The Journey of Faith Part 1 - Salvation - 2.16.25

Joshua Boyd

We talk about faith very often at FAITH Alive Church.  It is much more than a favorite subject.  It is the mission of this church to keep faith alive in us.  Understanding what faith is and how it works is vital to our success as Christians.  God works by faith and has giving us a measure, a portion, of His own faith.  

Today, we start a new series called “The Journey of Faith”.  Living by faith, a command in Scriptures, doesn’t come overnight.  For some believers, it never happens. Living by faith doesn’t come automatically.  It takes the right actions to work.  

Think about when you received salvation, when you were born again.  Did you wake up one day and suddenly decide to get saved?  No! It was a process, maybe long for some and shorter for others, that required certain ingredients to mix together to get the right outcome. 

Let’s look at what the Word says about the salvation process.

Transcript

Joshua Boyd 0:00

We're going to start a new series today. You know, we talk about faith very often at Faith Alive Church. And it's much more though than just a favorite subject. It's really the mission of this church to keep faith alive. And that is something that the Bible talks about, because the Bible talks about faith that is fake. They call it a feigned faith, or basically fake faith. There's faith that's dead, the Bible talks about. So you can have faith that looks like it's alive, but it's really not doing anything. It's dead. So we obviously want to keep faith alive at Faith Alive Church. So understanding what faith is and how it works is really a vital to our success as Christians. God works by faith. And the good news is that He's given us a portion of it, a measure of His faith. So even the faith that we have, the true faith, is actually a gift from God. It comes from God Himself. So our new series today is called The Journey of Faith. Because faith isn't just a one-time event. It's not just a, oh I, yeah, I believed God when I was born again and that I'm done. I'm now on the journey. I'm now, you know, walking on the path. No, faith is a journey to it. There's a journey to it. Living by faith, which is a command in Scripture, doesn't come overnight. It doesn't happen. I mean, anything that we're that we learn in life, we don't just learn it once and we're done. We have to learn and learn and learn and put it into practice to make sure we're good at it. Because you can learn something, and if you're not putting it into practice, you lose it. You know, they say you never forget how to ride a bike, but don't ride one for 20 years and it may be a little wobbly the next time you do it. Um and you certainly won't be as proficient as a professional cyclist because they do it eight, ten hours a day, every day, so they're good at it. And we look at, you know, I like to watch cycling, and when I watch cycling, I and I go on my bike, I'm thinking I feel like I could do that. Then I realize, no, I can't. Um because I just don't put the effort into it. It's not that I'm not, you know, not designed for it. I am probably past the prime age of what they most most of them are doing, but the point is that they've put their the so much effort into it. And that's true for athletes and musicians and doctors and scientists and all of us really that are in the profession, we didn't just learn it and then that was it. We learn every day. We have to practice it every day in order to get better at it in order to be a success. Faith is no different. Um it takes the but faith for some believers, it doesn't really happen because living by faith doesn't come automatically. It takes the right actions to work. So let's think about when you when you were saved, when you were born again. Did you wake up one day and suddenly decide that you were going to get saved? No, there was a process. There had to be some things in place, some the right ingredients coming together, all mixed up in order for that event to take place. So let's look at what the word says about the salvation process. So today's part one of our journey of faith series is salvation. Let's take a look at a very common salvation passage in Romans 10. So we're going to look at Romans 10, starting with verse 9. I've got it on the screen. We'll read a few verses here. It says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Verse 14 How how then shall they call on him in whom whom they have not believed? How they how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they are sent, as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Verse 15 actually is a quote of Isaiah where it says, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel. Isaiah's version says this. This is Isaiah 52, 7, this is New Living. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings the good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns. So for you and I, for anyone to receive salvation, there's some prerequisites that have to happen. There's some things that took place or have to take place. You have to call on the name of the Lord and ask him to save you. That's what that was the act of what we did. We prayed. We said, Lord, I'm asking you to come into my life. I'm asking you to be my Lord and Savior. And you may have done it in a church, you may have done it in your home, in a friend's house, you know, that act of coming down to the altar, as they used to say, that was the final step of you, of things that came together. But for you to even take that step of saying, okay, I raised my hand, I believe, I'm coming down to the altar, however, we did it, we had to hear. We had to hear something to go, oh, uh I have a now, I have a chance to believe that. I've heard something that I've never heard before. And like both Isaiah and Romans is saying here, it's all about the good news. There's good news of peace, there's good news of salvation. So we heard some good news, which is why Jesus emphasized the gospel, the good news. He didn't go around telling people they're going to hell, didn't go around telling people that God's going to judge you for your sins, God's going to condemn you. That's not the good news. The good news of the gospel is hey, there's something better. There's a life you can live that's better. There's a life you can live that has peace. There's a life you can live that you won't experience death. You'll be, you'll have an eternal life where you get to go to heaven. There's some good news there. Amen? How many remember your your moment of salvation? I do. For me, it was as a child, it was, but it was in a it was in a church setting, and I just remember, you know, I grew up in a Christian home, so you know, I know I think my mom would say I was born born again at an even younger age, but I remember distinctly being 12 years old and just hearing something and going, that's what I want. I want that. And literally going down to an altar and praying with somebody. And I remember that, and then I remember not only the the the moment, the day, I could picture the building still, but I remember think it, I just remember coming out of it with a joy, and that even as a young preteen, thinking there is something different now in my life. And that's that was my moment of salvation. But again, it didn't happen because I woke up one day and go, heh, what should I do today? Let me go get saved. No, I heard. I heard something good and I had an opportunity to believe. So we have to call on the name of the Lord. Let me just put this on the screen. We have to call on the name of the Lord. We have to ask him to save us. That's the last step. But then we have to, we have, before that, we have to believe something that we've heard. And before that, we have to hear. And the verses we just read in Romans goes even before that. But for somebody to hear, they have to have somebody to preach it to them, to tell it to them. That doesn't mean it has to be from a preacher, it just means they have to have somebody to tell them the good news, to proclaim the good news to them. That could be from a coworker, a relative, or a friend, or a neighbor, or a stranger. Somebody has to tell a person the good news for that for even step one to happen. So there's even, we could expand this out to probably ten steps that the word just went through. But once we hear the good news, the gospel, we have a choice to believe it or not. But there's more than just believing. I think too many churches, too many people emphasize, even in the faith circles, too many people emphasize the believing part. But if I stopped at number two and I never called on the name of the Lord, I never asked the Lord into my heart, there still would not be salvation. Because I can believe all day long, but if I didn't do something that next step, the event didn't take place. The Bible says in James, the devils believe. The devils believe there's a God. They believe in Jesus. Are they saved? No. They haven't done number three. In other words, believing by itself isn't the end result. And it's an important result. If we don't believe, then we're still missing a step. And if we don't hear, we're still missing a step. So we have to put ourselves into position to hear. Whether that's gathering in obedience, as the word says, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, or listening to the word, or or or you know, spending time in the word in prayer with the Lord, there's you can hear even then. And when you hear something, you have the option. Do I believe this or not? And that sounds funny when you're talking about the word. It's like, of course I believe the word. What I'm talking about is when you see something in the word that's pointing to you and saying, This is for you right now, this morning, you're like, hmm. Am I gonna receive that? Am I gonna believe that? And if I am, what do I have to do with that? Because it doesn't stop at believing. That's only the second step. It goes on to a next step, salvation. I mean, uh, to have salvation, there's another step. You have to call on the name of the Lord. The faith it takes to believe the good news comes from God Himself. We have a portion. The Bible says we have been given a measure of faith. That means we've been given, God took the faith that he has, he took a little part of it off, and he gave some to Michelle. He gave some to Georgia, and he said, Here, this is yours. And it doesn't mean that he gave one person more than the other. That's not what it's saying. It's saying we have not a faith that we've had to grow on our own. God gave us the very faith even to believe. So even with salvation, think about it, the good news is there's something good to go to, and God's gave you the ability to even believe that and to latch on to it and to hold on to it and to experience salvation. So the very the God's giving you all the tools you need. It's like saying, you know, Denmark, I need you to, I need you to mow my lawn. Here's the lawnmower, here's the lawnmower, here's the gas, here's everything you need to do it. And all he has to do is start up the engine and ride the mower. It's a riding mower, it's not a push. He's like, oh, I'm there, where am I? No. I think too many people think that God has kind of left everybody on, you know, once once Jesus came and died and was risen again and went back to heaven, there are people who teach that, okay, that was it. God's done. He's done everything he's going to do. Yes, in terms of the act of salvation, the act of what he did for love, it is done. But he's still working in it in the lives of every person to give us the very ability to believe him. And this really is where this verse comes into play, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. We can't take any credit. We can't take any credit for salvation. We can't take any credit for even the believing. I think there's too much emphasis sometimes on when people ask, hey, how'd you get your prayer answer? Well, it was my faith. Well, who gave you that faith? Who gave you the answer? Who gave you the ability to even think about there being an answer to prayer? All comes from God. None of it is of works. None of it is by what we are doing. None of it is all, you know, the I know I've said this before, but some people sometimes wonder what it which one is it talking about when it says it is the gift of God? Just consider all of it. The grace is a gift of God, the faith is a gift of God, the salvation is a gift of God. It's all a gift of God. Let's not get into, well, which one is it referring to? It's a um, what do they call that, a vague pronoun. No. It was it referred to? All of it. All of it is a gift of God. We cannot take credit for any of it. God had mercy on you and I. He sent his son to die for us and to take our place to save us from our destruction. Then he gave us a measure of faith, a drop of that faith that he has. Just enough, or not, well, I wouldn't say just enough, but he gave us that in order for us to even step into the door and believe on him for salvation. Then we believe the good news. But again, is believing the last step? Are we saved then? Not yet. There's still one more step. We've seen it, but let's take a look at Abraham. Abraham is the one that God called him the father of faith. So he's the first, he wasn't the first one to believe God. You know, even Hebrews 11 goes into, it mentions Abel, it mentions Noah, it mentions Enoch, all came before Abraham. So there are people who had acts of faith, of believing God before Abraham did. You know, Noah lived almost a thousand years. He lived over 900 years long. Um and it's recorded that he believed God about, we know at least a hundred and some years. It took about a hundred years to build the ark. Why do I say that? Because I think the people who came before Abraham, they they believed God for a short amount of time. They had that element of their moment of fame, if you will. Abel says, believe God for his sacrifice. Enoch walked, believed God on this earth. Enoch lives 365 years. And then the Bible says he walked with God, and God said, Hmm, why don't you just come up with me and took him? He was not. So he he got basically raptured by faith. But Abraham was the first to really live by faith. He trusted God with everything up to the point that he knew when God said, Go put your son on this altar and sacrifice him, he trusted God so much that he knew, Romans says, he knew that God could raise his son from the dead. He had that much trust in the Lord, in the word of the Lord, because his son was already a promise. His son was already a fulfilled promise of what the Lord would say, what the Lord said he would do. So if the Lord said, Go kill your son, well, he must gonna raise him up from the dead because this is my promised son. Abraham believed God that much that God said, You know what? I'm gonna change your name. So much so, remember, we talked about around Christmas time that when you have a name, you have a purpose. So Abraham's purpose changed. He went from Abram to Abraham. God changed his name because he changed his purpose. So Abraham became that father of faith. Abraham, I'm not going to read through the story because it would take a while for us to get there, but we'll just summarize it. This is starting in Genesis 12. God told Abraham, this is the first mention of God speaking to Abraham, okay, Abraham, get out of your country. It's time for you to leave this country where you've where you're born, where your whole family was has all has always lived. I'm gonna go and go somewhere. Where am I going? I'm gonna tell you. So Abraham goes to his family, his father's still alive. He goes to his family, says, Hey, I'm I'm leaving. Where are you going? I don't know yet. I'm heading that way. How do you know when you how you do how you're gonna know when you get there? I don't know. The Lord will tell me. You know, I think too, that takes faith. It takes some trust and believing. I remember when I was 24 years old and I left Florida to go move to Tennessee, I at least knew where I was going. Um, you know, I got on, I got my moving van, towed in my car, and got on the interstate and was was driving. Now it was back then for me, it was still a big act of faith because it was I didn't know what the future would bring in this new new place all by myself. But at least I had a I did have a destination. Abraham, you know, can you imagine all the logistics it took back then to load up you know camels and pack up and not even know where you're going, not even have that. I mean, I I have to know where the rest stops are when I go somewhere anymore. It's like, where are we going to stop? Where are we going to get gas? Where are we going to eat? Not only where are we going, but what's all of our little milestones in between there? But Abraham was like, I'm out, we're going. And he even convinced his nephew Lot to go with him. So now Lot had a must have had a little bit of faith in there to go, okay, I'll go with you. But that's using that measure of faith that God gave Abraham. But Abraham couldn't just believe God to say, okay, get out, okay, Lord, I believe that you're speaking to me. I believe you've told me to get out of my homeland. I believe you're telling me. But what if Abraham never actually took the step to do it? There would not have been the branding of the father of faith. Because it's not a it's it doesn't stop at just believing. He had to obey what he heard. He had to actually leave. He had to actually go somewhere. He just obeyed because he believed what he heard from God. Salvation is no different. There's one more step beyond believing. We don't stop there. Believing is important. It's vital because it's one of our, we go back to my steps here. It's one of our steps of getting to salvation. But it's not the final step. We have to actually ask, pray, do the Bible says, any whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So I can believe that God wants to save me. I can believe that God has done the work to save me. But if I don't call on the name of the Lord, if I don't ask him to come into my heart, because we read verse 10, Romans 10, 10, you have to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. So there's an action that happens, not just a I believe. And I'm not, again, I'm not downing the I believe part. We got to have that part too. But all these ingredients have to come together for there to be a result. For there to be the fruit that God wants to happen. And if we stop at any one of them, other than the last one, we don't get the result. We don't get the promise that God has given us. If we never hear, then we never have an opportunity to believe. We can't believe on nothing. We will believe something. And if we believe the truth and believe the good news, it doesn't stop there. We have to do something just like Abraham did. Along with the faith to receive it, it is a gift of God by his grace. But the reason I felt like this series should be called The Journey of Faith is because salvation is just the beginning. And I've spoken to Christians who have the mindset, because they said it verbally, I'm saved, I'm good. In other words, salvation was the first and last time they ever tried to use their faith. It was like, I'm in, I'm going to heaven, done, check. I don't have to do anything else. I've got my ticket, it's stamped, and whenever that happens, I'm ready to go. But there is no living by faith. There is no life of faith. They just wanted to get their ticket in the door, and now they're just wandering through life aimlessly, not living by faith. And that's really the difference of what Abraham was the first one to do. And I never really thought of it until I was looking at this and studying for this message that that's why Abraham was a father of faith. Not because he believed once and was done, but because he lived a life of it. And his faith grew. I mean, the first one was a small one, leave leave your home. Okay, I can do that. Worst case, I come back. You know, there's always a plan, you know, we well, we uh we all think that way. You know, I can go to plan B. But then it got to his faith grew and his faith grew and his faith grew to the point where you're gonna have a child and you're a hundred years old. Okay, I'll believe that. Well, the child comes. Okay, faith in action had happened. And won't get into all the details, but there had to be some action for a child to come, even at a hundred years old. So there is a result, though, and he got his result. And now God says, go sacrifice your son. Now, could he have done that when he first left his home country? No. His faith had to grow, and his faith had to grow through hearing, believing, and doing. Hearing, God, believing it, and then doing something about it. And God kept increasing what he was telling him. Abraham had to keep increasing what he was believing and what he was doing. To the point where he was so confident that he, when God told Abraham to go sacrifice Isaac, and Sarah said, Hey, where are you going? He goes, We're going up to the mountain to make a sacrifice. We will both be back. That's what it says. It says, we will return. It doesn't say, I'll be back, I'm not sure about this kid. I mean, seriously, so Abraham already knew God could raise him from the dead if that's what it took. But that didn't come with just that early start of faith. And that's where most people have left their Christian walk, is their salvation faith. I believe some good news that I can go to heaven. That's good because the start is great, but it's just the start. It's just the beginning. The journey of faith is a life of faith. And if we want the results that we see in the Bible, we want the results of the things that we are hoping for and, you know, what's the word? Just we can see some glimpses of that God wants for us, we've got to exercise that faith. We've got to exercise what we're hearing, we've got to believe what we're hearing, and we've got to do it. There's some action that we have to do every single time. It isn't just, Lord, I believe that you can answer my prayer because you can do anything. Yes. But what's that next step that God is telling you to do? There's always an action involved with it. Jesus suffered and died for more than just us to get saved. I mean, if that was the case, I've heard this is not original to me. But I mean, if God just wanted us to go to heaven, then we could get saved and he could kill us, and we're done. We're done. You know, there's it's like, okay, yeah. Uh you're saved, okay. Boom. Heart attack. We're done. We're in heaven. Welcome back. Right, right. Welcome to my home. This is this is how I had to get you here. All right. No. No. That's that's he wants us to live the life of faith on this earth. In fact, the Bible, the Bible says the reward that we get in heaven doesn't come from what we do in heaven. It comes from what we do here on this earth. And if we want to be faithful in a lot, not just faithful in a, you know, or you know, faithful and have that, you know, the one talent, the five talents, the ten talents, and the people who actually got it, got the reward for their work, they're the ones who are faithful with what they had and faithful in everything they did. So if we want to if we want a better reward in heaven, it starts with what we do here on this earth. Salvation, though, is complete deliverance from destruction and death. The Hebrew word for salvation, anybody know it? It's Yeshua. It's Jesus. It's the name Yeshua, the very name of the Son of God. So Jesus is salvation. Some of you may recall in our Bible study back in November, we watched that a few messages by Keith Moore on the teaching of faith for healing. I'm still watching those. I'm still feeding on those because it really has ministered to me. Um I'm still listening and studying the scriptures on it too. I've been look looking it up. And this message, honestly, is a fruit of some of that study as I still reflect on it. Because there's so much more to understand about our journey of faith. And our journey of faith isn't just, well, I've been a Christian 20 years, because some so many times, again, we got in the too many Christians have just gotten in the door at salvation and done not much since in terms of building their faith, exercising their faith. If we understand how being born again works, how that salvation process works, then we understand how the life of faith works. This isn't just for being born again. Let's take a look at, we're starting to wind down. Let's take a look at Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58, 8 says, Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. Even in the Old Testament, salvation carried the context of more than just spiritual deliverance or being born again. There's a physical deliverance in the word salvation itself. Here he says, Then your salvation will come like the dawn, your wounds will quickly heal. One of the names of God, one of God's purposes is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals. Forgiveness and healing have the same source of deliverance and therefore have the same process to believe it and receive it. Even a verse that we Americans like to use a lot in prayer for their nation, 2 Chronicles 7.14, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin and heal their land. So you have forgiveness and healing as part of the same answer to a prayer of, Lord, we need salvation, we need deliverance for you know in a nation or a people or a person. Forgiveness and healing are tied together. In the Greek language, in the New Testament, the word so-zo, so-zo, um is defined as to save, to rescue from danger or destruction, to save a suffering one from perishing, to make well, heal, restore to health. So when we see the word saved in the New Testament, it's the word sozo. And it's also translated healed. It's also translated made whole. That same word, the translators just kind of use whatever the context of the situation is and put a English word, different English word on it. But in the Greek, it's the exact same word that saved, healed, made whole. So if we look back at Romans 10 and we look at where it talks about verse 13, for whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, shall be sozoed, shall be healed, shall be made whole, it's the same method, it's the same process. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, shall be rescued from destruction, shall be healed, shall be restored to health. When we obeyed, we obeyed when we believed the word to be born again. We asked Jesus into our heart, we came down to an altar, we did some act of obedience of what we were hearing. This was the first act of obedience by faith, and it sealed the deal for salvation. Physical salvation, such as healing, comes about the very exact same way. So if we kind of expand our list a little bit, we have God who's already who's offered the act of mercy, sending his son as salvation for us all, spiritually, physically. We have, number two, someone has to share the good news. That could be us to a coworker, it could be us to a neighbor. We have to then hear the good news. We have to believe the good news, and then we have to obey the good news, call on the Lord. And this is true for salvation in your eternal life, is true for salvation of your body, which is healing. So when we're looking at praying for healing, we don't need to just hope. We don't need to just believe that God can do it. We need to believe that God is doing it and we'll be obedient to follow his word. I mean, because how many, when you prayed the prayer of salvation or when you think about salvation, how many of you go, well, I hope God will save me if I pray this prayer? Or if I'm praying with somebody else, like, I hope it's God's will to save you and not send you to hell. No, we know the Bible says God's will is that all men everywhere be saved, all people everywhere be saved. That's His will. It's not happening because not everybody is doing all the steps. Not everybody is hearing it, not everybody is believing what they've heard, and not everybody is acting on what they've believed. And it's the exact same process for the salvation of your body, for this, for the healing of your physical body. We have to first hear that there is healing available. We have to believe with that same measure of faith that God has given us. And then we have to be obedient to what he says. And with healing, especially, and with other salvation areas in your life, maybe it's deliverance from a problem at work, or maybe it's other areas that you need salvation or rescuing. There's going to be, you know, there's going to be something you hear from the Lord. The Lord's going to tell you to do something. You know, for healing, for example, you'd look at all kinds of examples of how people came to Jesus for healing or got healed while Jesus was on this earth. It wasn't all the same. Jesus didn't go around and just randomly and suddenly start laying hands on somebody and instantly they were healed. There were times when there were crowds and he did that. But look at all the stories that are recorded in the Bible of people coming to Jesus. Jairus is one of them, Lord, if you come to my daughter, the Bible says she will be saved. She will be so so. It uses the word saved there, even though she's really needing healing. So Jairus came, and I believe out of what he heard, he heard there was somebody that could actually do something, and he believed it, and he acted on it. The woman with the issue of blood, she kept saying to herself, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, if I can just come, because I believe there's somebody, there's something in him, I believe there's something, so there's an act I need to do, there's a step I need to take. I just can't sit back in the end of the crowd and receive my healing. I have to go do something. And I believe she heard something in her spirit, just like we do every day. Every child of God can hear from God. You won't hear an audible voice, it won't be thunder, lightning, all the big stuff that people want to want it hope it to be, because that would be obvious and clear. But we do have to hear in our spirits. And we do, we do, we we do and we can, because God has always wanted to talk to us. God is not trying to hide himself from us. We have clear instruction in the word on how to obey to receive eternal salvation. Confess with your mouth, believe in your heart. With healing, there's still instruction, but like Abraham, we have to listen. We have to hear and obey, even when we don't understand all the steps of the journey. It's like, Lord, why do you want me to do this? Why do you want me to just hear and obey? And God will give you that next step. You may not know steps A through Z, but you'll know step A and B, maybe C and D, but not much further. God won't give you the end, but He will give you the next step. Our part is just to be, okay, Lord, I'm gonna be obedient. I don't care what it looks like, I don't care how foolish I may look, I don't care what anybody else thinks, I'm just gonna do it. Think about Naaman in the Old Testament when the prophets told he came to this prophet in obedience. I hear you can heal people. And the prophet said, a prophet didn't even come out to him. He sent his servant, and his servant said, Go wash in the in the Jordan River seven times. Go dip in the river. And this captain of an army said, What? He didn't even come out himself. He's like, Who is he? Who am I? Doesn't he know who I am? And it took uh one of his servants to go. If if he told you to do something even greater, would you would have done it? Why don't just why don't you just obey what he said? So he had to first believe it, and then he had to actually do it. And steps or dips one through six, nothing happened. So he's like, okay. Nope. Nope, still. Okay, that's two. He had to go through in the seventh time, the Bible says his flesh was like a baby. His flesh was like a you know, clean, leprous person suddenly healed. By obedience to a word. Yes, it was a miracle, yes, God did it, but he had to do something first. Or he had to do something and to get that healing. So when we're talking about and believing God for healing, and this journey of faith won't all be about healing, but what I'm what the point is, is that this journey of faith, our life of faith, affects all areas of our life. Because when we're trusting and believing God and praying for things in our life, there's always these steps every single time. This isn't just for salvation. This isn't just for that first step of being born again. This is how we walk and live by faith. Amen.