As a young man preparing to go to China, Hudson Taylor determined to learn to live by faith alone while he was still in England. His resolve was to learn before leaving England to move man through God by prayer alone. He worked for a doctor and was paid quarterly. When the time drew near to receive his salary, Taylor was disturbed that his employer said nothing about it. Taylor had only one half crown piece left, but he determined not to break his resolution and asked for his salary. While visiting a needy home, On the Lord's Day, Taylor felt glad of God to give his last coin to the needy family. The next day, he received an anonymous gift through the mail, four times what he had given to the poor. The following Saturday, the doctor finished up his work and said, Taylor, is not your salary due again? Taylor told him that it was and became disappointed when he learned that the doctor had forgotten about his salary due and sent all his funds to the bank. He prayed about the matter, for he had bills of his own to pay, and he left it with the Lord. That evening, the doctor visited him late at night because of one of his richest patients had come by after hours to pay his bill. So he brought the money over to Taylor, who rejoiced. He had learned he could trust God. Therefore, he felt ready to go to China as a missionary. You know, the Christian life is one meant to be lived by faith, lived by faith. And that simply means we're trusting God to work, to provide, to empower, so his work His will is accomplished in our lives. In our text, the disciples are going to be here sent out two by two in their first excursion of faith to preach the gospel. We'll pick it up in verse number seven here, down through verse 13 tonight. It says, and he called unto him the 12 and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, but be shod with sandals, and not put on two coats. And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. And they went out and preached that men should repent, And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." Tonight, let's look at our passage a little closer tonight as we talk about living by faith, living by faith and what that means. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the lesson that we have tonight. We do pray that you would bless it now in a special way, that you'd help us, Lord God, to understand the necessity and the opportunity it is to live by faith. It's not an easy route at times, but Lord, it's one of those opportunities we have to see the reality of who you are. And Lord, may we be a people of faith, may we be a church of faith as we go forward and do things, striving to reach others with the gospel. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. As a personal testimony, I think I've shared this here before, but years ago, God impressed me to go on my first missions trip. It was to South Korea. It was for the Asian Games outreach that was going on there. And I was fairly young in the Lord. I had only been saved maybe two, three years, something like that. At the time, I was working for the church there in Fargo. I was in the construction aspect of it as they were building their complex. And I was earning enough to live off of as a single guy, but not much extra. Let's just put it that way. And that year, I had actually gone to Israel for the first time. And my funds were a little on the low side. Dr. Larry Clayton in, preaching a revival meeting. I believe it would have been May of 2002, something like that. And I'll never forget what he said from the pulpit. He was talking about living by faith in some capacity. And he said, you know, sometimes you just got to say, hey, catch me, Lord, I'm going to jump. Catch me, Lord, and I'm going to jump. And God had been working on my heart. And I was weighing whether or not I should even try because I didn't have the funds. But the Lord was really impressing on my heart to do this. And I remember getting on my knees in front of my chair, similar to what we do in And I just said, Lord, all right, I'll go. I'm excited about it. Let's do this. So I decided to let the people know that I was interested in going. And I began to, I guess, buy my plane ticket and start working to pay it off. But over the course of the next few months, I was doing my best to pay it off. And I eventually did pay off the ticket. Right before I left, about a week or less before I was to go, I had about $400 in my account. That's all I had to my name. I had not paid my rent yet, which was about $200, $225. Wouldn't you like that today? Back in the olden days, things used to be a lot cheaper. Anyways, so I knew that, but then I also You know, I had to pay for things while I was over there. And I wasn't going to be working for two weeks. I was an hourly. And I was a bit concerned. But at that time, our church was in the middle of a camp meeting. It was a special meeting that we had. A group that came up from Eufaula, Oklahoma, that came. And they had a bunch of singers. They were just powerful singers. And the preachers were just as powerful and fiery and all that kind of stuff. And the man who led it is with the Lord now. In fact, his wife's with the Lord as well, and so forth. But he was there, and this speaker, this preacher, was actually the guy that I went to Israel with earlier that year. Well, during the meeting, we had written up a letter about this project that was going on, and we had it read during one of the services. And the preacher heard about what was happening, and he got excited about it. And he said, he asked me, he said, hey, how are you paying in front of everybody? And I was like, I don't know. But he asked me, hey, how are you paying for all this stuff? I said, the Lord, I guess. I don't know. I didn't know what to say. He said, you know what? I don't have much, but can we commit $200 to help you out? I was like, you know, you're just kind of dumbfounded there sitting out there in the crowd. And then there was a few other preachers there. And one of them got up. He put some money on the piano there. And the preacher said, this is kind of how we do it down in Oklahoma. We call it bidding. We call it bidding. And then another preacher got up and put there. And then all of a sudden, some people from the crowd started doing it, started doing it, started doing it. It started piling up. So somebody went and got a punch bowl. I mean, I'm talking about literally a punch bowl. And by the time it was all done, that punch bowl was full. And it came out to be that it was roughly about 800 plus dollars that came in that night. And that was about what I was making every two weeks or so. And it was just like, wow, look what God did. I mean, that whole night I couldn't even concentrate because your mind is just spinning away. And I was like, wow, look what God did. I never forgot how God honored my flimsy faith. And then, of course, over the years as I've had the opportunity to take some of you and other people from other churches overseas in some of these projects, it's been fun to watch God provide for some people who ventured to take a step of faith and didn't even know how they were going to pay for things and then God would bring it in somehow or God would give them extra opportunity to earn some money. There's just multiple stories and multiple ways of people who would take that step of faith to do those types of things. However, living by faith often puts us in positions in which we are not comfortable. And that's the kicker. You get excited, oh, let's live by faith. Let's see God bring in this stuff. Well, guess what? It's not always comfortable to be in a position of living by faith. It really isn't all the time. In fact, you and I cannot grow in faith without being put into a uncomfortable position. Living by faith is exciting, but it's not necessarily smooth as our faith will be put to the test sometimes before the fruition. I was talking to Dr. Beckham here probably a couple months ago now, and we were talking about the upcoming prayer revival, and we were talking about some things in regards to it. And he told me one time about a preacher. He said that this is a number of years ago when he was first getting started with these prayer revivals and these meetings and things like that. He said he had a preacher there that they had scheduled the meeting, but whatever the case might be, the church was struggling. And the guy was like, I don't know if we can have this meeting. I don't think I could pay you to come, and maybe we should just cancel it. And Brother Beckham said, hey, look, why don't you do this? Don't worry about paying me. Let's just have it, and let's just see what God will do. And he said, they went ahead and scheduled it. He got out there, and they started having this meeting. And then God started working in that meeting in a very unique way. There were people showing up that he didn't expect at all, and all of a sudden, It was like things were just roaring. It was an exciting thing for what God was doing there. At the end of the meeting, by the time it was all said and done, the preacher came up to Brother Beckham, handed him a check and said, I didn't even think I could do this, but God provided and did some great things this week. Thank you. And he just encouraged me, hey, though it may be a bit of a challenge, don't ever shirk back in your faith, because God honors that. And God honors that. And there's lots of different stories we could talk about. Maybe you have some as well, where you took a step of faith and God honored it. Hey, if we hope to see God work on our behalf, if we hope to see God do greater things, then we have to be willing to flee from our comfort zones instead of always running to them. Too often times, when things start getting a little bit difficult, things get tough, we kind of start hunkering down because we think we've got to protect what we've got, whether it's our assets or ourselves, and so forth. And we start hunkering down. OK, we better watch out until God brings some more. That's not faith, folks. That's shirking back into a hole. God doesn't honor that kind of stuff. And he never will, because it gets to be where we get self-absorbed. If we hope to see God work on our behalf, then we have to be willing to flee the comfort zones of life instead of running to them. You know, people tend to do this when, again, things start looking difficult. But that's the very time that we have to step forward even more so and trust the Lord to meet the need to work out a way to empower the opportunity, whatever the case might be, and show God just how much we truly believe Him. to show God how much we truly believe Him, to meet our needs, and to work on our lives, and to accomplish whatever it is that we're seeking to accomplish for Him. Now in our text, Jesus is going to send out His 12 disciples for the very first time. They're going to get out. They've been apprentices up to this point. They were there. They're the ones that swept up. And they're the ones that were working around and passing out different things and so forth. But now it's their time to go out on a preaching excursion without him by their side physically and he gives them some instructions how they were to live by faith so let's look at this a little bit more closely tonight as we see first off the preparation the preparation and he called unto them verse 7 the 12 and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits here Jesus has called his disciples unto himself And there's a lot more that goes on than is expounded here in Mark. You'd have to go to some of the other passages, the other Gospels, to see a lot of the things that he instructed them with. But he's prepping these disciples to go out into the fields and to preach. You know that before God does anything in your life and in mine, he prepares us for what he wants to do? God just doesn't throw us in there unprepared. Because if he throws us into a situation unprepared, then we're gonna bobble it, for sure. Maybe sometimes he'll do that just to humble us, but in all essence, a lot of times God will prepare us before we go into the circumstances. Before Jesus showed up on the scene, God sent John the Baptist, remember, to prepare the way for the Messiah. If you look back at Mark chapter number 1 and verse 1, it says, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I sent my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, notice the next word, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Prepare. You know, God's big into preparation. God wants things to be prepared because when things are prepared, then they are ready to receive the blessing. They're ready to be used of him in the capacity and the fruit will remain. And that's what we're looking for. Before the Lord puts anyone into a position of opportunity, He works to prepare them. These guys have been watching Jesus and ministering with Him now for some time. They watched what He did. They watched what He said. They've been studying. He's been mentoring them. They've been having Bible studies, as it were. He's been helping them and teaching them along the way. And now it's time to push them into a whole new arena of opportunity. A whole new arena of opportunity. Let me tell you something. God wants us to go to higher levels. God does not want us to stay at the level we're at or go lower. God's always taking us higher. If we're not going higher, then we're going backwards spiritually. And that means that we'll have to be pushed outside the comfort zone a little bit and get outside of that because God wants to stretch us and He wants to break the mental walls that we have up in our mind. And no doubt, God has put you and put me through different things to put us in a position for greater opportunity. And oftentimes, that will cause us to go outside our comfort zones. Remember, most of these men here, not all of them, but most, were fishermen, right? They were fishermen. They weren't public speakers. I imagine their English, or their Hebrew in this case, probably was a little rough. They probably weren't refined, and they weren't as smooth as Jesus. They probably used the Hebrew words equivalent to the words like we have in English, like ain't, and don't you know, and all those classic words we use, and some of the idioms we use. They had their own, I'm sure. These guys weren't classically trained by any means. Most were fishermen. But they had at least observed time with Jesus. And they had prepared, and now it was time. And it was going to be a whole new arena for them. Is God trying to use you and I more readily tonight? But are we resisting that? Because it's outside of our comfort zone. Because it's outside of what we are accustomed to, what we're comfortable with. Can I say, may we not be afraid of that? Because if God's pushing you outside your comfort zone, that just simply means that God wants to use you greater. And what an opportunity that is. God wants to use you and I in a greater capacity than what we had before. And sometimes we are our own worst enemies by not being willing to get outside the comfort zone. We're our own worst enemies. God wouldn't put us in this position if he hadn't prepared us for it first. And now what he wants us to do is just say, OK, Lord, By grace, I'll go with you. And God knows where we're at, and God knows what we can or can't handle. Shortly after the Jewish people departed Egyptian bondage there back in the Book of Exodus, if you read through the passages carefully, they actually did not go the easiest route out. There's a land bridge that runs from Egypt right up into the Holy Land, as we know it today. they could easily walk that way. God didn't bring them that way. He brought them south towards the Red Sea and then of course they would cross over that. But there was a reason why. Why God directed their route that way. And it wasn't necessarily because of what he was going to do with the Red Sea crossing. It mentions it in Exodus 13 verses 17 and 18. And it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up, harnessed out of the land of Egypt." Notice here that the path that would have taken them through the land of the Philistines was near. But God didn't direct them that way, because he's like, they're not ready for war. They're not ready for those battles yet. There was still a lot of education that they needed. There was still a lot of preparation. In fact, it would take about 40 years of it before they'd actually be ready to fight those battles. But as they were currently at that state in their life, it wasn't going to be possible. And God knows where our level of faith is. And God will only bring us as far as our faith will take us. And he will stretch us a little further and a little further and a little further each time. God only advances as we can handle things until we are prepared. And these guys had experienced and witnessed God's working. Jesus is working amongst them. And now the Lord knows it's time for them to take a new step. It's time for them to go further. It's time for them to advance in a new direction, because God has a plan for them to bring them to a certain point. And this is one of the steps along the way. There was that preparation. They had been prepared, and now it's their time. Secondly, we see the provision, the provision One of the vital things these men were going to experience while they went forth to preach was the power and provision of God. Again in verse 7, we see that He called the twelve and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits. We'll stop there for just a moment. We see here the provision of God's power. God empowered these people, these men, over the enemy. Empowered them over the enemy. In other words, the enemy had no power against them. Of course, the enemy is Satan. The enemy was Satan. And the Lord empowered them against the wicked ones, the devils, if you will. In our own strength and in our own power, we have no ability to fight off a devil. They're too powerful. Even the weakest devils in Satan's army would overpower us very easily. Their strength is unmatched by us. But coupled with God, who is much stronger than them, we have power. And we can defeat them. In our time frame, as well, we can have victory over the enemy, too. We have been given power over the enemy. As we are in a position of submission to the Lord, James 4, 7, submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. We have been given an authority position with Christ. We are seated in the heavenlies according to Ephesians 2. We are kings and priests according to Revelation chapter number 1. We have a position of authority over the satanic realm, but we have no power unless we are submitted to the will of God. And as we are submitted to the will of God in our heart, we can resist the devil and he will flee from us. He has no power against us. I like 1 Peter 5, 8, and 9. It says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion. Walketh about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. In fact, we can drive him out through prayer and the declaration of God's word. That's what we call spiritual warfare. We have the sword of the Spirit. that we can take the sword of the spirit and go ape on the devil. You know what I mean by that? Go ape on him, just beat him over the head a few times with that sword. Obviously it's not a physical sword, but it is the spoken word. You know you can, if you, I'll give you an example of this. Say for instance the devil starts sitting on your shoulder and telling you how worthless you are. telling how ridiculous you are, and how foolish your faith steps are, and all this kind of stuff. You know what you can do? Start quoting verses out of them left and right. And that's what I mean by go ape on them. And use that against them, and to fight those negative thoughts. That's exactly what Jesus did in Matthew 4. Satan contempted him. He used the word. Satan tempted him again, he used the word. Again, it happened three times. The problem sometimes is that we don't know the right verses to counter the attacks on our mind, or we've simply forgotten whatever those passages are. But he not only empowered them, but he also gave them some instructions about their physical provision. Look at verses 8 through 11. It says here, and he commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. He said to them, in what place soever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye depart from that place. Whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you when you depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." Basically, if I can put it in modern terms today, they just walk down in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with their stick in their hand, and they just start walking without anything with them. Empty wallets, empty everything. You're just going to go out there. And you're going to trust God to meet your physical needs. Boy, that's a big step of faith, isn't it? Any of us do that lately? Ever gone to work just saying, OK, I'm just going to trust God to provide for a coat if I need it? I'm going to just trust God to somehow get me to point A to point B to work? You know, all this kind of stuff. And I'm just hoping that my employer pays me. Some of you look scared to death right now. That's kind of what he's telling them here. It's quite a step, isn't it? Quite a step. The Lord here instructed them basically to go penniless and trust God to open the means for them to be provided for, a place to stay, food for their mouths, all while they went about doing the work of God. Now sometimes we as people hesitate to do something because we think we can't afford it. We use the excuse of limited finances or uncertain means. Hey, if the Lord is truly leading in something, the means to accomplish and fulfill that leading will be provided somehow. It always is. I'll never forget when we were looking for buildings, and we went through about a, I suppose it would amount to be about a four year process of trying to find our own building in this region. And how, at the right time, God provided everything we needed financially to secure the building. I had tried to find financing in lots of different spots, and I kept striking out. And I just happened to do a Google search on the internet and found a bank out in California, of all places, that was willing to take a look and consider us as a means of being our lender. And then how we needed about $40,000, $30,000, $40,000 to get the down payment, because we needed a 25% down, plus all the closing costs and all that kind of stuff involved with it. And how God provided that, little by little, mostly from within our own congregation here. A little bit from outside, but mostly from within, and how God provided so that we had a playoff footprint here in this community. And how God has provided for other things like our HVAC system. That was not a cheap system. $30,000 and it was there within three months, three, four months. And continually, over and over and over and over again, God has provided, even for some of the missions projects we've done, I watched how God has provided a team. I remember when we went to Mongolia. I remember during our Sunday school hour, we would pray over God. God would give us 25 people to go. And that wasn't a cheap trip either. It was $2,500 for people to go. But one by one, they came in. And the last one, I remember the 25th one, came in a week or two before we were to leave. And it was amazing to watch that. And I remember getting airline tickets. I've booked airline tickets for years. I've booked hundreds of them over the different projects and things we've done. And I was shopping for tickets, and they were all over $2,000. Well, I've had a contact since about 2006 that I've worked with periodically. And I believe it was on this trip we got reconnected. And I said, hey, can you budget this? Or can you find tickets for us? And he said, yeah, sure, let me look. And lo and behold, it was like $1,300. The people we worked with, I told them how much we've spent. And they're like, where'd you find that? Because many of them had paid like $1,800, $1,900, some big change with $1,300. I was like, wow, that's amazing. Yeah, that's gone. I've seen, we've seen God provide a literature, hundreds and thousands of pieces of literature for these types of events. And the list could go on and on. And may I say there is yet more to come. You know, we had to get through this COVID era and I hope more and more that this thing is in our rear view mirror. as we press forward in the upcoming months and years of the great things God has yet to do through this church. Our story is yet to be finished. Our chapters are still being written. And there's greater opportunities that will take place in this place and beyond. And that's what we're shooting for, by faith. By faith. Because where God guides, He provides. That's a good little thing to always remember. Now, I believe in being wise, and managing our money, and due budgets, and saving. We do all that kind of stuff. But we can't always base our next action as a church, or even as an individual, solely on what we have right now in the bank. I'm not saying I'm planning anything, but I'm just saying, let's not just be run by numbers. I know businesses have to do that, and that's fine. But we are not a business. We are a New Testament Baptist church that believes the word of God is true and accurate, and that we can bank on it. And God says at times, hey, take a step out. Where I lead, I provide. You know, you read in the book of Exodus, it's his dealing with the tabernacle. And God gave this illustrious plan to Moses. And he said, you're going to build this tabernacle. And you know who's going to fund it? Those people out there, all those unemployed desert dwellers. Think about that for just a little bit. They were unemployed. Not one of them had a job. God had to provide manna every day to sustain them. But they would go on and they would build a tabernacle that was worth, some estimate, somewhere in the vicinity of $18 million in our type of currency today. Where God guides, he provides. Where he leads, he feeds. Amen? If God is leading in something, then the provisions will be there. I like what Hudson Taylor said one time, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies. And he could speak well to that. These men were going to get the opportunity to experience God's provision as they obeyed the commandment of their Lord. So what did they do? They went forward, didn't they? You have to remember, too, we always have a choice in this matter. God will let us. God will say, OK, this is what I want you to do. Now it's your choice whether or not you'll do it or not. These men chose. They went out. They went out. They're like, all right, we're going to give God a chance to see. We've already seen him do all this other stuff. Let's see what he can do in this case. Let's see what he can do in this case. Maybe some doubts linger, and that is reasonable. I can't say I've never had doubts in my heart before. But they did go forward. They did go forward. And they wanted to see what God could do. Well, thirdly, we see the preaching. Verses 12 through 13. And they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them. Here we see, empowered by the Lord, trusting his provision, they went forth doing what God wants done by all of his people. And they went out and preached that men should repent. Simply put, they preached the gospel. That's really what was going on. They were preaching the gospel message. They were telling people what they need to do to be right with God. And they were faithful at it. They were faithful at it. In fact, when they returned In another passage, they returned and they were just amazed at what God did through them. These common fishermen who just dared to believe God just a little bit, what God did through them. It was quite amazing. One of the surefire ways of seeing God's provision within our lives is being an active witness. Remember, God's business is that. Preach the gospel to every creature. That's what he wants. Do you know today that God funds his work? God funds his work. He funds his work. And as we as individuals and as we as a church go forward in doing his work, God will continue to fund it and will even make provisions to expand it. But you've got to do that work. If we hold back from that work, we shirk back from that responsibility, how can we expect God to fund that? He doesn't. He won't fund that. But if a church is serious about reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, he will fund them, and he will provide for them every resource that they need. And they will continue to expand. But if a church does not want to do that, and want to just hunker down by itself, and doesn't want to do anything, and wants to be just comfortable in their chairs, you'll see that church go back, and back, and back, and back, and back. The old saying is, you either evangelize or you fossilize. Where God guides, he provides. He will fund his work, particularly when his work is getting done. And as we go forward in the work, God will continue to fund all that is needed. God meets those needs. Mentioning Hudson Taylor again, the missionary there to inland China back in the 1800s, he spent 51 years serving the Lord in that country and saw hundreds of other missionaries join him in the work. I've quoted this before, and it's one of my favorite quotes from him. It was during a time of great difficulty and heaviest of trials, and in the deepest poverty and necessity, God has never failed me, Hudson said. He said the financial balance for the entire China Inland Mission yesterday was $0.25. $0.25 and all the promises of God. I love that. $0.25 and all the promises of God. Did God drop them? No. Why? Hudson Taylor, as this example is given here, was getting the gospel out, doing everything he could, and he provides, and God provides. And I've watched God, over the course of 12 years, provide for this church time and time and time and time again, sometimes in some of the most unexpected ways, some of the most unusual ways. Because our goal, by God's grace, with God's help, is to get that message of redemption to every person we possibly can in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and beyond. And beyond. Keep serving God, keep reaching out, and the provisions will be there and the impact of your life will be felt. And that's what you see in verse 13. And they cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them. We notice here that many people were helped. Many, many, many people were helped. Their lives were making a difference in the lives of other people, empowered by God, because they dared to live by faith. They dared to give God a chance to do what only he could do. Living by faith is quite an adventure. Sometimes, and oftentimes, I should say more or less, oftentimes it puts you in a position of discomfort. pushes you outside your comfort zone a little bit. But it's the only life that will please God, and it's the only life that will yield the fruit that we each have the potential of bearing. You and I will never reach our potential spiritually if we don't take steps of faith out, breaking out of any comfort zones that we are, and allow the Lord to lead us into places that maybe are a little uncomfortable to begin with, yes, but the faith and the grace that God gives will show us that, you know what, why did I even stay back in that comfort zone? These men saw God do some special things because they were living by faith. May God help us to step out and live by faith just like them.