Introduction:
Real Faith Worships / Walks with / and Works for Christ (Hebrews 11:4-7):
- Real faith worships God's Way . (Heb 11:4)
Genesis 4:3-7 - In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it."
Hebrews 9:22 - ...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
- Real faith walks With God . (Heb 11:5-6)
Genesis 5:21-24 - When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
- Real faith works Because of God . (Heb 11:7)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:48-01:30
Turn with me please to Hebrews chapter 11. While you're turning there, please pray for me to clearly and accurately communicate God's Word, and I'll pray for you to receive God's Word. Let's pray. Father, your Word says so much about your Father, we believe this is your word.
01:30-01:33
And I pray that we would receive it as such just now.
01:35-01:37
We pray in Jesus' name.
01:38-01:39
All of God's people said.
01:40-01:41
Amen. - Amen.
01:43-01:44
All right, here's what we're gonna do first.
01:44-01:45
We're gonna pray a little prayer.
01:45-01:47
We're going to do a little art lesson.
01:49-01:49
You ready?
01:50-01:54
Because I was recently criticized in my small group for lack of art skills.
01:55-01:56
So I'm teachable.
01:57-01:58
So Debbie, I'm learning.
02:00-02:01
So here's what we're going to do.
02:01-02:09
I want you to-- on your outline somewhere, I want you to draw a lion head, just the head of a lion.
02:10-02:10
All right?
02:13-02:17
So, like, but I'm not a very good artist.
02:18-02:19
Listen, nobody likes a party pooper.
02:20-02:22
All right, so draw the head of a lion.
02:23-02:31
And so as you're drawing it, you're gonna wanna remember that a lion has, typically a lion has two ears, right?
02:31-02:36
And a lion has, you know, the nose and the muzzle, a mouth, right?
02:37-02:41
Eyes, big hair all around the mane.
02:42-02:48
All right, those are the things that you're going to want to keep in mind when you're drawing a line, right?
02:48-02:52
Eyes, nose, mouth, mane, maybe some whiskers.
02:56-02:58
All right, that's what you need.
02:59-03:00
Do you understand that?
03:00-03:03
That's what you need to know to draw a line, right?
03:05-03:05
How are we doing?
03:09-03:10
Not good.
03:10-03:10
(congregation laughing)
03:19-03:22
Oh, come on, stop pretending like you don't draw on your bulletin anyways.
03:23-03:24
(congregation laughing)
03:25-03:28
Like, oh, Pastor Jeff, I only use this for taking scripture notes.
03:31-03:33
I was born on a Tuesday, but it wasn't last Tuesday.
03:34-03:36
All right, all right, you got your lion?
03:37-03:37
You got your lion?
03:38-03:43
All right, hold them up.
03:45-03:46
I'm just kidding, I can't see them.
03:47-03:48
I can't see.
03:51-03:52
So how'd we do?
03:53-03:53
Horrible.
03:55-04:01
All right, how about I'm going to show you how to draw a lion head, how about that?
04:01-04:02
You're like, but I'm not a good artist.
04:02-04:05
Listen, if you can, can you make an X?
04:07-04:14
If you can make an X and you can make a half circle, you can draw a lion head.
04:14-04:14
All right, you ready?
04:15-04:17
This is-- you're going to do it with me.
04:17-04:17
You ready?
04:17-04:18
Here we go.
04:20-04:22
So this is for you, Deb.
04:24-04:28
All right, so draw an X. All right?
04:30-04:36
I'll give you time to catch-- All right, now draw another X touching that one.
04:38-04:39
All right?
04:40-04:42
Now, here's what you wanna do.
04:42-04:44
Now, this is where it gets tricky, but we're gonna get through this together.
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Like, you're gonna make these ends here into diamonds.
04:49-04:52
Right, nice and easy, just like that, and like that, right?
04:54-04:57
Okay, so basically what you have is three diamonds.
04:57-04:57
You got that?
04:58-04:59
Okay, great.
05:00-05:08
So next, from the top of diamond one to diamond three, you're gonna draw a half circle.
05:11-05:11
All right?
05:13-05:19
Now, on the other side of diamond one and diamond three, you're gonna draw a little half circle.
05:20-05:21
It's gonna be like this.
05:26-05:26
All right?
05:28-05:29
Now, you see these gaps here?
05:30-05:35
You're gonna draw two circles, and they're gonna kinda touch in the middle, all right?
05:36-05:40
So, it's gonna be like something like this.
05:45-05:46
All right?
05:47-05:55
Now, you're gonna draw another half circle from this circle to this one, just like this.
05:58-05:59
All right.
06:02-06:03
Hey, we're getting there.
06:04-06:08
All right, now you're going to draw an upside down triangle right here.
06:11-06:20
All right, and then on the inside of these diamonds here, just like draw a line, and then draw another line.
06:25-06:27
All right, and then a main.
06:33-06:34
He's a little lopsided.
06:36-06:36
[LAUGHTER]
06:38-06:39
But see, you know what, though?
06:40-06:41
You can go back then.
06:42-06:44
And he-- boy, he's really lopsided.
06:44-06:46
This is like Scar from The Lion King.
06:48-06:52
So you go-- what you do, then you go back through and you erase your guidelines.
06:54-06:56
So you erase your guidelines.
06:57-07:04
And then you give them, I don't know, whiskers, a lollipop.
07:04-07:04
I don't know.
07:05-07:05
All right.
07:09-07:10
You can practice that.
07:11-07:13
It's a lot easier when you have a marker that's not dying.
07:16-07:17
All right, you know what?
07:19-07:20
If you're gonna laugh at it,
07:20-07:21
(audience laughing)
07:25-07:26
then you're not gonna look at it.
07:27-07:27
(audience laughing)
07:31-07:34
Well, that's the gist of it, right?
07:35-07:36
But it's a huge help.
07:38-07:39
I'm not gonna be a baby.
07:39-07:46
It's a huge help when you're drawing this to understand the proportions, right?
07:47-07:55
And that little thing with the Xs and stuff, that's designed to help you get the proportions right, the spacing of the eyes and ears and things like that.
07:56-08:00
But it's a lot easier when somebody actually shows you.
08:02-08:02
Right?
08:03-08:09
And we've been talking about faith in Hebrews chapter 11, that faith is trusting God.
08:09-08:12
And when you truly trust God, it changes how you live.
08:13-08:16
It pleases God, we're gonna talk about that today.
08:16-08:19
and it lets me understand the world, right?
08:19-08:29
And now at this point in Hebrews, moving forward through chapter 11, he shows us what faith looks like.
08:30-08:37
In other words, he's like, we've defined it, now I'm going to show you.
08:41-08:52
And it's so important for us to see these examples because you could be going through some sort of a trial or you've really been praying hard about something for a long time.
08:52-09:02
And you come to me and I say, "You know what, you need to have faith." And you're like, "Right, but what does that look like?
09:02-09:05
What does that mean, have faith?
09:05-09:06
What is that?
09:08-09:13
Is that just something we say that sounds spiritual but doesn't really have substance to it?
09:14-09:16
What does it mean to have faith?
09:18-09:19
That's what Hebrews 11 is about.
09:19-09:21
He goes, I'll show you what faith is like.
09:24-09:27
First up, we have Abel, Enoch, and Noah.
09:29-09:31
What do those three men have in common?
09:33-09:35
Like those are three men who have never been in my kitchen.
09:35-09:36
There's something else.
09:37-09:39
Abel, Enoch, and Noah have this in common.
09:39-09:42
They are all pre-Israel people.
09:43-09:48
And you see, this is important because Hebrews was written to Jews, right?
09:48-09:54
And a lot of Jews tied salvation into a national identity.
09:54-09:58
Like a lot of people try to do with the United States today, right?
09:58-10:02
We are the Christian nation, USA, USA.
10:02-10:03
We're the nation that God prefers.
10:07-10:09
Well, it was like that for Israel too.
10:11-10:20
And here he's showing that righteousness has always been by faith in God, even before Israel existed.
10:21-10:22
That's what he's showing you here.
10:26-10:30
And if you're visiting with us, and we're so glad that you are, you're like, what kind of a church is this?
10:33-10:36
The mission of our church is to make disciples.
10:36-10:37
That's what we're here for.
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because that was Jesus' last command.
10:41-10:44
So that's our first priority, to make disciples.
10:44-10:46
And you're like, well, what is a disciple?
10:47-10:56
Well, at Harvest Bible Chapel, we believe a disciple of Jesus Christ does three things, worships Christ, walks with Christ, and works for Christ.
10:57-11:00
And real faith in Jesus is always shown by those three things.
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And what I want you to see today is that that's not just a Harvest thing, and that's not even just a New Testament thing.
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These three things have always been true of people that have real faith.
11:14-11:17
But even those three things can be defined in different ways, right?
11:17-11:18
Worship, walk, work.
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What does that mean?
11:19-11:20
What does that look like?
11:20-11:22
What does it mean to worship, walk, and work?
11:22-11:24
Well, that's what we see in our outline.
11:24-11:31
If you're taking notes, which I always encourage, real faith worships, walks with, and works for Christ.
11:33-11:34
All right, number one.
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Real faith worships God's way.
11:42-11:43
Let's unpack this a little bit.
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Look at verse four.
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Bless you.
11:46-12:00
It says, "By faith, Abel offered to God "a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, "through which he was commended as righteous, "God commending him by accepting his gifts.
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"And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks." So first of all, Cain and Abel, the third and fourth people ever.
12:18-12:23
And Abel was actually the first person in human history to have faith.
12:24-12:26
Like, wait, wait, what about Adam and Eve?
12:26-12:29
Well, Adam and Eve had a fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden.
12:30-12:32
They, for a time, walked by sight, right?
12:33-12:35
So that's not exactly faith.
12:35-12:40
Abel would have been the first person to actually have biblical faith.
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Cain and Abel actually were born after the fall.
12:44-12:49
Now the people that the Hebrew writer was writing to would have been very familiar with this story.
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For us though, let's do a quick catch up here.
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This is from Genesis chapter four, picking up verse three.
12:59-13:05
It says, "In the course of time, "Cain brought to the Lord an offering "of the fruit of the ground.
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"And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock "and of their fat portions.
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"And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, "but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.
13:20-13:22
"So Cain was very angry and his face fell.
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"And the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry?
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"'And why is your face falling?
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"If you do well, will you not be accepted?
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"And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.
13:38-13:44
"Its desire is contrary to you, "but you must rule over it." We'll stop there.
13:45-13:55
Like, well, why was Cain, excuse me, why was Abel's sacrifice accepted and Cain's was rejected?
13:58-14:01
Well, some say that it was about the attitude.
14:03-14:07
And obviously Cain wasn't in a great place with that, but that wasn't it.
14:09-14:19
Because you see, when you study this account in Genesis, it's clearly told to us that God revealed everything that they needed to know.
14:20-14:22
They knew where to show up.
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They knew when to show up.
14:25-14:28
They knew why to show up, which was worship.
14:28-14:33
Do you think God would have given them all that information but not told them how to worship?
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What we see here is Abel obeyed and Cain did not.
14:41-14:42
Here's the thing.
14:43-14:49
Abel came the way that God prescribed and the only way that God has approached is through a blood sacrifice.
14:50-14:52
We studied this recently, Hebrews 9.22.
14:53-15:01
It says, "Without the shedding of blood, But there is no forgiveness of sins.
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You see, the wages of sin is death.
15:08-15:12
And we deserve death, but here's what God has done in His grace.
15:12-15:24
He said, "I'm going to allow a substitute." And Abel was declared righteous, it tells us, because of his faith.
15:25-16:04
Abel simply believed God's word and acted accordingly. But Cain did not believe. And Cain, get this, he came to God on his own terms and said, "You know, one way is as good as another." And he was rejected. Many years ago, I used to be part of a, up up at the Butler High School, they had this religions class where people from different religions would come in for a week and explain to the kids, here's what we teach and do and practice and believe in our religion.
16:04-16:12
And I went to represent basic like biblical Christianity and explain to the kids like, hey, if you come to our church, here's what we believe, here's what we teach.
16:13-16:15
And it was a great opportunity to share the gospel.
16:15-16:21
Well, I found out that the teacher in the class at the time, She was a church going lady.
16:23-16:36
And I asked her, I said, "Do you have a hard time the weeks that like cults come in, sitting, listening to them just like pour out their beliefs to these kids?
16:36-16:45
Do you have a..." I said, "Do you ever have a hard time like listening to these cults sort of giving their sales pitch like everybody else is?" And the teacher, I'll never forget what she said to me.
16:45-16:56
She says, "Oh no, no, no, no, no." And she goes, "No, you can't ever tell someone "their religion is wrong." And I thought, "Well, sure you can, it's easy.
16:56-16:57
"You're wrong."
16:58-16:59
(congregation laughing)
17:00-17:04
"If Jesus is right, then you're wrong." I didn't say that.
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But this idea of you can't ever tell somebody that their way is wrong, that's a Cain way of thinking.
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That's a Cain way of thinking.
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That's exactly what he did.
17:17-17:23
He's like, "Oh, it's time to worship one way is as good as another." And he brought his animal sacrifice.
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I'll bring my fruit and vegetable sacrifice.
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And it's just as good.
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It's just as good.
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It's the most convenient for me.
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And I'm sure God will understand that I'm...
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It doesn't work.
17:40-17:44
Listen, to worship God, you have to come to him on his terms.
17:46-17:53
You have to come to Him like Abel, which is faith in God's Word, saying, "I believe what God said.
17:53-18:04
I need a blood sacrifice." And the good news is, that's exactly what we have in Jesus Christ.
18:08-18:12
For me to come to God, to worship Him as I should, I have to come His way.
18:14-18:17
And that's believing that Jesus Christ shed His blood for my sin.
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You can't come to God any other way.
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And it doesn't matter how sincere you are.
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It doesn't matter how devout or dedicated you are.
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You can't come to God any other way than through Jesus Christ, because God requires blood.
18:43-18:58
I love how one theologian put this, "In the account of Abel, you had one lamb for one man." And then you fast forward in your scriptures to the time of the Passover, you had one lamb for one family.
19:00-19:05
Then you fast forward in your scriptures to the day of atonement where you had one lamb for one nation.
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Then you fast forward a little further, you get to Calvary where you have one lamb for the whole world.
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But real faith worships God's way.
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You have to come to God on his terms.
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And that's the picture we get from Abel.
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All right, number two, real faith walks with God.
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Real faith walks with God.
19:30-19:30
Look at verse five.
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It says, "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death.
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And he was not found because God had taken him.
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Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God." Now, we go from Genesis four to Genesis five.
19:56-20:02
And if you read Genesis five, It's one of those genealogy passages in the scripture, right?
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How many people show of hands just kind of skim through those and don't really read them thoroughly?
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Like, I'm not admitting that in church.
20:13-20:18
Like I get out a chart and I map them all out and some people do that.
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And that's awesome.
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But when you look at those genealogies, especially the ones in Genesis five, you're going to see something in particular over and over and over.
20:30-20:40
It says, "And he died, and he died, and he died, and he died." And then you get to verse 21, and the whole trend is broken.
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Talking about Enoch.
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Look at Genesis 5, 21.
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Don't turn there, I think we'll have it on the screen.
20:46-20:55
It says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.
20:55-21:02
Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters.
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Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.
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Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.
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Let's talk about Enoch for a second.
21:17-21:18
Seventh from Adam.
21:18-21:21
For 65 years, he just lived like everybody else.
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And then at age 65, he began to walk with God for 300 years.
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Famous for being one of two people in scripture who never died.
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The Bible says God just, He just took 'em.
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But in these few short verses in Genesis, Enoch has an inspiring testimony.
21:52-21:59
And you notice there twice, It says the same thing.
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One word of testimony about Enoch, do you see what it is?
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It says he what?
22:06-22:07
He walked with God.
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You see, Church, Abel tells you how to enter faith.
22:15-22:17
Enoch shows you how to walk by faith.
22:18-22:23
Even in the Old Testament, it was about relationship, not religion, right?
22:24-22:35
And that's why even in your New Testament, like the passage that Dan read before he prayed, our journey with God is called a walk.
22:36-22:38
Why is it called a walk?
22:39-22:43
Well, first of all, walking shows intentionality, right?
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You don't walk by accident.
22:45-22:50
You have to make the decision, I'm going to get up and I'm going to put one foot in front of the other.
22:52-22:54
But walking also shows progress.
22:54-22:56
That's another reason it's called a walk.
22:56-23:02
You know, when you're walking, you're like, okay, I was over there and now I'm over here.
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And then you walk a little further.
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Okay, I see progress.
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That's how it is in your walk with Christ.
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You should be seeing growth over time.
23:12-23:13
None of us are perfect, right?
23:14-23:18
But we should be seeing growth, like there's progress.
23:21-23:26
But notice the word also points to relationship.
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Because it doesn't say in that passage in Genesis that Enoch walked because of God, or Enoch walked before God.
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It says he walked with God.
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It's relationship.
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And I have to ask you, is that what you have?
23:53-23:58
Do you have a step-by-step fellowship, a daily communion with God?
23:58-23:59
Do you have that?
24:01-24:01
Or is this it?
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Is this, when you come in this building, is this the only time you pray?
24:09-24:14
Is this the only time you sing worship songs to Him?
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Is this the only time you fellowship with His people?
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Is this the only time you think about the word of God is when you come here on Sunday?
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And if it is, that's a problem.
24:27-24:30
And that means you don't have a walk with God.
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You got something else going on there.
24:35-24:40
Weekly check-in, because relationships don't work that way, do they?
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I mean, just imagine if I said to my wife, "Hey, it's Sunday at 10 a.m.
24:47-24:50
Aaron, you have about 90 minutes.
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So get it all out.
24:52-24:57
Whatever relationship stuff that we need to deal with, we got an hour and a half, Aaron, let's get it done.
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Go.
25:01-25:04
And then after the 90 minutes, I'm like, all right, Aaron, I'll see you next week.
25:04-25:05
Same time, is time work good for you?
25:05-25:07
All right, I'll see you next week.
25:07-25:09
Unless there's something else going on, I might do that instead.
25:10-25:13
But I have intentions of being here next week.
25:15-25:17
How do you think that would fly in my marriage?
25:22-25:26
But for some people, that's really what their relationship with God boils down to.
25:27-25:31
I'll check in with you once in a while at church as long as nothing else is going on.
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That's not a walk.
25:37-25:38
It's not a relationship.
25:41-25:44
You see, faith is step one of your walk.
25:46-25:48
You're like, okay, well, what's step two?
25:49-25:49
It's faith.
25:50-25:55
And faith is step three, and faith is step four, and faith is step five.
25:57-25:58
Look at the next verse, verse six.
25:59-26:02
It says, "And without faith, "it is impossible to please him.
26:03-26:14
"For whoever would draw near to God "must believe that he exists "and that he rewards those who seek him." Look at that word impossible.
26:16-26:17
It's impossible.
26:19-26:23
It is impossible to please God without faith.
26:24-26:28
Understand faith isn't just one way to please God, it's the only way.
26:28-26:32
And without faith, nothing you do for God matters.
26:32-26:45
You can be the greatest pastor in the world, you can be the greatest missionary in the world, and you can open up soup kitchens in every single city in the country feed millions of people.
26:48-26:51
That does not impress God at all.
26:53-27:00
Biblically, the only thing that pleases God is when you believe His word.
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Isn't that what your Bible says?
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Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.
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Nothing matters if you don't believe what God said.
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Nothing matters.
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But I love this in verse six.
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It says, "You must believe that he exists.
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You must believe that he is." And it says, "And he rewards those who seek him." He's a rewarder.
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You could say that there's sort of a selfish motive.
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to believe God.
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There's a selfish motive to have faith.
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And that motive is there's a reward.
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Forgiveness of sin, eternal life, the promise of heaven, God's Holy Spirit indwelling, peace in your heart, no guilt, perfect provision for everything that we need.
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It's staggering.
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to think that all of the blessing is for me.
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You know what I mean by that?
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God doesn't become any more or less God, whether or not we believe him or not, right?
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God doesn't increase or decrease based on our faith.
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Everything that comes from faith is a blessing that's coming this way.
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That's why the Hebrew writer tells us, he is a rewarder for those who seek him, he rewards.
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And some people have a hard time with that.
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They say, oh, you're following Jesus because there's a reward.
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I've had people, you know, sort of challenge me on that.
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They're like, you can't follow Jesus just because there's a reward.
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And I'm like, well, he put me up to it.
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(congregation laughing)
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I mean, seriously, think about it.
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Think about it.
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If God didn't want you motivated by reward, would he have told you?
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I mean, how silly is that?
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That God's like, "Hey, there's a great eternal reward "for everyone who believes me, "but don't let that motivate you." Like, okay, I'll find something else.
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He wants us to be motivated.
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Right?
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Believing God, believing His Word, having real faith isn't just a Sunday check-in.
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It's not just a small group tune-up.
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It's walking with God.
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And then finally, real faith worships Christ, walks with Christ, and works for Christ.
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Real faith works because of God.
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Look at verse 7.
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It says, "By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, and reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
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By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith." Verse seven condenses Genesis six through nine.
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And we're not gonna read all that this morning.
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But quick paraphrase, we're talking days of Noah, we're talking about 1500 years after creation.
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Do you think it's hard to follow God today?
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You think it's hard to follow God today?
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Are you realizing the day of Noah and his family, People were so wicked that God literally drowned every single other person on the planet.
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But notice this. You want to underline this in your Bible.
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It says that Noah was warned by God concerning events, here it is, as yet unseen.
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Do you realize at this point in history, it had never rained?
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There would have been a global tropical climate.
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And I'll explain, if you're interested in hearing the reasoning and the science, there's actual science and there's actual evidence for that.
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And if you're interested, just buy me Chick-fil-A sometime and I'll be glad to explain it to you.
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But events yet unseen, you see, that's huge in this story.
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Because at this point in history, it never rained, and it certainly never flooded.
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So the only thing Noah had to go on, the only thing he had to go on, was God's Word.
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I mean, just imagine for a second being Noah.
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Just, can you just imagine for a second, God says, "Noah, I'm going to destroy "the entire planet with water." So what I want you to do is I want you to build a giant box.
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And that's really what the ark was.
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It was a giant box.
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It was 450 feet long.
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It was 75 feet wide, it was 45 feet high.
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So no, I'm gonna destroy the whole earth and I want you to build a box that's like a thousand times too big for your family.
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Like, okay, Lord.
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Oh, by the way, it's gonna take you 120 years.
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So I hope you're committed to this project.
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And I want you to build it about 500 miles away from the closest ocean.
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Now the Bible doesn't say this, but I just think, Noah had to have been thinking, this is crazy.
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And I just sort of imagine like the Lord saying, but wait, there's more.
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We're gonna put every kind of animal inside that box.
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We're doing what?
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I don't see any doubt from Noah.
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You know what I see in the Bible is Noah just did it.
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And I was like, okay.
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But notice the Hebrew writer says he did it in reverent fear.
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In reverent fear.
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And there's a word for you here.
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What that means is Noah obeyed God without needing to understand.
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Noah obeyed God without needing to understand.
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You see, when God tells us to do some work, we would prefer to understand why, right?
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We wanna see the logic.
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We wanna be assured of the outcome, but faith doesn't work that way.
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See, we think, well, when I understand, then I'm going to obey.
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And God says, no, no, no, no, no.
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You obey and then you'll understand.
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And so much of the Christian life is like that.
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Like fasting, why would I fast?
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Why would I intentionally go without eating?
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Because it's going to, you know, have my appetite open for whatever God wants to, yeah.
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Yeah, don't try to understand it before you do it.
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Just do it and then you'll understand it, right?
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What about like praying for our enemies?
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Like, well, I'm not sure what good that's gonna do.
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We do it anyways.
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We do it anyways by faith, trusting that God is going to do something with that.
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Maybe it's going on a missions trip.
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I don't understand why God would want me to go or why I should go or whatever God's calling you to do.
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Like Noah, listen, you're never going to fully understand on the front end.
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But also like Noah, after the flood, You know, when he stepped off of that ark onto the dry ground.
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I'm sure that 120 years worth of ark building made a lot of sense to him in that moment.
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You see, faith is always supported by works.
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And Noah's faith and Noah's work was pretty remarkable.
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But listen, church, God has some remarkable things for you to do too.
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God has remarkable things for you to do too.
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Like ministry.
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We announced last week that we're adding a second service on August 20th.
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That means we have to double everything that we do here on Sunday morning.
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And right now I know there are some people that are like, how in the world are we gonna do that?
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And I'm like, I don't know.
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Faith doesn't need to have all the information on the front end.
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Like Lord, once you have everything prepared and laid out for us, then we'll take the step.
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That's not faith.
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Faith is God, if this is what you are calling us to, we're going to take that step of faith and trust you to provide.
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We also talked last week about finding a place of our own, a building of our own.
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And, you know, looking at the numbers, it looks like it's going to cost way more than the church currently has.
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And I guess we could say, well, I'm not gonna do that.
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I'm not gonna be a part of that because it just doesn't make sense.
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Or like Noah, we could say, well, that sounds way beyond what we're able to do.
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So let's believe God.
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Let's get to work and let's watch God show up.
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That's why the Bible says he's the heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
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See it, there it is again.
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Faith made him righteous.
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God's like, Noah, you believe my word.
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and that faith results in him being declared righteous.
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Was Noah perfect?
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Was Noah perfect?
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Do you know the rest of his story?
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I'm not gonna spoil it for you if you don't, but go home and read it.
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He had some problems, but none of us are perfect.
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And he's pronounced righteous because of his faith.
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Just as God will pronounce you righteous through faith in Jesus Christ.
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So worshiping Christ, walking with Christ, working for Christ, do those things describe you?
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Can you look at your life and say, yeah, you know what, I don't do it perfect, but those are the things that I'm constantly striving for in my life.
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then that's evidence that you have faith that pleases God.
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And that results in him pronouncing you righteous.
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If our worship team would come forward, I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads with me and pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank you that your word just doesn't give us some ambiguous concept of faith, but we see real flesh and blood examples of what it looks like to truly have faith.
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And Father, we see from your word, it means coming to you on your terms.
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It means having a communion with you, a walk with you, and it means trusting you When your calling is to do something, faith always results in that kind of obedience.
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Father, I pray that we don't water down the definition.
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We don't sugarcoat it, we don't reduce it to, I'm a church attender or I'm a church member.
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But the Father, we would be people who truly believe You, who truly build our lives on Your promises, because You said that's what pleases You.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Hebrews 11:4-7
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why was Abel’s sacrifice accepted and Cain’s wasn’t? What does this tell you about faith?
What, exactly, does it mean to “walk with God”? How can you tell if you have a real walk with God?
Tell of a time you were called to obey God when it didn’t make sense.
Breakout
Pray for one another. Is there something God is calling you to do right now that seems kind of crazy? Pray for the faith to obey!