There are many questions you are faced with every day. We are all searching for answers
that will make a real difference in our lives. It’s hard to imagine that these answers
might be right in front of us. Get ready to discover answers in the Bible with Bayless
Conley.
Welcome to the broadcast today. We’re going into the second part of a message about what
faith is. And in particular we are looking at men and women from Hebrews chapter 11 that
walked by faith. And yet each one of them had a different way to express their faith.
We found out last time that Noah expressed his faith through preparation. God said that
there would be a flood. So without any evidence other than God’s word he prepared. And we’re
going to move on to another well-known biblical figure in today’s message. And talk about
what faith is. And I believe with this person or the next one or the next one that we discuss
you’re going to learn some keys that will help you in very practical ways to express
faith in God in your own life. And remember: without faith it’s not hard, it’s not
just difficult, it is impossible to please God.
Here’s Bayless Conley with part two of his continuing message from last week.
When you believe God’s Word that He said something is going to happen, your action
is to prepare. It’s how you release your faith.
Gloria Sutton, she basically oversees all the Answers television broadcasts that goes
out of Cottonwood Church around the world. And she has been in that position and doing
that for about 16 years… an amazing gal! Let me tell you how it started. God spoke
to Gloria’s heart about 20 years ago that she was going to be the Director of Television
Correspondence here at Cottonwood Church. No such position even existed. There was no
Director of Television Correspondence. We didn’t need one. We didn’t have the position.
She was the head over a large pharmacy in a medical center, responsible for all of it.
So she started every single day listening to the cassettes. That’s what we had then.
There weren’t any CDs or other means, but so it was cassettes. At least we weren’t
doing 8-tracks or reel-to-reel, anymore. So she listened to the CDs of the messages every
day over and over and over on her way to work, on her way home from work; during lunchbreak
she listened to the messages from Sunday and Wednesday over and over and over. And she
does that for several years. And she began saying to herself over and over, “I am the
Director of Television Correspondence for Cottonwood Church.” She said she would say
it out loud and laugh in the car by herself. And then she started getting the pharmacy
ready… getting all the files, all the documents, everything in order to hand over to someone
else because she’s going to be the Director of Television Correspondence at Cottonwood
Church. She hadn’t told another soul, but she got everything ready, trained the people
up, got everything ready to hand it over. And then she started making up little songs
about it and singing songs to herself. And I don’t know what they sounded like. I’m
not even going to try. And then after two years, she said, “I finally told my husband,
Bob, and I told my parents.” She said, “I’m going to be the Director of Television Correspondence
at Cottonwood Church.” Now she didn’t come to us and tell us that. We went and sought
her out and said, “Gloria, we’d like you to come work for the Television Department
at the church.” And you know what? She has a staff, oversees the office, everything that
happens here in the U. S., but she also oversees our correspondence centers and our offices
in eight different countries. It’s in multiple languages around the world. She’s responsible
for all of the banking. She’s responsible for… we have boards in all of those different
nations, which we have to have. We have board members there. We have correspondence in the
language of the people. There’s websites set up in all of the different languages.
Guess who is responsible for all that? Gloria Sutton is. Well, I’m going to tell you how
it started. She began making preparations. She started preparing. And if she hadn’t
prepared, it never would have happened for her.
Noah, what’s faith about? It’s about making preparations.
How long did you stay with it, Noah? A hundred years.
Okay. What is it that God has quickened to your heart? What has He talked to you about?
Have you made any preparations at all? Believe your husband is going to be saved? Have you
gotten him a Bible and had his name embossed on it yet? Or gotten an iPad with a Bible
program on that you’re going to give to him when he responds and gives his life to
Christ? Have you done any kind of preparation at all? Faith is expressed… faith is released…
it’s turned loose through making preparations.
All right, we come to another one in verse 8, Abraham. “By faith…” Everyone say,
“By faith.”
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive
as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
Abraham would tell us, “Oh, faith is about obedience. It’s about doing what God tells
you to do, even when you don’t know what’s coming next.”
In Genesis 12:1-2 it says this, “Now the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Get out of your country,
from your family, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will
make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be
a blessing.” Now when God said that to him, Abraham’s father had just died, his younger
brother had just died, and Abraham is taking care of his nephew, all while he is at the
age of 75. And God says, “Abraham, go, and I’ll bless you.”
“Go? Go where, God?” “Just get going. I’ll show you later.”
A lot of people would have said, “Uhm, God, don’t You think I’m a little old for this?
You know, I was thinking about retiring. And my younger brother just died, and we’re
just sort of getting settled in in this place, and really? Seventy-five? You are saying to
go, and You are not telling me where I’m supposed to go? No, just go. Uh, well, do
You have a map?” “No, no maps.”
“Well, a vision. Can you give me a vision? Show me in a vision.”
“No, no vision.” “Well, can you send me someone that’s
been there, and then they can come and tell me about the place?”
“No, I’m not sending anyone. Just go. I’ll tell you when you get there.”
And by faith Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going. You see, God gives you
a little light, and then He expects you to walk in it before He will give you more light.
I was probably 15 or 16 years old. I was with a friend, we’re back in the San Gabriel
mountains. We had taken our backpacks in and we were fly fishing on an upper part of the
San Gabriel River, and we were down in a place there’s no road or anything to it. It was
a bit of a wilderness area. And he and I found an old abandoned mine. It was literally a
hole that was just cut out of the granite side of a cliff. All these trees and shrubs
had grown up in front of it, and there were some old twisted tracks coming out, and we
went, “Awesome!” We didn’t even have a flashlight with us, but we had a whole bunch
of stick matches. Somebody says, “What if there’s a bear in there?” There could
have been a bear in there! “What if there’s snakes in there?” There could have been
snakes in there! “What if there’s a shaft that just falls away down through the floor?”
Well, there actually was one of those. But if you don’t go in, you don’t get the
adventure! So we lit our first match, and we walked in. And it’s, “Ow! Your turn.”
Light another match with your thumbnail, and you walk in a little farther. And when that
light’s gone… and it is inky black you cannot see your hand in front of your face.
And we did that. It took about 15 matches, and then I was glad because there was a shaft
that just went poomph! And we dropped a match down there and never saw it hit bottom. So
we lit another one and we went around that big hole, lighting these matches; and when
we’d walk in the light of that match, when it was gone, we had to light another one to
get more and to go forward. We finally got to the very end of the mine, and then we had
just a few matches to get out. We barely made it out.
But the point is: if you’ll walk in the light God gives you, He’ll give you more
light. But if you have to know everything, you will not be used very much by God. Abraham
says, “Hey, if you want to be a blessing, God says, ‘You go out to the place that
I will show you, and I will make your name great, and I will make you a blessing.’”
A great part of our capacity to be a blessing, to be used by God, is our willingness to obey
Him when we don’t know what’s up the road ahead. Has God said anything to you? You may
not get it, but you have clear direction. Friend, act on that. Abraham tells us that
is faith. That’s how you release your faith.
And then his wife, Sarah. We read about her next in verse 11:
By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when
she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.
If we asked Abraham’s wife, Sarah, “Sarah, what’s faith all about? How did you release
your faith?” She said, “Look, faith is about receiving.” By faith Sarah received
strength. And that word, strength, is the same word translated “miracle” throughout
the New Testament. “Because she judged Him faithful who had promised.” She judged Him
faithful because of His character generally and, specifically, because of His promise,
because of His word. And according to Romans 4:19, her womb was dead. But she received
by faith the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
You know, in Mark 11:24, Jesus talking about faith, He said, “Have faith in God.” And
then in verse 24… that’s verse 22. Verse 24, He said, “Therefore I say to you, whatever
things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
“When you pray,” Jesus said, “believe that you receive them.” Jesus said this
is how you have faith in God. It has to do with receiving when you pray. The substance
of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen.
Somebody says, “What’s your evidence God has answered you?”
Faith in His Word. I believe that I have received.
You know, I had a friend. He actually shared this story in front of the congregation a
long, long time ago. And I, you know, to be honest, if it would have been my story, I
wouldn’t have shared the detail that he shared. But he did. He got up and shared that
he had had this terrible skin condition in a very private place on his anatomy for like
I think it was over five years. It might have been almost ten years. And he said, “I have
been every minute, every day in absolute agony because of this condition in my private section
of my body.” I remember thinking, “You didn’t have
to share that you know, it would have been… just let them think it’s on your back. Come
on!” But he did, and he said, “Agony! For years,”
he said, “I prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing’s ever happened. I’ve been
to physician after physician. I’ve gotten ointment after ointment. I’ve gotten shots.
I’ve done everything and never got a moment’s relief.” He said, “And one day I was reading
Mark 11:24 and realized I’ve been practicing it in reverse. Jesus said, ‘When you pray,
believe you receive, and you will have it.’” He said, “I wanted to have it and then believe
I receive it.” He said, “I realized I had to receive it by faith in its unseen form
before I would ever have it in its seen form.” He said, “Something changed in me.” He
said, “I prayed a simple prayer: God, Jesus bore my sicknesses. By His stripes I was healed.
I believe I receive healing for this condition.” And then he lifted his hands and began to
thank God. Spent a little while just worshiping God, worshiping God. And within 36 hours that
condition completely cleared up and never came back.
Now if Sarah was here tonight, she’s sitting in the congregation, she would be saying,
“Amen, brother. Yeah, that’s right. Amen! Faith is about receiving.” And then I want
to look at one more person as we close. There are certainly more here, but time won’t
allow us. Let’s look at Moses. Look at verse 24 with me.
By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing
pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing
Him who is invisible.
Moses would tell us faith is about refusing, choosing, and forsaking.
Moses refused to be identified with the wrong family. He chose what family he would identify
with. He refused the temporary pleasures of sin. He forsook Egypt to lay hold on that
city in heaven.
And, you know, tonight there are only two families in this world, spiritually: Those
that are saved and those that are lost. There’s no other families. There’s only two families.
You are either in Christ or in Adam, as the Scripture says. First Corinthians 15:22 says,
“In Christ all are made alive, but in Adam all die.” Every one of us when we are born
into this world, we are made part of Adam’s family. He was the fountainhead of the human
race. Everyone in the world is part of Adam’s family. The only way to get in Christ is to
embrace Him as Lord and Savior. You are in one or the other. And Moses made a decision.
He refused and he forsook some things, and he chose the right things.
But, friend, let me tell you: Though following Christ means you have to make some pretty
major choices… you have to refuse and forsake some things. But nothing compares with the
staggering beyond comprehension blessings that God has laid up for those that love Him.
There is no comparison whatsoever. I’ve got my eye on that invisible city. It’s
invisible to me now, but one day faith is going to turn to sight. I’ve got my eye
on the coming reward. I’ve got my eye on that city that doesn’t need the sun to light
it by day or the moon by night because the Son, He is… the Son of God is the lamp and
the light thereof. This life is a blip on the screen, my friend. It’s here for a moment
and then it’s gone. It still… I know I say this a lot, but it freaks me out. I’m
61 years old. How did that happen? Weird! And I don’t feel like it in my heart; but
when I look in the mirror, I get confirmation every time. And so I want to choose the right
things and forsake the wrong things and refuse the wrong things.
And then we look at verse 28,
By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn
should touch them.
Of course, that Passover was a type and a shadow of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for
us. The Bible says in First Corinthians 5:7, “For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed
for us.” That sacrificial lamb that was slain in Egypt and then they put the blood
around the door, when the angel of death passed through Egypt, it had to pass over the homes
where the blood was on the door. That’s where the word, Passover, comes from. And,
friend, because my heart has been covered with the blood of Jesus, spiritual death just
has to pass over me. I am off limits. In fact, let me show you how off limits we are once
we accept Christ. Look at the very next verse:
By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting
to do so, were drowned.
When Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his army, they were drowned in
the Red Sea. Once you embrace Christ, when you are washed in the precious blood of the
Lamb, listen to me: The devil has no more authority over you than Pharaoh did over Egypt
once he was drowned… than Pharaoh did over Moses after Pharaoh was drowned in the Red
Sea. Jesus came that He might destroy the works of the devil. I don’t ever worry about
the devil. Great big God, little bitty devil, he’s a defeated foe. I’ve been transferred
out of the kingdom of darkness, placed in the kingdom of God’s dear Son. I’ve been
given authority in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah!
Won’t you bow your heads, close your eyes just for a moment.
Heavenly Father, thank you that You have put faith in our hearts. Now we know it’s up
to us to develop it, to grow it, and to exercise it, to release it. We know You are good. We
know You are merciful. We thank You that there is not the slightest variation of changing
with You, but only good and perfect things come down from You. So, God, we have an underlying
confidence that You will care for us. We thank you for those specific promises. And we’re
not just going to be like the demons that believe and tremble. We are going to believe
and give; we’re going to believe and obey; we’re going to believe and prepare; we are
going to believe and receive; we are going to believe and walk with You; we are going
to believe and refuse and forsake and choose; we’re going to have actions that correspond
and cause our faith to move towards You for we know that without it, it is impossible
to please You. I speak a blessing over Your people tonight.
Just for a moment, if you’re here and maybe you’ve never made your peace with God, you’ve
never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the Bible says that through His precious blood
that the sin of the world was atoned for. He died as our sacrifice. As He hung upon
that cross, suspended between heaven and earth, God poured out His wrath against the sin of
mankind because God is a righteous God and there is no way that we could come into relationship
with Him unless He judged our sin. And so He sent His Son to be our one and only substitute.
Jesus willingly died for you, and the way has been made open for us to come to God.
And the Bible says if you believe in your heart God raised Jesus from the dead, confess
Him with your mouth as Lord, you will be saved. If you believe that in your heart, the way
to release your faith is to confess… confess the Lordship of Christ.
Now I’m going to lead you in a prayer to do it, but you need to do it to others after
this moment. You need to tell people what you’ve done. Make it public. No secret-agent
Christians. Right now everybody in the house just put a hand over your heart. God is well
aware of what you’re doing. If you believe He’d hear you if you started cussing and
blaspheming right now, believe that He will hear you as you say this prayer to Him. Say
it with confidence. Tie your heart around the words. Say,
O God, I come to You right now and with my heart I believe. I believe Your Son, Jesus,
died upon the cross and took away my sin. Jesus, I believe You’ve been raised from
the dead and I make a decision right now, one that will change my life forever. I confess
You as my Lord. I submit my life to You completely. Thank you for washing me clean and giving
me a fresh start. Amen.
Stay tuned at the end of the program today for a special inspirational thought from Bayless.
Well friend, I’m glad that you joined us for the broadcast and sat through that invitation
at the end. I hope that if you’ve never accepted Christ before that you prayed that
prayer and invited Him in to your life. And I realize, in fact, I had the sense just actually
standing here as I’m recording this that there is somebody watching me that’s like
“Well hey, if God’s listening to me then why hasn’t He answered my prayer?” Listen,
God has heard you and this is Him. And I don’t say that presumptuously but I just sense like
the Holy Spirit is telling me to say this: He is answering you now; He sees you; He’s
talking to you; Yes, He knows the situation of your life; He knows that heart-felt prayer;
And He is interested in you. Look for His answer to come on the horizon. Now friend,
if you don’t join us regularly I would encourage you to tune into the broadcast. I think God
has some great things in store because we are getting into His great Word. And it always
produces great faith. That’s what the promises do. So join us next time and we will see you
then. God bless.
And now here’s Bayless with an inspirational thought you can apply today.
I´m in Zurich, Switzerland right now and behind me is a church with the largest clock
face in all of Europe. It´s even bigger than the clock face on Big Ben. An amazing work
of men´s hands. And you know, the Bible speaks a lot about works. Even in the book of Ephesians
we´re so familiar with, in the second chapter, that by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourself. It´s the gift from God, not of works lest any man should boast.
So, salvation is by grace through faith, not of works. By grace through faith plus zero
is the formula for salvation. But yet when you come to the book of James,
James seems to say something quite opposite. He said: Someone will say, you have faith
and I have works. Show me your faith without your works and I´ll show you my faith by
my works. And some people have even felt that the book
of James is not inspired, it doesn´t belong in the Bible because James basically seems
to be saying that works are necessary. But you need to realize: Paul when writing to
the Ephesians is looking at salvation from God´s view point and James is looking at
salvation from men´s view point. Paul is looking at salvation and faith being the root
and James is looking at salvation and works being the fruit. Works don´t produce salvation,
but a salvation that doesn´t produce works is no salvation at all. The proof that there
is a root is the fact that it eventually produces fruit, and that´s what James is looking at.
He is saying, hey, if there´s not fruit, if there is not works, then your faith isn´t
genuine. And Paul is saying: look, it´s the root,
it starts with faith. It´s not works that bring you into a relationship with God, so
we need to have both.
If you have a real relationship with God, it´s because of His grace and you´ve laid
hold of that by faith. You didn´t work for it, you didn´t merit it. But once you get
saved, if there has been a genuine salvation experience, it has to flow forth in good works
in your life. If there is no fruit... Friend, I would challenge
whether there is a root. So faith, the root, causes works, the fruit. We need to have both.
If we’re not careful, unforgiveness and strife can cling to our hearts like dirt.
“It may be a terrible thing that happened to you; but for your own good, breathe out
forgiveness.
Get yourself under the place of God’s blessing, forgiveness, and goodness.”
“You can’t breathe in God’s goodness and His blessing and His forgiveness if you
don’t breathe out forgiveness. It’s just the way we’re made.”
In his CD/DVD series “Healthy Relationships 101,” Bayless Conley shows you how to let
go of the tension that keeps you from living a joyful, unburdened life. Learn to resolve
conflicts the right way; order this powerful series today. Just use the information on
the screen now. Healthy Relationships 101.
Thank you for watching Answers with Bayless Conley. For more information and inspiration
visit AnswersBC.org.