Are you feeling the wrong? I don't get I'm not getting what I deserved. I deserve more than this. See that that was the heart of Cain. When getting what he deserved because his worship the fundamental part of his worship was selfish. It was for what he was going to get. I want you to look at your worship. We need a transforming faith that causes us to give up everything and be wholehearted that we give our best to our God in our worship. Amen. You know point number two of faith to walk. Let's turn to Genesis chapter five. Genesis five let's look there in verse 21. When Enoch had lived 65 years he became the father of Methuselah and after he became the father of Methuselah Enoch walked with God. 300 years and had other sons and daughters. All together Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God then he was no more because God took him away. You know this is a really interesting passage talking about a man that was taken off the earth. We know it happened to Elijah and Jesus of course ascended. But Enoch here in the days of the ancient patriarchs what's interesting is back in this day you know the patriarchs lived a long time even though they were taught in the garden of Eden if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you would surely not live forever. God said no you'll die in the Satan said no you surely not die but yes you're going to die. And what's funny is they did live a long time they lived you know 900 years so Enoch here be 65 and the average person was living roughly 850 to 900 years or so and at age 65 he decides to walk with God. So you know in our generation that's you know we're getting up there a little bit you still got some good life ahead of you you can make a great impact but you know you're not a kid. But relative to his day that's a young age I mean that's like you live in the 900 and at 65 that's like I guess 10 years old or less or something that you're getting you know you're walking with God. Is it ever too early teens that start walking with God? It's never too early. It's never too early to start walking with God. You are missing nothing by walking with God early. I long to have met a faithful fired up disciple whose life could be imitated at 13. We're going to shake him and say wake up I got a mission for your life. God is a plan for you. Your time your talent will be used for something so much greater than American popularity. It's never too early to walk with God. You know what's interesting also it says that after he became the father of Methuselah then you walk with God. And I think that fatherhood humbles us and motherhood humbles us. And we realize two things when we become a father. We realize that one God loves us immensely because we can't help but just be enamored of our child. We almost can't express in words how much we love our kids. Those little babies that do nothing for us except we just love them. They cry and they poop and they cause problems and they can let us sleep and we can't go to the movies anymore on our own. I mean life is tough right? But we cannot put in words how much we love them. And as they grow older and older even when they're 20 years old we love them. We want nothing more every age. We just want them so desperately so desperately to do well and be okay. You know what we really wanted them to be in your God. And we realize we love our kids that much. That's how much God loves us and we're just like wow. And then we realize how little we know about being a good parent. We realize uh oh it humbles us. I need help. We love something this much but I don't want to mess it up. And we always feel like we're messing up our kids no matter how much we try not to. I mean because we know our own sin and we are going to imitate that. And so we always feel like we're messing them up. And so we go I need you God. And so Enoch began to walk with God. And that's a good thing. It's intended. I'm glad fathers get humbled and the exampleers that they begin to walk with God. We need a transforming faith that causes us to walk with God. And see walking with God means being near Him daily. It means leading your family on that walk. Family devotional. Family prayers. Bibles open in the home. Your home being used. It's just you're walking with God. People in and out of that house doing Bible studies. Hosting events. Hosting devos for the edge ministry. Hosting events for the teen ministry. Hosting events in our homes for other married couples. We just use our homes because we walk with God. And so many of you are incredible examples. Thank you for that. If you haven't used your home yet as you walk with God start using it. Open it up. If you need help knowing how to do that give me a phone call. We have a lot of events to plan in the edge and campus ministry and we will use your home. So you just give me a call if you want to use it. We got lots of plans to put into practice and we want to use your nice living room and your big backyard and your patio and everything you put in there. It's God's anyway. Let's use it. But we got to walk with God. We got to walk with God. Connected with Him daily. Is it about your time with God in the morning? Is it about your prayer life? Yes. But it's about what goes through your mind. Each day each hour. Are you walking with God right now as you sit in this auditorium and listen? The Enoch went walking one day and he never came back. God took him away. Are you willing to be taken away by God? Are you willing to be sent by wherever God wants to send you? You know, we have a great couple in our ministry, Joe and Lorian, that we're taken away. They're walking with God. They said, I'll go to Utah. They went to Utah. And guess what? Yesterday they got engaged. That awesome. And let me share some other great news. They studied the Bible. Lorian met a guy was before she went to Utah. She met a guy at the bank. She's working out a bank here in Rancho Pecamonga, who was actually from the area and was had gotten recruited to play football for the University of Utah. So when she got out there part of the mission team, they invited him out to church. He's been studying the Bible. He got baptized this weekend too. We got a football team, a football player in the church in Utah. You know, I really appreciate them. They're walking with God. We need to walk with God. Amen. My last point is this, a faith to work. We need to have a faith to work and we find Noah, the ultimate example of this, as God, God was burdened by all the evil of mankind. You know, he was moved and grieved the scriptures say, but skip with me. And God was going to put an end to all of life on earth that says in Genesis 6. But he decided to reserve for himself a remnant because there was a faithful man looking verse 7 of Genesis 6. He says, "The Lord said, I will wipe mankind from whom I have created from the face of the earth. Men and animals, creatures that move along the ground and birds of the air. For I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of God. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time. And he walked with God. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Jepheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become. For all the people on earth had corrupted their way. So God said to Noah, I'm going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I'm surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood. Make rooms in it and cut it with pitch inside and out. This is you how you are to build it. He goes on and explains it. Now skip down to verse 22. Noah did everything just as God commanded him. You know Noah found favor with God and he had a faith and even though the culture around him was just degenerate, it was a wreck. Just like our generation, it's a wreck. Look around you. It's just a wreck. Lives are destroyed all around us. Yet God reaches down into this darkness and he has a desire to light a bright light of hope in your city, on your campus, in your home, just as he did in this day. And he said, Noah found a favor? Noah, build an ark. Build an ark. What? Yeah, make it a foot, you know, a hundred, you know how big they say 450 feet long. That's a football field and a half right in size. And build it right here in the middle of land because I'm going to send rain. God said build and transforming faith says if God says it, just start working. Just start serving. Just start moving. The details will come, but get busy. Faith. A transforming faith works. It's a light. It wants to make a difference. It gets out there and makes a difference. Think about Noah. All the resistance to him working. Every tree he cut down spoke of God and shed faith. Every plank that he put up on that ark, every board he nailed in, screamed faith. Every time he took another step and built something out of that ark and nailed another night, it cried faith, faith, faith. Our work for God, it cries out, faith. Tough times. Resistance to what we stand for calls us to have a transforming faith. And I'm so excited. You know, we're going to start in the edge ministry just this Friday and I know later on in the year we're going to have evangelistic Bible talks in our edge ministry. And you know what? Evangelistic Bible talks are intended to say by faith, I believe people will come and God's word will change their destiny. And they're going to host these people in their homes. You know, the first thing I ever came to was an in-home Bible talk hosted by people who had faith that it would change someone's life. One Bible talk I came to, it changed my life. I would have not met Carrie, Kyle, and Caitlin wouldn't be around if somebody had hosted that Bible talk. There's so many things we do as a ministry. We need to have a transforming faith that calls us to work. And as we close up here and as we pray for a community, I want you to reflect on where's your faith? Where's your faith today? There was a three year old who felt secure in his father's arms as dad stood in the middle of the pool. But dad for fun began walking slowly toward the deep end, gently chanting, deeper and deeper and deeper as the water rose higher and higher on the child. The lad's face registered increasing degrees of panic as he held all the more tightly to his father, who of course easily touched the bottom. Had the little boy been able to analyze the situation, he'd have realized there was no reason for increased anxiety. The water's depth in any part of the pool was over the little boy's head. Even in the shallowess part, had he not been held up, he'd have drowned. His safety anywhere in that pool depended on dad. So it is with us and God. Let's remember the author and perfecter of our faith as we take communion at this time, Jesus. And remember our father who keeps us safe. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time to worship, to reflect on the faith that you brought through Jesus. We want to have a faith to worship you with our best. Father, we want to have a faith that calls us to walk with you every day, that our whole life is immersed in you and your ways. And Father, we want to have a faith that calls us to do deeds of service to you because you're so good, not because we earn anything, but because you're so good and it changes lives. Thank you Lord for Jesus' body given, demonstrating how to give oneself and for his blood shed to give us a new chance every day. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Sunday lesson by Steve Lounsbury