This morning, last week, we started. I don't think I have any more outlines. I think Miss Ellen had them printed up, but I don't know if we have any more. We'll get some more if we need them next week. But we're talking about this Sunday school curriculum is faith that triumphs, that we're talking about. We know this, number one, that without faith, it's impossible to please God. There's no way. You can knock on every door in the county. Give to missions, uh, preach the word of God. You can have a great church according to the world, but if we don't have faith, we can't please God. Right. So, um, when we talk about faith, we have to realize that this world is never going to be, it's never going to be a place where Christians are going to feel comfortable. I mean, we're just not, it's, it's anti-Christian, it's anti. Christ, this anti-God, it's the enemy, um, of Christianity. So, uh, until Jesus comes back, we're going to have to figure out how to live in this world. And we're also going to have to figure out how to thrive in this world, because let's be honest, we're, we're here for a purpose. And that purpose is not just to have church. It's not just to say we're Christians. It is to reach the world with the gospel. And so in order to do that, we're going to have faith when it seems like, uh, there are times that we can't have faith when, when everything is stacked against us, we have to have faith. Right. And, and a couple of things I'm going to preach on this, this morning out of Hebrews chapter 12, I find it interesting. Hebrews chapter 12, verse one and two talks about, uh, that, that cloud of witnesses. In other words, it talks about the longevity of Christianity, but then the chapter before that is chapter 11, uh, Hebrews chapter 11, which we, what do we call Hebrews chapter 11? The great faith chapter, right? It's a great faith chapter. So chapter 11 is all about faith. And then chapter 12 is really talking about how we are to continue on and run our race with patience. And so there's no way to run that race without faith, right? There's times in your life when. God doesn't make sense, right? When, you know, the old saying, when you, when you can't track him, you got to trust him. And there's a lot of that in the Christian life because there are times that it seems like we don't understand what God's doing, but here's the thing. That's not unusual because the Bible teaches us his ways are not our ways, right? His thoughts are not our thoughts. So, uh, here I said all that to introduce, uh, this, this lesson that we're on in choosing to trust him. Right. And. Psalms 56, again, we laid out the foundation last week that this is a psalm of faith and a psalm of David. And of course, verse 3 is probably one of those verses that we learn and we don't really learn it in context. And it means something to us, right? But we don't understand the whole context of it. And so here's what verse 3 said, what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. That's a great verse, isn't it? I mean, it tells me that first of all, uh, being afraid is not necessarily a sin, but it also says that I have someone I can trust, uh, when I am afraid. And in verse four said in God, I will praise his word in God. I have put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. So in verse three and four, we have the essence of basically the whole Psalm. Is that I'll trust in him when I'm afraid and I'll have enough confidence in the Lord in verse four, that I'll praise his word. Notice what didn't say emotion. No, it didn't say what I think or what I feel or what I see. It says, I'll have faith. I'll praise his word in God. I have put my trust. So, so again, that is the essence of the Christian wall. You will not always feel close to God. You will not always see God working in your life, but the fact is when you don't feel him and when you don't see him working, you have to choose at that point to trust him. Because if not, what's going to happen is that your, your Christian walk is going to be like this, right? And that that's where a lot of folks are. When things are good, they're up when things are bad, they're down. And really our Christian walk. I didn't say our circumstances are set. Our Christian walk should be consistent and constant because circumstances are not what makes our walk with God. It is our faith in him. So. As we, uh, looked last week at the reality of fear. Uh, we, we talked about fear and what we fear. And most of what was said, uh, was that we fear man. We fear what he thinks, what man thinks, uh, talks about. We fear fitting in the only different one was brother Brad and they're out of town. And he said, he's afraid of spiders. Right. So, um, so the, the reality of fear, we dealt with that in Psalms 56 in verse three, uh, the presence of our enemies. We see where David in Psalms 56, two, he said, mine enemies would daily swallow me up for they are many. They'd be many that fight against me. Oh, thou most high. So the presence of his enemies, uh, and also the, the plot of his enemies, the, the, the, the plot of the enemy is always the same thing is, is to do two things. It is to, it is to pull people away from God, right? It is to, to mock God that Satan hates God. Right. Uh, and he wants to discourage or hurt, uh, the things that God loves. And may I say this, that you are the apple of God's eye. And so it's not a personal attack that, well, you know, he just hates you because you're you, he hates you because God loves you and you have a relationship. So he can't send you to hell, but he sure can discourage you and beat you up to the place where you don't want to serve God. And brother Matt, what happens is a lot of times is we'll question God, right? When these things, and I, I've been guilty of that, right? You're serving God, doing the right things. And you look over here in the wicked, uh, those that do not serve God seem like they're thriving and we're just getting by, right? We're going, God, what, what's this all about? I'm trying to serve you and I'm struggling. And here's a guy who, I mean, let look at Hollywood, the entertainment industry, uh, sports, uh, all those things are making millions of dollars. And it seems like they're anti-God. Well, you had to look at a couple of things. One, this is the best they're ever going to have it, right? This is the worst you're ever going to have it. This is the best they're ever going to have it. And number two, his ways are not our way. So I don't, I don't know why he allows that. But I do know this when I study the Bible, everything, if I believe Romans 8 28 and I do everything God allows in my life is for my good. Now I may not understand that, right? How many of you, when you was growing up, your mom would say, well, this is for your good. And you're like, well, don't feel like it's for my good. Right? Or she'd make you eat some stuff that you thought this is terrible, but it's for your good. And how many remember, uh, When you was growing up, some of that medicine they put in you. They don't, they, you know, when we were growing up, they didn't, they didn't put all the bubble gum flavor in that stuff. It's just straight nasty. Right. But you'd swallow it and it's supposed to make you feel better. So, uh, I don't know if it made you feel better or not, or if it just got you to the place, you know, some of that stuff would numb your mouth to the point you didn't, you know, your throat didn't hurt cause it, it numbed it going down. So think about this, that you and I have an enemy. And it's not another church, it's not another Christian. We have an enemy and his name is Satan, right? And he's trying to do all he can to do. Listen, he hates, and here's what will happen, right? We've seen God do some amazing things the last few months around here. If we're not careful, what happens is Satan say, you know what? I can't send them to hell, but I can get their mind off of what God's doing and get it on them. One of the great things he uses to distract us, watch this, is us. Right? You say, no, I don't agree with that, he uses other people. No, he uses me focusing on me, right? Instead of focusing on what God wants me to do, I'll focus on me, how I'm being treated, how God's not treating me well, how the people are not treating me well. So we have to be real careful that when we think that God's against us, he may be using situations to help grow us. Okay. So number one is the reality of fear. Number two is the renewal of trust. Okay. Everywhere David looked, there were enemies, right? Everywhere David looked people and situations were against him. You ever felt like that? Right. I mean, it's like, what is the old saying? You take one step forward, two steps back, right? It seems like everywhere you turn. It's problems, right? Well, that was David. Listen, they hated David. I mean, you had Saul trying to kill David. You, now you got the Philistines trying to kill David. You got, you got, uh, all the issues in his family. I mean, Satan and here's the thing. What, when you think about David, what the Bible say about Dave, what, what, what was his testimony? He's a man after God's own heart, right? I mean, when we look at David and boy, to be honest, his life was pretty messed up. I mean, it wasn't, he wasn't when, if he came in here today, we wouldn't be like David, you, you want to speak to us? Right. He was an adulterer. He was a murderer. Yet there's something inside of him. He knew his weakness and knew he had to rely on God. So it tells me that a lot of times when we think of, uh, self-righteousness, well, uh, and here's what we do it. I mean, I'll look at, I'll look at brother Jake and I'll be like, well, you know, at least I'm not doing that. Well, I'll look at brother Ray Dank and say, well, I know, you know, I know my, I'm not perfect, but at least I'm not doing what he's doing. Right. And so. It seems to me when you look at David's, especially in the Psalms, David's, David's, uh, focus was on getting things right with God. And that's where we need to be. I, we can always look at other people and see their weakness, but I've got to look inwardly and say, you know what? Uh, Satan's the one doing all this stuff. And so, and let me say this here, here's the, here's the challenge, right? The challenge is understand where the culprit is, but not letting ourself off the hook. Right. Cause here, here's what happens. We'll say, well, what me was Satan, you know? Yeah, but you have to be willing to allow him to use you. Right. It's not like, uh, it's not like our, our, our will is overcome by him and we can't help it. Right. So, so here we understand that David in Psalms 56, three said, what time I am afraid. It didn't say, I feel trust. It said, I will trust in thee. So it's a conscious decision. He made a critical choice to trust the Lord. And let me say this when you get to the place and I get to the place where we understand that, that I'm responsible for me, right? That, that, that my life is not a series of events. My life is a series of choices. Stuff's going to happen. But I have to choose how I react to it. And if I'm honest, brother RJ, a lot of my problems that have happened in my life, I'm the one who caused them, right? It's not miss Ellen didn't cause them and my kids didn't cause them and the church didn't cause them. I've caused a lot of issues in my life, right? So I have to take responsibility for it. So when I look at this, he said, what time I'm afraid, he said, I will trust in thee. He didn't say, God, if you make all the circumstances, right, I'll trust you. He said, what time in my fear, I'm going to make a decision to trust God. That's a good time to trust him. And so the two things in this, uh, in this, uh, particular point, Is first of all, letter a, it's a volitional choice. You said, what is that? Well, that was in the lesson, but I did look it up. It means making a conscious decision, right? It's not, it's not just an emotional decision. It's a conscious decision to trust God. Verse three said, I will trust in thee. So it's a deliberate conscious decision to trust in God. So we can't always control what's happening in our lives. I feel like I told myself the other day, I said, I feel like we're on, uh, a, uh, a, uh, Ferris wheel or, uh, I don't think it's fair. So remember those things you used to, when you, you go on the playground, Ferris wheels, like the horses in it, make it around. That's what I'm looking for. And you know what we do, we get on those things and, and we'd see how fast we could spin them and see how many people could be thrown off of them. Right. And if you didn't do that, you didn't have a good childhood. Right. But I feel like sometimes that's, that's life, isn't it? Right. And I, and I'm, I like schedules. I like routines. I like to get up and do certain things. And I like to, I've got a time I like to study and it seems like the last few months has been nothing but chaos. Right? I mean, it's. One fire to the next fire, to the next fire, to the next fire, to the next, to the next. And then all of a sudden it's time to go to bed and you're like, I didn't get anything done today. You ever feel like that? Especially if you got kids, right? And so. And you, you're like, well, tomorrow's going to be better tomorrow. I'm going to get up and I'm going to do this and this and this and circumstances happen. Correct. Am I the only one or it's your life perfect and planned out and happens that way? No, it isn't. Is it? So, so what you're doing is you, you feel like you're constantly playing catch up and you feel like you're constantly, uh, in other words, you have no control over anything that's going on in your life, right? The only thing you have control over is how you react to those things, right? That's it. I mean, you can make all the plans in the world and I think you should. I think you'll see tonight as a church, we're going to have goals and plans and all those things. And I would say this. Uh, if you never have a plan and you say, well, that's just not how I am. I just like to, man, I just like to operate, you know, whatever. You'll never get as much done unless you have a plan, but you also have to be flexible enough to know that it don't always work that way. So either you get to the place where you say, well. Uh, it's going to destroy me every single day. Things don't go the way I think they should, or you're going to have to trust that God has a bigger plan for you. Right. And so it's that way with everything. I don't understand why, why kids die. I don't understand why there's famine. I don't, I don't understand all that. But I've got to keep trusting God. I don't know why God allows some things in my life that he allows, but I got to keep trusting God. I've got to make that conscious decision to say, you know, no matter what, no matter what this world has and does to me, I've got to make a conscious decision to know that God is all knowing and he loves me. And so therefore, whatever he allows in my life, number one, he's going to get me through it. Number two, it's for my good somehow, even when I can't see it. Right. And so we always have the choice where we place our trust. Now you say, well, I, you know, I disagree with that. Well, how many of you, how many of you drove to church this morning? Everybody, how many of you got in your car and when you put the key in there or push the button, someone said, my car doesn't have a key. I put whatever, you know where I'm going with this. You got ready to crank that car. Was there a time where you were like, I just don't know if it's going to work out. I hadn't checked the battery. I need to check the battery. I need to check the oil. I need to check everything. Or did you just get in there, hit the button or turn the key and expect it to crank? Right. You made a choice to just, why? Because 99 times, 99.9 times out of a hundred, you've done it before. And when you turn the key, it cranked, right? So you didn't even think about it. You chose to make a conscious effort at some point in time to believe when you put the key in there, you said, well, I didn't even think about it. Exactly. But see, a lot of times that's what we think our, our walk with God is right. And sometimes it is, but sometimes there's some things, you know, that, that happen. And you've got to, you've got to make a decision that no matter how things look, I'm going to trust God. And that takes faith. It takes faith in who God is not in your ability, but in his. And so David decides in the midst of his enemies, he would trust the Lord. And so it involves trust and praise. And look at verse four, the Bible said in God, I will praise his word. Well, that's interesting. It didn't say I trust his words that I'll praise his word. And then it said in God, I have put my trust. I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. So why do we praise God's word? I guess, first of all, what's it talking about praising God's word? Anybody got an idea? Y'all are not going to be helpful, are you? Well, let me give you a few things. Why do we praise God's word? Well, because it reveals what is right and true, right? In the midst of I can't trust my emotions, I can't trust what I see. You can't even trust what you see now. I mean, there's, they've got, and of course, you know, this there's, there's apps you can put, you can put a picture in there and it's got dancing babies, you know, and it looks real. Now they'll put stuff up and I'll look then I'll go. I'll tell the girls, I said, you see it? They go like, Dad, that's AI. I'm like, how do you know it's AI? You can tell. I'm like, I can't tell. So I'm old. My eyes are failing me. I don't know what's AI and what's not. So I'm like, I don't believe, I trust hardly anything, right, that I see unless it's you and me right here. If I sit on this, I'm probably, there's a side of me, I'm going, I don't know if I can believe that or not, right? Why do we, why do we praise God's word? Well, let me give you four reasons. Scripture is necessary for understanding God. Scripture is necessary. Let me ask you this. Why is it necessary for understanding God? Somebody give me, give me something. We understand who we are. That's a good, right? What else? Right, we have a perception, think about what, we have a perception in our mind of who God is, right? And a lot of times, who do we base that perception on? Right? It's like, well, I would do this. And so, if you don't study God's word, you think God should act and react like you would. Right. Or like human beings would or like rational, you know, people would. Right. And so what happens is we distort who God is because we're taking it. What we think instead of what God says about himself, this book, God's given you a, uh, an autobiography of who he is in this book. Right. So first of all, scriptures necessary to understand God. All right. Second statement scripture is sufficient for our every need. Agree or disagree? Agree. All right. Somebody tell me why, why is it, why is scripture sufficient for our every need? Can't survive without it, right? There's no higher truth. That's good. What else? Anything else? What's what's what's our greatest need? It's to know God, isn't it? Well, how do you know God? Through his word, through prayer and his word. So, so when you look at scripture sufficient for our every need, is there, is there, all right, can you find, can you find things about your financial needs in the word of God? A hundred percent, right? The, can you find things about your physical wellbeing in the word of God? Can you find things about your, uh, relationships in the work, your marriage relationships with your children, relationships with other believers? Is that in there? So see everything that we need to survive and thrive is in God's word. Yet, if we don't know it, you know what happens? We base everything off what we see, what we feel. So scripture is sufficient for every need. Then scripture is clear and provides clarity to life. Agree or disagree. Okay. How? So I give me an example. How, how, how scripture is, uh, provides clarity to life. Change our perception. That's good. How, how does it change our perception? Gives us truth about God and us. Right. And. So it should shape what we think. Right. I mean, if it's truth and I want to say, you know, all right, I want to, I want to, I want to live in truth. I have to let the word of God shape that truth for me. Cause the Bible said, let God be true. Every man, a liar. So even I can't even trust what I think or feel right. If I, if I base everything off what I think or feel, then those emotions will lead me to cause what, well, let me ask you this. If that's true, why, why will my emotions and my thoughts lead me wrong? Heart's wicked. That's a good ant. What else? Who typically are my thoughts and my feelings about? It's about me, right? I mean, I feel sorry for people and I feel compassion for people, but in my flesh, There's a side of me that I'm like, well, how does that benefit me? So, so when you look the fruit of the spirit, you understand that the fruit of the spirit is not the works of the flesh. The works of the flesh is all about me. The fruit of the spirit takes me out of that hole. What about me? And puts me in that mind of Christ where it's about other people. Right? So when I look at scripture, providing clarity to life, I've got to look at that and say, okay, even when. How many again, now it's different, right? Cause you got GPS and all that stuff, but you remember when they had the maps, right? I mean, somebody had to come up with the map. Somebody had to map all that stuff out. Somebody walked or road or whatever. And they're like, well, here's the, here's a dirt road. You know what? They put that on a map. And so there's times that, you know, and, and even the same thing with GPS, there's times you, how many of you done this? You've gone a certain way your whole life. And you thought that was the quickest way to get there. And you pull up the GPS and the GPS says, gives you two routes. This one takes, you know, 14 hours and eight minutes, and this takes 13 hours and 50 minutes. You're like, there's no way. Right? There's no way that that, that's the route I've gone my whole life. There's no, that GPS is a liar. No, you just, you just have gone the wrong way. You know, if you want the quickest way. So what I'm saying is. If I don't have the clarity of the word of God, I'll look at things that I think and that I feel, and maybe that I've been taught my whole life and they're not, they're inaccurate, right? And they're leading me down the wrong way. But tradition does that. I mean, let's be honest. We're independent Baptist. We got a lot of tradition and I'm not against tradition. I think tradition is great, but also we gotta be careful not making tradition biblical, not making my preferences. The word of God, right? Let the word of God be the word of God in my prayer. There's nothing wrong with preferences, right? But I I've learned this over the years. We've made our preferences biblical when the Bible doesn't say anything about it. Right? It's like, again, I think a man ought to wear a suit when he preaches. I think that's a good tradition, right? I'm always going to wear one. Anybody preaches here is going to wear one. But I'll be real careful when I'm start going in and say, well, the Bible teaches it. A man has to wear a suit to preach. No, I mean, I can pull enough out brother Ray Danker. I can make it say that, right. I could go and say, well, you know, now, uh, we're not to be worldly. And so therefore wearing blue jeans and, uh, is worldly and well, yeah. Okay. That's stretching. Right. I think some things that we do that are tradition are good, but I'm going to be real careful making them biblical. Right. So scripture is clear, provides clarity to life. And then finally scripture is authoritative for our faith and practice. Agree. Right. That's what we're talking about. Here's we have to, we have to distinguish the Bible says this. And that's, that's biblical over here is what we do, right? I've, I've taught people. They're like, well, you know, I, I, I like using hymnals. I'm not against him. But neither do I think they're necessary to sing songs in church and be conservative, right? I think that, you know, so again, not against it. I'm not saying people use him. I'm I'm oh, I'm not against, I wouldn't, wouldn't be opposed to using hymnals. But again, we have to be careful that we don't say, well, biblically, this is this right. So scripture is authoritative for our faith and practice. If, if not, what happens is I remember when we first took the church, you know, uh, one of the things that we. Uh, one of the things that we put in the constitution was that, um, we're going to be King James, right? We were, you know, other things have been there. One of the things that was amazing to me, we put in there that if someone was not present for a year and they weren't providentially hindered, nursing home, sick, whatever, they just decided they weren't going to come. That, uh, we're going to take them off the roll. And I mean, we, we had a fight on our hands. I'm like, what in, but I determined I wasn't going to get voted out by people don't even go to church. Right. I mean, if I'm going to get voted out, I'm just going to be the people that go to church there. But I found out later, originally all the members of the church had a, had a free grave plot at the, when we were at the other property. So you had people on the church role that hadn't been there in years, but they were family members of church members and they were getting a free grave plot. And so, uh, they wanted to remain on the church role. And man, I mean, it, it was bad, miss him. Tell you, we had some people said, well, you know, God, don't remove your name from the lamb's book of life. I said, we ain't talking about salvation. We're talking about free gray plots, but that was the tradition, right? So we, we have to be careful. There are certain things that are tradition that's good, but let's not mix them up with what the Bible says about things. And so scripture is authoritative for our faith and practice. So volitional is the fact that we make a conscious decision to trust God. And then finally convictional next is. Uh, the fact that that's the reason we do it right. Conviction is why the, the why behind the choice. In other words, that I've, that I've examined and here's what the Bible tells us. Jesus tells us to examine him, right? Taste of the Lord. See that he's good. In other words, he's, he's, he's saying, I'll prove myself that I'm worthy for you to trust. And that's the conviction part of it is the fact that David chose to trust in God because he was confident Uh, that God was able to bring comfort to David's heart. Look at Psalms 56, eight, the Bible said, thou tell us my wanderings, put down my tears into that bottle. Are they not in that book? And when I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back this. I know for God is for me. Right? So, so God cherishes his people's cries and prayers for help. And David saying, listen, I know I can trust God because I've seen him work before. And so you're seeing your choice has to be based on more than emotion. It has to be based on evidence. And when you have a choice based on evidence, then when your emotions tell you that you're wrong, then you go back to the evidence and you say, well, the evidence points to it. Uh, and so therefore I'll give you an example. Uh, miss Lana, she was a police officer. So I'm guessing there's, there's probably some people that you felt like were guilty. But you couldn't arrest them until you had enough evidence to say, look, if it goes to court, we can prove this. Right. I mean, you, I can look at some people like, yeah, they're guilty. Right. You've probably done the same thing. You you'll see a mugshot and you're like, yeah, that dude's guilty. And then it comes out, you're like, and they'll say, nope, it was somebody else. And you're going, well, I missed that one. Right. There's, there's an emotional side to you feel like this, but if you're as a police officer. If you don't have the evidence, then you're wasting time because if you don't have the evidence, uh, well, you're not supposed to be able to, but who knows now? Right. But the, so that's what I'm saying. Your emotions may tell you one thing, but your conviction should be based on the evidence that God is faithful and can do what he says he'll do. And you've seen it. And that's why you have this. I mean, you got a whole book of showing God's faithfulness to his people, but here's the other thing you've got evidence in your own life. I can look at this and I can say, you know what? God's been faithful in my life. So therefore, if I could trust him before I can trust him again. Right. And then when the devil saying, yeah, but you can't trust him this time. Then I can go back and I can look in the word and say, you know what? Here's, here's where he was, uh, help David. Here's where he helped Paul. Here's where he helped John. And here's the other thing. The Bible says, God's not a respecter of persons. So if he'll do it for them, he can do it for me. Right? So again, when you look at your faith, your faith has got to be based on more than your emotion. It's got to be based on the person of Jesus Christ and the evidence of his power in your life. And when it's that, then guess what? Even when I feel like I can't trust or track him, I can trust it, right? You can't just make a decision one day and say, well, you know what? I think I'm going to start having faith. You're going to have to examine the evidence of what God has done and who he is and say, that's what my evidence or what my faith is based on what I've seen him do. And that's what David saying. David David's is not writing this at the first part of his life. He's writing it later on when he's seen the faithfulness of God. And so in your life, if you're going to, if you're going to finish well in faith, you're going to have to go back because the devil, let me give you this. There will be no time in your life that the devil is not trying to destroy you. Right. You know, whether it be storms. Trials, tribulation, uh, health finances, your, your mind. That's one of the, this, the biggest, greatest battlefield is right. This right here. Right. How many times you walked in church? I give you this exam, walk in church and, and you know, uh, somebody they could, they could have a bad day. They could have woke up wrong side of the bed. You know, their dog might have died. You don't know. You walk in the church and every other Sunday they shake your hand. This particular Sunday they don't shake your hand. You go, huh? Wonder what's wrong with them. The devil said, yeah, they don't like you. They don't like you. Or you'll see two people over here talking and the devil saying, you know what? They're probably talking about you. Right? And you come to church. And you're miserable the whole time. Cause in your mind, the devil saying, you know what? Same thing with a home. Same thing with your house. Same thing with a job, right? He's, this is a battlefield that probably the greatest battlefield we got is in our mind. And so if we can overcome that and trust God, I tell you this, we can have faith and we can choose to trust him. That's what it's all about. Just examine the evidence. He's faithful. Amen. All right, let's pray we'll be dismissed. Thank you again for your.