Faith and Hope Picturing how Father Abraham used faith to believe the word of God part 2

Welcome to episode 120, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 120. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to continue talking about Father Abraham, and we left off with Father Abraham in Romans 4, and I want to go specifically to Romans 4:20. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able to perform, and therefore it is accounted to him for righteousness. And I want us just to look at verse 20, where he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. And we have talked about, probably multiple times, about the, the power of unbelief and not having unbelief inside of you, and that we all have a bit of unbelief. Father Abraham did not waver at the promise because of unbelief. And so what we've got to do is we got to understand that it can be there. Unbelief can be that little irritating voice inside of your head saying, you know, this is not going to work, you know, there's no way this is going to happen. And I want to take you back to Genesis 16:16 where it said Father Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and then 17:1 where God spoke to Abraham, it actually says that when Abram was 99, God appeared to him. So I want you to think about 86 to 99, and I know we've talked about this before, but what was this guy thinking? What was going on in his world for 13 years? He was raising this kid or rearing this child with Hagar and Sarai. They're all 4 of them, the child and the 2 women and Abram. Were all in these— in this area together, and life was happening. And I want you to go back to what it says in Romans 4:20, that Abram did— or Abraham did not waver at the promise of God but was fully convinced. And that— and I think therein lies the key to the word of God and to belief and fighting unbelief, is that when you read it or when you hear The Word of God being spoken in your life. And again, Romans 10:17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So the spoken Word of God— you're probably not going to hear God audibly speak to you. I hate to be the one to break that to you, but you're not going to be the guy probably that God is going to say, hey Jim, I need you to listen up, I'm about to start speaking. This is Father God. I don't think— if your name's Jim, I don't think God's going to talk to you like that. Or even if your name isn't Jim, you're probably not going to hear from Father God directly. Now, you may, and I don't want to short— I don't want to say that God can't. God can speak. He can speak through a donkey. Heck, he can speak through me. What I want to make you aware of, that he has already spoken through his word, the Bible. Is God's way of communicating to you and I. And but we got to open the Bible, or we have to listen to the Bible, or we have to put that— put it in our ears and put it in our eyes, and we have to plan it. But then we have to be fully convinced, and we don't waver at the promise with unbelief. And remember, we talked about belief and unbelief like there's a tug-of-war And that if you think that there's no unbelief in your body, then that's fine. I mean, I can— I get that because I used to think, you know, I think I believe this. But then it— I read in John 14:12, and, and those of you that listen to me often, you know that when I've read John 14:12 where it said, assuredly I say to you, all these works you will do and greater works will you do because I go to my Father. This was Jesus talking to his disciples saying, hey, everything you see me doing, you're gonna do. And you know, we know just from history that the disciples, they didn't really catch on real quick, but there was a place when all of it kind of came together, and that was there at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on them. Because Jesus said, you know, stay here until you have been endued with power. And so the disciples followed Jesus' commandment not bust out of town until the Holy Spirit has fallen, or the promise has come, and they would be endued with power. I want to remind you, one of the enemies that you and I battle is the enemy of the world and the world system. And Abram fought this world system as well, but his world probably wasn't moving as fast as our world. And I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying that Abram was out there in the desert. Now he had life going on in 13 years. I mean, every year was very similar. I've got a belief for Abram. Now he had different animals being born, and he had different sheep and different goats and, and different— I don't know if he had cattle or not, but he had all these things going on. And but life was real similar from winter to spring to summer to fall. Each year it was real similar. But so these 13 years kind of probably stacked on top of each other, but he did not waver at the promise. And when God spoke to him when Abram was 99 years old, I've got to believe Abram was just as excited to hear from God at 99 as he was back in his 70s. And I just believe that that's the kind of excitement that you and I need to have. We need to hear the word of God and we need to believe it and just to put to bed the unbelief. And I wanted to tell you, remind you about the unbelief where I talked about earlier in this episode about John 14:12, and remind you that when I was meditating on that scripture and then meditating on Mark 11:22-24 where it said, if you say unto the mountain, be thou removed, all of that stuff with 'Assuredly I say to you all of these things.' And I was looking at that banner up there at our church, and it said that we will do something so big that unless God intervenes, it's bound to fail. All of that come together for the perfect storm where I wrote on a piece of paper one day, I think it was April something of '07, but I wrote on there, 'I will walk on water.' And I wanna tell you that from the time I wrote that, 2007. What's that about? And I was told not to do math in public, but I think it's about 14 years and some change since I wrote that down. So over 14 years ago, I wrote, "I will walk on water," and I'm here to tell you, 18 years later, I still fall through water every chance I get. But I'm still trying. And I know you probably cue the eye roll, and I know that it's probably ridiculous, But I take the promise of John 14:12 says, all the— assuredly all these works you will do, and greater works you will do, because I go to my Father. Jesus has already gone to the Father. I know that Jesus is gone. Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father. He sent the Holy Spirit as a helper. He's here with us today. He's leading us into all truth. But as I was meditating on John 14:12 and looking at that poster or the little banner behind the choir, and then reading Mark 11:22, saying, "If you say this and do not doubt in your heart, but believe what you say, you shall have whatever you say." And I'm looking at, and it says that Jesus walked on water. And if I see Jesus doing anything in the Word, it's saying, as I was reading it, that I could do the same thing Jesus did. Now, I didn't see Jesus walking on water all the time, and I'm not saying that I'm going to have a water walking ministry. Where I walk out on the Red River down here in Louisiana and I walk out there and I preach my sermon every weekend. No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying now— and I understand that it's a miracle and I understand all of that stuff, but I also understand that the word of God is true and it says that if I see Jesus do it, I can do it. So for whatever reason, back in April of '07, I wrote down, "I will walk on water," and I'm here to testify to you that I'm still not walking on water. And you may be wondering what this has to do with Abraham, and maybe nothing, but maybe everything. Maybe when we wait on God, or wait on the answer, or wait on our faith to get big enough, maybe the thought is, maybe we need to get rid of this unbelief. And I read Romans 4:20, "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief." but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. And I want to give glory to God. I want to be strengthened in faith knowing that I am going to one day walk on water. Now it may be in heaven, and I may just skip across the pond or an ocean or a lake. Don't know, don't care, but I am going to walk on water. I don't know when, and I don't know how, and I don't know where, but right now I'm I'm telling you, the thing that floods me before water hits my ankle or my foot is unbelief. And if you think you don't have any unbelief, then I'm just gonna encourage you to get out there and go walk on water, because I'm telling you through many failed times, you just gonna get wet. And most of you are probably thinking, well, that's just dumb. Why would anybody say they wanna walk on water? And I can't honestly answer, why I wrote it down, but I did write it down. And I do remember the place where I was. I was in church, and I was about third row, you know, on the pew. No one sit in the front two rows, obviously, because it was an Assembly of God service, and you got to keep those two open, I guess, because no one ever sits in them. I was sitting on the third row and looking at that sign and wrote that down. And then I started exercising— and I'm putting up air quotes— exercising my faith by trying to walk on water, and it just never seemed to happen. It still hasn't happened, and I haven't tried as much because we don't have a pool anymore. You know, I kind of here and there, I kind of step out in faith and just get in sync. But it's, it's fun to try, and it's fun to see how God leads me. I mean, it changed my life when I decided to do that because I really didn't realize how much unbelief I had in my body. And it's a ton. It's a ton because I can't shake it. And so I want to encourage you, when you start thinking, well, you know, if you ever— maybe you don't— but if you ever think, you know, I really don't have any unbelief, then find something that requires a miracle and then go do it. And I want to remind you real quick in Mark, in Mark 16:17, and these signs will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. I know it doesn't say they walk on water, but signs and wonders will follow them that believe. And that— if that's not a wonder of some yahoo walking on water, I don't know what is. Well, that's enough for today. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for Father Abraham and the example that he shows us. Lord, that he did not waver but believed the word of God. And God, I pray that we could have that faith, the same faith, and I know we do have it, Lord. And I bind up any unbelief and I release the power that's in the name of Jesus. Lord, help us to see the Bible through your eyes, and you wrote it for us, Lord, to put inside of us and to meditate on. And Lord, help us to do that. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.