Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. James Branch Cabell was a 19th century American author who was known for his irony and his satire. And in one of his books, Cabell Quipped, the optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that it's true. Irish poet Oscar Wilde said, the optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole. Concerning the difference between the optimist and pessimist, somebody else once said, an optimist may see light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run and blow it out? Society has always cherished the optimist over the pessimist. Optimism is life. Pessimism is, well, suicide. Or so were the words of William Crosby Hunter. Another American author, Orson Martin, wrote, pessimism has never done anything but tear down and destroy what optimism has built up. Yet George Bernard Shaw reminds us that pessimists do have a place in our lives. I quote, both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane while the pessimist invents the parachute. George Will described the satisfaction of living the pessimistic life. He wrote, the nice thing about being a pessimist is that you are either constantly proven right or you're pleasantly surprised that something actually worked. And when it comes down to it, pessimists are really not that well-liked. Paul Harvey commented that he has never seen a monument erected in honor of a pessimist. So, when it comes to doing something new or when it comes to doing something that involves risk, Spotting the pessimist is usually pretty easy. He's the guy who's making the statements about why an intended endeavor is not going to work. Moses was a pessimist, at least at this point of his life. When God told Moses that he was supposed to go and speak to the Israelites in Egypt, Moses immediately anticipated an obstacle to that endeavor, a reason why this assignment from God could not work. Verse 1, But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, the Lord did not appear to you." Moses makes this statement as if this is something that God had not already thought of. Moses makes this statement as if this obstacle is so large that God's entire plan to deliver Israel from Egypt needs to be scratched. Now somebody might say, I don't think Moses was really a pessimist. Indeed, he was insecure about himself, but he was just making excuses. He just didn't want to go. He was fearful for going back to the land of Egypt where he had once fled from. But isn't that the essence of pessimism? A person who doubts that new and risky plans can really be successfully accomplished? And how much more foolish is this attitude of pessimism in light of the fact that Moses is speaking with the very God who created the universe? Is there anything that's impossible for this God to accomplish? In verse 10, when Moses raised his second objection about why God's plan will not work, Moses said, But I'm not eloquent. I'm slow of speech and slow of tongue. And God responded to Moses with a rhetorical question. Who made man's mouth? What is God communicating to Moses by asking that question? Who made man's mouth? Moses says to God, God, your plan is not going to work because it requires me to speak and my mouth doesn't really work that well. To which God replies, well, who made man's mouth? What God is saying to Moses is, I'm the God who made your mouth. I'm the God who invented the mouth. I designed it. I created it. It's because of me that you and anybody else in this world can even speak. Your lips, your tongue, your palate, your larynx, your trachea, your lungs, everything that you possess that allows you to speak, I created out of the dust. And if I created these things out of the dust, then is it too much for me to assist you with overcoming any speech impediment that you think you may have? The fear that is driving Moses' pessimism is something that's common to mankind. It's a universal condition that all of us have had to deal with to one degree or another at one time or another. And as armchair sociologists, We think that we're clever when we dissect the world into optimist and pessimist. And we congratulate the optimist for his positive courage and then we scorn the pessimist for his easy defeatism attitude. But realize that the Bible never uses these categories of optimist and pessimist to categorize the world. Those are categories that man developed based upon our outward observation of people's attitudes towards the future. God has a different standard that he uses. He uses the standard of faith. According to God's standard, there are, yes, two categories of people. Those who possess faith and those who do not possess faith. Those who do not possess faith are the non-believers of the world. They live their lives as if God doesn't exist and therefore they look at the things of this world as their security and their hope for the future. Yet we know that the things of this world are fleeting, We know that they do not provide any real security. And so it's not a surprise when we see people who have no faith portray themselves with a pessimistic attitude. But again, it's the lack of faith that is the real issue. It's not the pessimism. Pessimism is just a result of not having faith in God and seeing the futility of such a life. But then there are the people who do have faith in God. These are people who, to one degree or another, trust God and love God. Yet not everybody who has faith in God has the same level or strength of faith in God. Take, for example, those whose faith in God is small. To use Jesus' words, their faith is little. Or to quote Paul, their faith is weak. Then on the other end of the spectrum, There are those people whose faith in God is strong, or whose faith is mighty, or whose faith is plentiful. These are the mature Christians. These are the believers who have walked with God around the block at least a couple times. So the Bible has two categories of people, those who do have faith and those who don't. But within the category of those who do have faith, there is this range of those who have lots of faith, and then all the way down to those who have little faith. Now here's the irony. Within that category of those people who do have faith, there is that subset of people who have only little faith. And these Christians, while they are Christians, will often think and behave in ways that more closely resemble those who have no faith at all. That's what's happening here with Moses. While Moses does have faith, his faith is weak. His faith is small. God is calling Moses to a task, and Moses can picture in the execution of this task, his own insecurities and his own fallibilities. In Moses' weakness of faith, he hasn't considered how God's supernatural assistance will enable him and equip him and empower him to be successful at the assignment that God is giving him. Instead, all Moses can see is his own human strength, and he rightfully understands, from that perspective, the limitations and the fallibility of the situation. Let me ask you, if Moses is looking at this assignment from God, and does not take into consideration the supernatural resources that he has as a child of God, then how is that perspective any different than the person who has absolutely no faith at all? When the person who has absolutely no faith at all is presented with a task, he says to himself, well, it's entirely up to me whether that task is done or not. What's Moses doing? What do Moses' objections to God communicate about the way Moses is thinking about this situation? In Moses' mind, it's entirely up to him whether this task gets completed or not. Now contrast that response with the person who has enormous amounts of faith in God. When presented with the exact same task, that person will say, well, this seems like a challenge, but I serve a big God. Therefore, whether this task is done or not depends upon the will of the God who works in and through me. See the difference? Right now, Moses is thinking and behaving a lot more like the non-believer who has absolutely no faith than the Christian who has tons of faith. And as I said a moment ago, Moses does have faith. The fact that God has called Moses and has commissioned Moses to deliver the people from Egypt demonstrates that Moses falls into that category of those whom God has graciously blessed with faith. It would be handy if God designed people with a gauge somewhere on their body. And the gauge would be similar to a gas gauge, right? Only it would be a faith gauge. And just by looking at the gauge, it would be easy for us to discern the level and the strength of the faith that each person possesses. But my suspicion is that God didn't design us with such a gauge because He enabled us to make this assessment in other ways. For example, the way Christians respond to challenging circumstances in life tells onlookers a lot about the faith that that Christian possesses. If the Christian looks at the difficult circumstances and says, well, it's entirely up to me whether this endeavor gets done or not, that demonstrates a person who has little faith. But if the response is more like, well, it's entirely up to God who works in me and through me, then that demonstrates a person who has a stronger faith. So which one are you? How do you respond to challenges that come into your life? The question I'm really driving at is when considering the inventory of resources that you have for accomplishing a particular goal or a particular assignment, where does God fit in on that list of resources? Is He your first and most significant resource? Or does he get located somewhere down the list? After you've checked to see how much money you have in your bank account, after you've checked to see how much gas you have in a car, after you've checked your calendar to see if you even have time to do this, then you check to see, is God willing to help me? How do you answer that question? is a clear indicator of the strength of your faith, as if you had a faith gauge imprinted right on your forehead, which is showing the level and strength of the faith inside you. If God is not the first and most significant resource for living life, then that means your faith has a lot of room to grow. It explains a lot about the things in your life and the challenges you deal with. It explains why those who are anxious about life are anxious about life. It explains why some Christians seek their security and finances rather than God. Or why some Christians seek their identity in having the perfect family, the perfect marriage, the perfect children, the perfectly clean house, Then there are those whose security in life comes from possessing the proper combination of deadbolts and electric fences and automated gates and surveillance cameras and machine guns and a two-year supply of food and water. But if we really lived our lives in the faith and conviction that God is our single and altogether sufficient resource for living life, then Christians would live the most peaceful and joyful lives possible. We would live the most peaceful and joyful lives possible, not because there would be no pain or no adversity or no affliction in our life, but because we would have the sure conviction that the God who loves us is bigger and more powerful than all the pain and adversity and affliction in our lives. The peace and joy that characterize a Christian faith and a Christian life is not in the absence of pain and suffering, but rather is in the midst of pain and suffering. It's in spite of pain and suffering. It's while we endure pain and suffering that we possess true Christian peace and joy. There's nothing wrong with having a big bank account. Nor is there anything wrong with having a perfect family. What is wrong is when you put your trust and your identity in those things. That's when money and family and guns and bug-out shelters become idols that dethrone God from His rightful position as the Lord of your life. It's the Christian who has a mature faith who's able to hold these things in their proper perspective. And this is a Christian who, in spite of whatever adversities or trials may be present in his life, is able to live in peace and joy because God is his single and altogether sufficient resource for life. This is the lesson that Moses has yet to learn. He's 80 years old, yet he's a youth in his faith. God is not content to let Moses remain immature in his faith. So for the next 40 years, God is going to be working on Moses, strengthening his faith, maturing his faith, sanctifying Moses. And by the time Moses dies at 120 years old, his faith is going to be strong, and he's going to be a mighty man of faith. He's going to be a powerful man of God. But this won't come easily, and it's not going to happen overnight. Now, you might be sitting here and thinking to yourself, okay, I'm convinced that my faith has room to grow. I desire to have a stronger and more mature faith than what I have right now. So, how do I go about increasing my faith? What must I do to make my faith stronger? Well, to be technical, there's nothing you can do to actually increase your faith. You do not have the ability to increase your faith. That's a supernatural operation that God performs inside you. That is something that our triune God does and only He can do that. But this doesn't mean that you have no responsibilities in this matter. And even though you cannot directly manipulate your faith by increasing it or strengthening it, you can place yourself in situations where God's sanctifying grace is made available to you. And the end result will be an increase in strengthening of your faith. Let me explain. If you pick up the Westminster Shorter Catechism and you were to thumb your way through to question number 88, you would see that the catechism is addressing this very issue that I'm raising. Question 88 reads, what are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption? What are the outward means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption? And we understand that term, benefits of redemption, to mean, include, amongst other things, the gift of faith. So the question can be paraphrased for our particular purpose here to read, what are the means by which Christ communicates to us the gift of faith? And the answer, according to the catechism, is the ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption, a.k.a. faith, are, number one, the Word. Number two, sacraments. Number three, prayer. The Word, sacraments, and prayer. What the Catechism is teaching us is that if you desire to receive the gift of faith, and you desire for God to continue to increase the measure of faith that you have been given, then you need to avail yourselves of the ordinary means through which God dispenses His grace. And those ordinary means, according to Wes Spencer, are the hearing of the preaching of God's Word, the faithful participation in the sacraments, and through prayerful conversation with our triune God. It's by participating in these three things that the faith of God's people is ordinarily strengthened and matured. So while you have no ability to directly increase your faith, you do have the ability to place yourself in positions where your faith can be increased by God. And the person who regularly and routinely takes advantage of these ordinary means of grace is the person who will, over time, have a strong and mature faith. Now let me make clear that these three things, God's words of sacraments and prayer, are not to be considered the only means by which God's grace is communicated to believers. But these three things are, and I'm going to borrow the terminology here of the Westminster Confession and Catechism, the ordinary means, the ordinary means by which God communicates grace to believers. There are also extraordinary or extraordinary means that God can use. And He has. He can work grace into the life of His children any way He pleases. The Bible tells us about some of those extraordinary ways He has done it in the past. Visitations from angels, dreams, special visions, being caught up to the third heaven, being healed of demon possession, being raised from the dead. These are all things that God has, can, and done. And the Bible records them for us. But they're extraordinary. They're not ordinary. If God chooses to use some extraordinary means to increase your faith, then that is His prerogative. But your aim is not to seek after those extraordinary things. Instead, when it comes down to your own desire to have your faith strengthened and matured, you need to avail yourselves of the ordinary means of grace, by which you make it a point to regularly attend church, where you can hear the preaching of the Word, and you can participate in the sacraments, and then you pray. And you pray not just at church, you pray at home, you pray during the week, you pray regularly, you pray daily, you pray hourly. So, by availing yourselves of these ordinary means of grace, God will systematically and over time mature and strengthen and increase your faith. Now, I want to labor that distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary because of what we read here in our text this morning. Here in Exodus 4, God is preparing Moses to perform some extraordinary signs that will have the effect of increasing certain people's faith. And as we read about these signs, We need to understand that these signs are, first and foremost, extraordinary. They're not ordinary, which means that they are not signs that God's people would normally be able to perform. And number two, the second thing is that these signs are specific to a particular people, at a particular place, at a particular time. And I might add, for a particular purpose. So in verse 1, when Moses objected to God's plan with the challenge that the Israelites in Egypt would not believe that Moses actually spoke with God, Moses was commissioned by God to respond to that disbelief by performing three signs. The first was to throw his staff on the ground, and then that staff would turn into a snake. Moses would then grab the snake by the tail and it would turn back into a staff. That was the first sign. Now, let me ask you. Why did God empower Moses to perform that staff snake miracle sign? Well, look at verse 5. That they, the Israelites, may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to you. So the first sign was given in order to validate the testimony of Moses. He was going to tell the Israelites that God has appeared to me. He fully expected them to not believe. And so this sign would then validate his testimony that God did in fact appear to Moses. That the Israelites might believe, it says in verse 5. Then God gave Moses a second sign. According to verses 6 and 7, Moses was to put his hand inside of his cloak. and pull it back out, and Moses' hand would be leprous as snow. And then he was supposed to repeat the process, and he'd be healed of leprosy. But what was the purpose of the second sign? Well, according to verse 8, it was to serve the same purpose as the first sign. God said to Moses, if they will not believe you and listen to the first sign, then may they believe the second sign. In fact, All three signs were given to Moses for the very same purpose. God went on to say that if the Israelites would not believe based upon the first two signs, then Moses was to perform the third sign. Moses was to take some water from the Nile, pour it onto the dry ground, and when it hit the ground, it would turn to blood. So all three signs were given to Moses for a very specific purpose. They were given as an authentication that Moses' testimony about speaking with God was true. These specific signs were not given to anybody else in the entire Bible. They were only given to Moses. They were only to benefit very specific people, those specific Israelites who were in Egyptian bondage at the time and day of Moses. In order that their doubt and their skepticism may be turned away as Moses and Aaron came to them and spoke to them. The result, therefore, of these signs being performed in the presence of the Israelites was a success. The signs accomplished exactly what they were intended to. In verse 31 we read, and the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshipped. The exact kind of response you would hope these signs would happen. So, a couple things are happening here. As we've already noted, the primary intent of these three signs was to validate the message that Moses and Aaron were bringing. And the signs did exactly that. But get this, the method that God used to validate the message was to increase the faith of those Israelites who God intended to receive the message. This is affirmed for us in the first four verses, or first four words, I should say, of verse 31, which read, And the people believed. And the people believed. The Hebrew verb which is translated here as believed, carries with it the connotation of building something up. It's the same Hebrew word that's used to describe parenting. And parenting is what? A building up process. A nurturing process by which you take a small infant child and you build up and you nurture that child into a mature adult. That's what God is doing in the context of these people's spiritual lives. The belief that was demonstrated by the Israelites is that which God had nurtured in its infancy, in its weakness, and He had raised it, built it up, to a higher, more mature level. God increased and matured the faith of the Israelites to the degree that they would now receive and believe the testimony of Moses as true and valid. And so it's proper to say that these three signs serve the purpose of authenticating the message of Moses by building up the faith of those whom God had ordained to hear and receive the message. Both are happening at the same time. And this is an example of God using extraordinary circumstances to increase the faith of His people. Therefore, As it concerns the three signs that Moses performed, they are not part of the ordinary means that God uses to increase people's faith. These signs are classified as extraordinary along with miracles and visions and healings and visitations from angels. Now there's a reason why I'm laboring this distinction between ordinary means and extraordinary means. And it has to do with how we understand the place and purpose of signs that God uses throughout the Bible. As we proceed through the Scriptures, we find that Exodus 4 is not the only place that God uses these type of signs. Looking at other places in the Scriptures, we see that miracles are quite often used for this very purpose, for the purpose of a sign. And as we go through the Bible, we see this pattern repeat itself over and over and over again. Whenever God empowers some biblical character to perform a miracle, it's almost always used as a sign. And that sign is almost always used to authenticate the message of the person who performed the miracle, of the person who's speaking. For instance, when Moses, later in the book of Exodus, confronts Pharaoh and demands that he allow the Israelites to leave, Moses does so as a messenger from God. Moses is not coming there on his own authority and saying, hey, I, Moses, am telling you to go. No, he comes there and he says, The God of heaven, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob commands you to let these people go. And so in order to authenticate that Moses is really coming with the authority of God, Moses is given miracles to perform. And these miracles, therefore, serve as signs to attest to the authenticity of the verbal claim, the message. Same thing with Elijah, Mount Carmel. There's a contention between the prophets of Baal and Elijah as to Who worships and serves the true God? And so Elijah proposed that whichever God would send fire down from heaven would be the true God. So here's a miracle. Here's a sign. What does that sign point to? The sign is going to authenticate which of these two groups is telling the truth. Whose message is validated? And you know the story. The prophets of Baal do all that they possibly can, cutting themselves, calling upon Baal. Nothing happens. Elijah calls upon God. Fire comes down from heaven. Testifying. Serving as a sign that what Elijah said is true. That's how signs are working in the Bible. When Jesus performed miracles, He did so not just to entertain people. He performed these miracles as signs. Signs to prove that He was really sent by God. And many people understood this. When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, how did he greet Jesus? Do you remember? What was it that Nicodemus said to Jesus when he arrived there at night? John 3.2. Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher from God, for no one can do these signs unless God is with him. For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. You see what Nicodemus understood? Nicodemus understood the role and purpose of signs. Miracles are consistently used throughout the Bible as signs to testify to the truthfulness of the person who is speaking on behalf of God. It was on this very basis that Jesus challenged Philip and all the other disciples in John 14. If you remember the dialogue, Philip says to Jesus, Show us the Father. And Jesus responds by saying, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. But then Jesus understands what's going on in the minds of His disciples. And He understands their confusion and their disbelief. And so He exposes His disciples' unbelief. And in verse 10 He says, Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? that I say to you, I do not speak of my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does His work." And so here Jesus is laying it all on the line, and He's calling His disciples out, and He's exposing their unbelief. And then in verse 7, Jesus challenges them with this statement, and this gets right to the point that I'm trying to make. Jesus says to His disciples, believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else, believe on account of the miracles themselves. But why was Jesus performing miracles? What was the purpose? To facilitate the belief of those whom He was speaking to. He says, in essence, Jesus says to them, if you're not willing to accept the truth based upon My Word alone, then consider the miracles that I have performed and how they authenticate the Word I'm speaking to you. In John 10, when Jesus was disputing with the Jews, they did not accept the claim that Jesus was making when He said, I and the Father are one. So, they objected to this claim and Jesus challenged them by saying, quote, Do not believe Me unless I do what the Father says. But if I do it, even though you do not believe Me, believe in the miracles. that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am the Father." There again, he's making an appeal to the miracles he performed as an authentication of the very words he was speaking. So here's the point, if you haven't already figured it out. One of the primary functions of miracles is to validate and to authenticate the messenger of God. Whether the messenger is Moses, or Elijah, or Jesus, or the apostles, the miracles that they perform are signs. And these signs are an authoritative confirmation of their message. Jesus went so far as to pronounce woes upon certain towns where he had performed miracles and the people still did not believe. In Luke 10.13 he said, If the miracles done in your town would have been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes. He goes on to describe how these people, because they have not believed the miracles done, he's okay with them not believing his word. He grants an excuse there that says there's no excuse for not believing the miracles. So these signs, these miracles carry with them The responsibility that the witness of the sign will believe. And that's how authoritative these extraordinary signs are. The modern day church has gotten itself all messed up. and this understanding of the exact nature and functions of these signs. And the reason I keep stressing the distinction between God's ordinary means of grace and His extraordinary means of grace is because it's very important for us to be able to make this distinction. There are churches today that fail to make this distinction. And what happens is they begin to mistake the extraordinary signs that are recorded in the Bible as ordinary occurrences within the context of life and church. And this creates all sorts of problems. You go to certain churches and they have these healing services. Some guy is up there tapping people on the forehead and people are falling to the ground and this is supposedly healing people. But that's a flagrant misunderstanding of the extraordinary nature of the healing miracles that we read about in the Scriptures. Those healing miracles were there for a particular people, a particular time, a particular place, to authenticate a particular message. Those healings in the Scriptures were signs. Just like the signs Moses performed here in Exodus 4. The same goes for the sign of tongues. The miracle of tongues was a sign given to authenticate the message of God's people. On the day of Pentecost, many came to faith as a result of this sign. The sign of tongues was given credibility to the sermon that Peter had preached, and 3,000 people believed and were baptized that day. Three more times in the book of Acts, a very similar scenario to Pentecost occurred. And we see the same phenomena take place. The first time was in Jerusalem in Acts 2. The second and third time were in Judea and Samaria. And the fourth time was in the Gentile lands. And these were all extraordinary circumstances in which the sign of tongues was given. Yet many churches today fail to recognize the extraordinary nature of those events, of that sign. And so, you go on to visit certain churches today and you hear people babbling at the mouth, supposedly speaking in tongues, as if it were an ordinary occurrence. All the miracles of the Bible fall into the category of extraordinary occurrences. And for this reason, they ought not to be expected to manifest themselves in the ordinary ways that we worship and live our lives. I don't expect to stick my hand in my jacket and have it come out leprous. I don't expect to throw my little laser pointer on the ground and have it turn into a snake. God's Word is very clear that those type of miracles are very real. They absolutely positively did happen, but they happened to serve a very specific function, at a specific time, for a specific purpose, to a specific messenger. Therefore, we don't expect them to repeat themselves. And we certainly don't expect them to become ordinary part of our lives, with one exception. Because those extraordinary signs and miracles have been recorded for us in the pages of Holy Scripture, they now serve as a part of the history of God's redemption of His people. And therefore, they become part of the preaching of God's Word. And may I remind you, the preaching of God's Word is one of the ordinary means of God's grace. And so, in a very roundabout way, because those extraordinary events are recorded in our Scriptures, and we regularly and ordinarily preach those Scriptures, now the history of those isolated events become part of our ordinary means, and they, once again, have a sanctifying effect upon God's people. In the same way that Moses' three signs, the snake, the water, the hand, had the effect where God worked through those signs to increase the faith of the people of Israel, now when we read these things, we, as secondary, the trickle-down effect, we have the privilege of also having our strength increased and matured as a result of reading. Not because it's happening in front of us, but because we're reliving it in the pages of Holy Scripture. In that capacity, these things become ordinary. Because we ordinarily preach the Word of God and sit under preaching of God's Word. But all these things work together to present themselves as a collective whole to affirm the testimony of the Gospel. And that's really where everything is heading. It's all heading to the Gospel of Jesus Christ to affirm for us the truth and veracity that Jesus Christ came and died for sinners so that those who place their hope in Him can have eternal life, can have forgiveness of sins, can have the righteousness of Christ applied to them while their sinful nature is removed and placed upon the person and body of Christ. That is the ultimate aim and purpose of all the miracles. And so, yes, they validate the testimony of the messenger, but the messenger is speaking the message of the gospel. Moses himself is in this infancy form preaching the message of the gospel. And we see this progressive revelation of the gospel as the Bible goes through gets more rich and robust until the fullness of its expression comes to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So it's with great gratitude that we look back at these extraordinary events, and all of them pointing to the most extraordinary event of Christ fulfilling the atonement upon the cross. And how extraordinary is it that that would be applied to you and I? And so do we have an extraordinary faith? Absolutely. Have extraordinary things happened in our life? Every one of us who have been regenerated, have been regenerated in an extraordinary way. But do we look for the extraordinary experience in the context of our daily life in worship? No. We look to what God has prescribed for us as the ordinary means. Sitting under the preaching of God's Word. Participating in the sacraments. And communing with God through prayer. And when we do these things, and we do them routinely, God will be faithful to work in and through us to increase our faith and to multiply the strength of our commitment to Him. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material here within, unless otherwise noted. Copyright, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at NathanClarkGeorge.com