Episode 26: Kingdom Realities Part 3 - Faith

On this episode we continue talking about the key Kingdom Realities that every believer should be experiencing on an everyday basis. Today, we will talk about faith, what it is, how it works, and what it looks like when you are yielding to the voice of the Lord. 

This episode will minister to all of those who are in a season of transition. Listen in as we discuss how to set the stage for God to work. 

Transcript

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You prove to everyone that you believe in something that they don't believe in. The second thing is that while you're doing that action of faith, you're actually setting the stage that is necessary for God to move. Okay? So there are many Christians there saying, God, I want, God, I want you to do this for me. I got you, I want you to do that for me. God, I want I'm believing that you're gonna do this. But the problem is that God needs a stage. So today I'm super excited to be talking about what we're gonna be talking about because it's probably one of my most favorite topics to teach on. And so what we're what we've been talking about of the last two episodes is that we've been talking about these four realities that every Christian should be experiencing from the moment they get born again to the moment where they go on to heaven, right? And so we did we did take some time to lay some foundations. I'm not gonna get into all that, so I encourage you to go back into the previous episodes before the last two to kind of get caught up if you're if you're just stepping in. But the last two episodes we talk about yielding. Every single Christian, no matter who they are, uh whether they are in like these big huge ministries or you're just you're just living your normal Christian life. It does not matter. Every single Christian on some level has to be yielding to the Lord. Now, what are we talking about when we say that? What we're saying is that you're acquainted with his presence, you're aware that he is speaking to you, and then when he speaks, you listen and you allow your relationship with him to move you into an action based on what he's telling you to do. So that is yielding. We talked about how we don't want to place a great uh such a great emphasis on obeying. God is not a dictator where he says, do this, he leaves, and then comes back maybe a year later to see if you did it. That's not who God is. He guides, he leads, he comforts, he directs, he instructs, he teaches. And so he so we've been talking about this concept of it's not the duty of the Christian to obey, it's the duty of the Christian to yield, which in which inevitably turns out into obedience, okay? But the first piece is yielding. So just be aware of who he is, be aware of his nature, and then whenever he tells you to do, yield to it, and you will eventually start doing what he wants you to do. Today we're going to talk about the second reality of the kingdom, the second reality that every single Christian should be experiencing. And again, I'm super excited to be talking about it. What we're gonna be talking about is faith. Now, faith is mentioned all throughout scripture, especially in the New Testament. It's not mentioned a whole lot in the Old Testament, but if you go to like Hebrews Hebrews chapter 11, it is a lot of the people in, if not almost everyone, in the Old Testament, operated in faith. So even though it wasn't highlighted, the word faith wasn't necessarily mentioned in the Old Testament. It is highly celebrated, it is highly pictured in the Old Testament, and it's highly taught and instructed in the New Testament. So it's one of my favorite things to teach on, it's one of my favorite things to discuss, but it's also one of the most pivotal things that every Christian should learn how to do because it should be in your everyday makeup, your everyday living. Okay? It says in the book of Romans, the justified shall live by faith. Well, if you are a Christian, you are justified. So what that means is that you are to be living by faith. You're not supposed to be living by love, you're supposed to be living by faith. But here's the thing: faith works by love, right? And so everything that we do, everything that we we we do as Christians, as believers, as just everything that we do with the Lord will require faith. And so, what I want to do today in this episode, I want to do about three things, and we're gonna get through this as quickly as possible, but I'm not gonna overwhelm you. The first thing is I want to show you what faith actually is. Again, I could teach on this forever, but I want to make this as simple and practical as possible. I then want to tie faith into yielding, the the concept that we've been talking about over the last two episodes. I want to show you how those two connect. Because again, if these four identities, if these four realities are things that we are supposed to be experiencing every single day, it kind of makes sense that they should be feeding off each other. Okay, so I want to say what I want to talk what faith actually is. I then want to tie it into yielding, what we've already been talking about, and then I want to give you a story, a personal story that has happened to me recently that actually ties this whole thing together. Okay, so let's go ahead and get started. So, first of all, what is faith? It is found in uh Hebrews chapter 1, where it says, sorry, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, where it says, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now, let me emphasize this. A lot of ministers go to the dictionary to get the definition of faith. I disagree with that because when scripture actually takes the time to give you the definition of a biblical concept, I prefer to actually use the Bible to define what it actually is talking about. So this is one of those occurrences, this is one of those moments where the Bible actually defines what we're actually talking about. So Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, it says faith is, here's the definition of faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That's the King James Version. Now, so according to this verse, faith is two things. It is substance, substance of what? The substance of things hoped for, and it's the evidence, the evidence of what is the evidence of things not seen. So let's break this apart as quickly and as practically as possible. What is substance? Substance are basically building blocks, they are the things in this natural world that if things are if things exist in our tangible, physical, natural world, it's because it has substance. So the table that you're touching probably has substance. The mic that I'm speaking into has substance. Everything that you can see, interact with in this natural world has substance, and because it has substance, it can exist in this natural world. Okay? Now, notice that it says faith is the substance, so it's the building blocks, it's the materials that cause things to materialize in this natural world. What is it the material of things hoped for? So the things that you're hoping God to do, the things that you're hoping that God is going to bring to pass in your life, faith actually builds those things and makes them possible to exist in the natural world. Okay? Now, if you look at James, okay on the top of my head, I don't know what chapter it is, but in the book of James, I want to say chapter chapter two. In James chapter two, it says, faith without works is dead. So what that means is that faith is an action. You actually have to be doing something in order for faith to be in existence. Okay, so by pre so by supreme definition, faith is doing something. Okay. If you're not doing anything, you're not in faith. Okay, thinking is not is not enough. Okay, talking can be faith. Uh doing something that God's told you to do, that can be faith-based. Everything that requires an action will be faith-based. So if it's not, if you're not doing anything, if you're just sitting down on the couch and just twiddling your thumbs, if you're not doing anything according to what the Lord's asking you to do, then you're not in faith. Okay. So faith is the substance of things hoped for. What else also, what else is it? It's also the evidence. Now, what is evidence? Simply put, it's just proof. Okay, if you've ever been in a courtroom or seen a lawyer television show, they're providing evidence of a crime that is committed. In other words, they're showing the proof that the evidence existed, that the evidence happened, right? So faith is the evidence, the evidence of what? The things not seen. In other words, if you can't see it, there's nothing ex there's nothing in the natural world that proves that it actually exists, right? But if you operate, if you do an action of faith, if someone looks at that or if someone sees you doing the action, it is the evidence, it is the proof that you see something or you believe in something that that person doesn't. Okay? So let me tie this all together. Faith is two things. It is the substance of things hoped for, and it's also the evidence of things not seen. So whenever you do an action, whenever you do an action that is that is faith influence, that is faith sparked, whenever you do an action that is faith influenced, you're doing two things simultaneously at the same time. Okay? Your first thing is that you're proving to everyone around you that you see something that they don't. Okay? You prove to everyone that you believe in something that they don't that they don't believe in. The second thing is that while you're doing that action of faith, you're actually setting the stage that is necessary for God to move. Okay? So there are many Christians that are saying, God, I I want God, I want you to do this for me. God, you I want you to do that for me. God, I want I'm believing that you're gonna do this. But the problem is that God needs a stage. Okay? If you look at every single occurrence in the New Testament where Jesus, especially in the Gospels, where Jesus says, Your faith healed you or your faith made you whole, every single time that he said that, he was saying it to someone who did something. Why? Because they believed that they believed in something, and because they believed in something, they did something, and that doing something is what set the stage for something to show up. Okay, so let me just tie this all tie this all in again. If you are going to move in faith, you have to do something. When you do something, two things are happening together. First thing is that you're proven that you believe something, and the second thing is is that you are setting the stage for God to operate on your behalf. Okay? Well, let's just tie this in to what we talked about on the last episode. If you remember, we talked about yielding. Now, again, what does that mean? That means hearing the voice of the Lord, allowing your relationship with him to take over, to influence your decisions, not trying to obey what he says, but to allow yourself to be flexible, allow yourself to be yielding, and then when he tells you to do something, just take a step. That's all it means. You don't have to you don't have to accomplish it right then and there, you don't have to focus, okay. You have to organize the whole thing. No, just if he told you to do something, just take a step, and that will get you in the right direction. Okay, so yielding. So, how does yielding connect to faith? If you notice what I was talking about when I said faith, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. What starts the faith action? Okay, what starts it? God telling you to do something. There are some of you that are listening to this podcast that you believe that the Lord has told you to do something, but you don't really know how to handle it, you don't know what to do with it, you don't know how to respond to it. And that's a normal occurrence, that's a normal thing to be meditating over because again, the hearing the voice of the Lord and yielding to what he tells you to do is should be an everyday or at least three or four times a week constant thing. Okay, it should be a con you should be in constant relationship, constant disc uh discussion, constant intimacy with the Lord to him to start telling you to do things and you actually start doing it. So it starts with the Lord talking to you, it starts with the Lord giving you instruction. When you hear the instruction, okay, oftentimes, if not every time, in fact, I'm just gonna be bold and say every single time, every single time that the Lord tells you to do something, there will not be evidence in front of you to prove to you that that is probably the logical thing to do. 100% of the time. Every single time that the Lord tells you to do something, it's it will require faith. It will require you to take him at his word, to believe that he's not telling you to do something that you're not equipped for, or above all, that he's not equipped for. Okay? Let me give you an example of this. Not quite a situation where God is telling someone to do this, but I want to give you a story in the scriptures where a lady acted upon what she believed, and you saw the two components of faith actually materialize together. So everyone knows the story of the woman caught in the not uh the woman with the issue of blood. Everyone knows that story. It's found in, I believe it's Luke chapter 8, somewhere around there. And so quickly, what the story is is that you have this woman that has had an issue of blood for 12 years, 12 or so years. She uh has lost all of her money trying to get uh treatments and everything, and so she is literally an outcast from her people. Because if you remember how everything, if you remember the laws under the Old Testament, if you had an issue or a sickness or something like that, you were separated from the people. Okay, so she wasn't even supposed to be among the crowds, but she hears Jesus, she sees Jesus walking among the crowds with his disciples, and it's very, very, very crowded. And so what he she says to herself, she says, If I will just touch the hem of his garment, I shall be healed. Okay? So she sneaks through the crowds, which he's not supposed to be doing. She sneaks through the crowds, she touches Jesus' garment, and she's instantly healed. Okay? Now here's the thing I want you to, I want to emphasize. Jesus did not pray for her. Jesus did not even see her, right? Until he says, virtue, the King James word, virtue has come out of me. In other words, he's he's asking the disciples, who touched me? Because something that I possess has been taken from me. Okay? Healing virtue has been has been taken from me. Okay? So he didn't even know the woman was around. So this is not a story where Jesus healed this healed a sick woman. No, no. This is a perfect story of a woman taking what she believed, which is what faith actually is. Okay? And so she says within her heart, if I would just touch the hem of his garment, I shall be healed. She sneaks to the crowds, lays hold of his garment, and she's miraculously healed. Once Jesus finds out what the situation was, he tells her, Your faith has made you whole. Your faith has healed you. Okay? So here's the thing that I want to emphasize the two things that faith always does when you're moving in faith, the two things. First thing is is that it's proof that you believe something. And the second thing is that it sets the stage for the miraculous to take place. Okay? So what was the proof that the woman believed something? She did it. Right? Because if you remember, I said this, the law said she was not supposed to be in crowded areas. The very fact that she was there and the fact that she was risking her life, she believed this to such a degree that she was risking her life to touch the him of his garment. Because she was like, you know what? I I believe this so much. If I can just get over to him and touch his garment, I shall be healed. And then no one can blame me, no one can kill me, no one can throw me in prison because the reason that they would be throwing me in prison doesn't exist anymore. I'm healed. She believed that so much. She was risking life and limb to get to get to Jesus. So she believed something that probably no one else, no one else was probably as convinced of. The second thing that faith does, as she was doing it, she was actually setting the stage for the miracles to take place. If she did not touch Jesus, she would never have been healed. She had to do what she believed in order to set the stage for the miracle to occur. And this is literally the blueprint, the practical steps of how all this works in Christianity. Everything. Everything. If you remember when you got born again, okay, you might have been hearing a sermon, you might have been hearing uh a friend might be ministering to you, whatever. But but it required faith for you to get saved. I think it says in Ephesians, by grace are you saved through faith. It required faith. Well, what are the two things? Proof that you believe something, and you had to do something to set the stage for the miracle to occur. Well, how did you how does everyone around you know that you believed it? Because you prayed something or you spoke something. It says, Those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So if you believe it enough, you'll confess it, you'll declare it. So by saying it, you bel you showed, hey, I believe this stuff. But while you were saying it, you actually set the stage for the miracle to occur. You got saved the moment you declared it. You did the action. I hope everyone is seeing this. This making sense. So when you do an action of faith, you do these two things materialize, these two things happen simultaneously. And so whenever you are yielding to the Lord, which is what you should be doing every single day as a Christian, whenever you yield to the Lord, he's oftentimes going to tell you to do something that there is no logical conclusion, there's no logical evidence in front of you that show that should prove to you I should be doing this. But because you have developed a relationship with him, because you've developed that you understand he's not a God that should lie, I mean he's not a man that should lie, that he's working on your behalf, he's putting people into place, he's he you don't know what he has planned ahead of you, that he just wants to you to get to that location so he can dump on you what he already has planned, right? And so I want to quickly tell you a story from my personal life that will set this whole thing up, and it's gonna tie in what we talked about the last episode and what we're talking about this episode. So, for those of you know, and I think I've actually said it on the podcast, my um my actual career is a teacher. I have been teaching science for three years in a district, in a district near me. Um, but the thing is, I'm not certified in science. When I when I was I first graduated with my degree, I got I was pursuing certification in history, and the district hired me without being certified, and I was very thankful because it gave me an opportunity to grow in the field while I was getting my certification. Well, once I got certified, I was still teaching a subject that I technically wasn't certified in. So when I got certified, the district approached me very, very late in the year, not their fault, there was a whole lot of things going on. Um, they uh my principal approached me and said, Okay, you're certified in history, so I need you to get certified in science, or there's nothing that we can do because you're only allowed to teach out of content for a year. Well, this past year I was entirely certified for so for uh history, and I was planning to get certain I was planning to study for my science certification this summer. Well, things popped up and um it kind of got kind of blindsided me. So I had a choice to make. I could have gone through the stress of studying and trying to get certified, or I could just quit my job and look for another position in history. Well, I didn't really pray about it, but I had this, but uh I had this strong leading from the Lord. It's time for me to start teaching history because the plan that the Lord has for me in my future, at least what uh uh for this season, it it makes sense for me to start teaching history. It falls more in alignment with that. Science doesn't fit with that goal, and so I was like, okay, Lord, I sense that you're telling me to to uh I sense that you're telling me to it's time for me to start teaching history. So what that means is I have to look for another position, I have to start applying for another job, and so there's only one position, there's only one position in the area that was not tied to coaching. For those of you who don't know anything about education, history positions are usually tied to coaching. Well, you don't want me coaching. So uh that being said, there's only one position that was available. So I was like, okay, so the Lord telling me it's time for you to teach history. So what am I doing? I'm listening, I'm putting my my spiritual antenna up, I'm putting my ears up, saying, Okay, God, where you want, where you want me to do, where's your direction? And he leads me, I want you to start teaching history. I said, Okay, fine. Now, there's only one position available. So, what am I supposed to do? If I believed that God, when God told me, I want you to teach history, which means he has a position available to me. He's not gonna tell me to go look for a position in history and then sit back on his throne and say, Okay, I wonder what's gonna happen. No, he has already has the plan, he already has the movement, he already has the the blueprints all in order. He just wants me to walk. For the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord, right? So he says, It's time for you to start teaching history. There's only one thing. Position available that is not tied to coaching. And so I and so what was my step of faith? Okay, God, I'm putting all my eggs, literally all my eggs, in this basket because you're telling me it's time for me to start teaching history. So I applied for that position. Did not know at the time, but I found out later that the principal of that school goes to my church, and the history curriculum coordinator at that school also goes to my church. So when I went into the interview, there were four people in the interview room. Two of them go to my church, one of them was me, and the other lady was this nice lady that had no idea who she was. And so, long story short, I got the job. So here's the point that I want to emphasize. I want to tie this together. Yielding and faith go together. Okay? Because it is in the yielding you first hear what the Lord wants you to do, the steps that He has already prepared for you. You hear what the Lord wants you to do. Once you hear what the Lord wants you to do, you just take a step. That's the yielding. I didn't have the whole thing mapped out. I couldn't figure this whole thing out. Okay? But there are some Christians that spend hours stressing and trying to figure this out. It's not your job to figure it out, it's just your job to take a step. So he told me, start taking history. Okay, let me take a step. What is that step that I should be taking in that direction? Well, hello, let's apply for a position. So there's only one position. I applied for it. Not applied for it. So my action, my faith action was the application, applying for the position. Remember the two things that happen when you're in faith, right? What's the first thing? You prove that you believe something. By me applying to the position, I proved or I showed evidence that I believed that God was making a way for me. And I also believe that the Lord told me to start teaching history, right? Also, while you do when you do your step of faith, you are setting the stage for the miraculous to happen. So by me applying, by me, I that set the stage for me to get brought into an interview, for me to recognize that I had two other people that I knew in the interview room, all that stuff. So the whole point, guys, is that faith is designed for you to partner with the Lord to bring your natural and his supernatural into manifestation together. God never designed the Christian life to where he sits back and we do the whole thing. Or this is gonna shock some people, we sit back and he does the whole thing. This whole thing of Christian living is an entire journey of just listening to what the Lord says and then stepping out in faith because you know he's not gonna let you falter, you know that he's made crooked paths straight, you know he's put things into place for your benefit and for the success of the venture that he's calling you to. If you remember, this is just coming to me. If you remember in the book of Genesis where God calls Abraham, the very first person who is the foundation of the Jewish faith and the Christian faith, what does he tell Abraham? First of all, God talks to Abraham, there's the voice, and what does he tell Abraham? I'm calling you away from your kindred to a place you do not know. So what does Abraham do? He takes a step in the direction where God told him to go. He has no idea where he's going, no idea where he's going. But by taking that first step and then the second step and then the third step, what is he showing? He's proving that he heard the voice of the Lord, and he is setting the stage for the miraculous that he's about to experience, which is what? Which is what? The creation of a nation. So I I I hope that this kind of makes the Christian life very practical to you. Hear the voice of the Lord, and hopefully you've developed your relationship with him to the to the point where you can take this, take those necessary steps. But hear the voice of the Lord. Um take a step in the direction in which he is instructing, okay? And then just believe that he has your best interests at heart. Because when you take that step, you're proving that you heard him and you're proving that you trust him, and you're setting the stage for whatever he has planned to show up. Right? He might he he might have the background ready, he might have the characters ready, he might have the script already written, but he still needs the stage. Right? He might have the toys already bought, he might have the people already in place, but he needs something to put it put it all in. Okay? He does all the planning, he does all the building, we just show up with the container for him to put everything in. Right? So I hope this has been a blessing to you. I hope this has been a help to you, and I really do believe that some of you that are listening to this, you're in this season right now where you're just trying to figure out what to do. Let me just calm your nerves, just take a step. He already has the other steps planned out. Okay? So I hope this has been a blessing to you. I hope you have a good rest of your day. God bless.