Please now turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 4 verses 16 through 22 and we will read from verse 16 down through the end of the chapter. Let's stand together and hear God's Word. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace so that the promise might be sure to all the seed not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of him whom he believed God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did, who contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be. And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief but was strengthened in faith giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able also to perform and therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but also for us it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. This is the very word of God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, oh God, we thank you for the privilege of receiving your revelation, your truth. Father, we pray that this would embed itself deeply into our minds and hearts. May your Holy Spirit work through this. Who is sufficient for these things? Certainly I am not. But Father, we pray that you would do the mighty work in our hearts, apply this gospel message to all of us here today, in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated, brothers and sisters. The message today is on faith. And this is the $100,000 question I guess with inflation we need to say the five million dollar question for us today is this. Do you really believe this stuff? Do you really believe it? That's the question for all of us. The difference between being forgiven, being justified, being saved, being cleansed from all of our sins and released from the power of sin, the difference between that and not having any of that is faith. It's believing it. That's the thing that matters most to every one of us here, that we believe this message, that we believe the promises of God. Simon the Sorcerer believed, it says, Acts chapter 8, but he was still in the bond of iniquity and the gall of bitterness. Something wrong with that guy. Or the stony ground hearers in Jesus's parable, They believed for a while, but then they were discouraged when they went through trials, tribulations, temptations, persecutions, cares of this world, choked the Word in the thorny ground, and they just walked away. They were more interested in the world. The discouragements and the trials of life, they could not believe it anymore. They didn't really believe it. So the question for all of us is, do we really believe the gospel message? Do we really believe it? As you believe the gospel message, it is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe. And this power rushes in and changes our lives. You can present the gospel a hundred times or a thousand times, and people can render lip service to it. They sing amazing grace at Carter's funeral, President Carter's funeral. You may have heard them singing amazing grace. Almost everybody in America sings amazing grace. How sweet the sound, it sounds kind of sweet, but it doesn't really do anything in their lives. They really haven't embraced the gospel. There is so much fakery. There's so much of this religious language. They'll sing Amazing Grace and then John Lennon's Imagine shows up next on the playlist. They don't really believe it. So the question, you should press it home to yourself. Do I believe this? I've heard it so many times. Have I really experienced the power of God in my life myself? Hearing the gospel is not enough. You've got to believe it. Now, of course, the same sun that hardens the clay softens the heart, so it'll do one or the other. And so over the years, people become increasingly hardened to it or increasingly softened to it. Which is it for you? Do you love it even more? Are you increasingly receptive of it? Are you increasingly appreciative of this message? Or are you harder and harder and harder against it to the point that it just has no real impact on your life anymore? So what does this sword do? It's double-edged and it pierces, it blesses, it curses, it softens, it hardens. But the gospel message is the power of God and the glorious word of this gospel. Let's say it one more time. The gospel is Jesus, the Son of God. recited this in the Confession of the Creed, but He is the mighty Savior of God who has come to save us from our sins. He died on the cross for our sins. He died that we might live. He rose again from the dead on the third day. Are you getting it? Are you receiving it? You're hearing it again. He's my Savior. He's your Savior. You need to believe this stuff. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe. Have you felt its power today? You feel it right now. You feel it in your own life. Experience this animating power and force working in your heart as well. especially as you hear the gospel one more time this morning. Wow, these are powerful words. We couldn't be saying anything more powerful in any other context, in any political rally or anything like that, that God should send his only begotten son to die on the cross for our sins to save the world and to bring life to the dead. This is the best and greatest message of all. And it's for us brothers and sisters to say, amen. I receive it, I'm grateful for it. This means all the world to me. This changes eternity for me. That's the way we receive it this morning, amen? Amen. Amen. So that's the theme of this book of Romans. But let's begin with verse 16 of our passage this morning, God's promise of blessing for the world is of faith and by grace. Faith is so essential, and that's the theme of the message. Faith is essential for us. Faith, as it were, is the catalyst to the promise. Sometimes they call it the instrumental cause to salvation, but it's through faith by grace. But the idea of the catalyst is you've got a substance that's all mixed together there. It's just kind of there. It's not really doing anything yet, but you throw the catalyst in there and just boom, the whole thing explodes. just a little bit, one tablespoon of that catalyst and the whole thing just goes boom, it becomes active and powerful and begins to actually do something in your life or my life. That's faith. Faith is the animating catalyst, the instrument that brings all of this about in our lives. I would say as we look at verse 16 one more time, this would be a good way to read it, the materialization of the promise. It is of faith that it might be according to grace. Speaking of the promise that is brought out in verse 13, it is of grace. The materialization that this promise will have any effect, that it will go into effect, is of faith that it might be according to grace and that it might be available to us all that is both Jew and Gentile. So the promise is what? It's the promise from verse 13 of inheriting the world. And so again, it's the broadest possible demonstration of what God is going to do. God is going to be sure that the seed of Abraham will inherit the world, eternal life, eternal glory, eternal inheritance, the new heavens and new earth. It's everything. It's our justification, our sanctification, our forgiveness, of sin, our victory over the world, etc., all by faith that it might be according to grace. That is, there is no sense in which we have earned the inheritance. That shouldn't make sense to all of us. My father actually has passed on a little inheritance to us, and it's not like I feel I earned it. You know, I don't write to Dad and say, well, thanks, Dad, for paying off all the hard work I put into splitting wood for the last 20 years. I don't say anything like that at all. No, no, no. It's not something I've earned. It's not a paycheck. The inheritance is what? It's the inheritance. It's a gift. It's grace. It's precisely what this inheritance is for us. It's by grace. But again, it's for us to believe the promise is for me and for you, and that God is good for this promise. And we have to believe that. Ephesians 2, verses 4 through 8 also express the grace of God in salvation. And so again, it is by grace we are saved through faith, that God who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has made us alive in Christ Jesus. By grace you are saved. It is by grace we have been given new life. That's what Ephesians 2 is all about. By grace, we were dead, but by grace now we're alive. What's the difference? The gift of God. That's the gift. The gift of God has made us alive in Christ Jesus. That's Ephesians 2. It's all a gift. There you were dead in trespasses and sins. Dead people can't do anything anyway. We'll get to that in just a moment. But the grace of God came to you and raised you from the dead by grace. You were saved. But also the instrumental cause is through faith. We'll get there. Consider the surety and sheer magnitude of the promise. That is, the promise is sure. We read there in verse 16, to all the seed, the promise, which promise again is the promise made to Abraham and carried on to Abraham's seed, which is Jesus and all of us who are in Christ, heirs of the world, heir of the world, verse 13. So God literally promises the world. Have you ever heard somebody say, I am promising you the world? We hear that expression. What does this mean? Well, it means God's gonna give us everything. God's gonna give us this whole thing. God promises the world, the meek will inherit the earth. We spoke of this last time, we dug into verse 13 just a little bit, but the meek will reign over all things in righteousness, led by Jesus Christ, the King of kings and rulers of all the rulers. In fact, it's very interesting, I just noticed this in my private devotions several weeks ago, that that in Revelation 2, 26 and 27, Jesus is speaking there. You might take a look at it. It's sort of unusual because he quotes Psalm 2 and then applies it to his people. He says this, our Lord Jesus Christ said, Revelation 2, 26, 27, he that overcomes and keeps my works to the end, to him I will give power over the nations. Again, this incredible promise given, but then he quotes Psalm 2, he shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessel, as I also have received from my father. So there it is, the idea that not only are we saved from our sin, but we are saved to what? To righteousness, to a righteous rule over all the earth. So this is a very big promise. Children, this is huge. Jesus is going to take over the world. That's what this says. And I put that in your notes. I put it just that way in your notes, that Jesus is going to take over the world. And we're gonna be right there with him. Not only that, but we find that Jesus will bless the world. This is the other part of the blessing to Abraham. Don't be confused about this. You may say, well, where is all the other blessings that flow out of all of this? Well, this is the big message that God has given to Abraham. And let's just be impressed with it for a moment. Let's step back and see that God is not exaggerating here at all. God is bringing a blessing upon the whole world. And Jesus, the seed of Abraham, will be the means by which that happens. In you will all the nations of the earth be blessed, is the promise made to Abraham. Now, why is this important? Because God has cursed the world, as anybody knows that. God's already brought a curse on the world, and we know that. But now here we find that God is going to bless the world, the nations of the world. God is gonna reverse this curse and bring blessing on the whole world. This is really phenomenal. Now, I guess we need to assess for a moment the improbability and impossibility of all of this. And again, the reason why people don't believe is because it's ridiculous. The reason why the world walks out of a service like this, you know, hearing these promises, they think to themselves, this is ridiculous. This is beyond the imagination of anybody that God would promise anything this significant. And so this is a massive promise. It was big, it was difficult, it was impossible for Abraham. in the physical sense. God made this an impossibility for Sarah and for Abraham, given that they were, what, 90 and 100 years of age and past the childbearing age. And so there was a ridiculousness about this. This is the whole point of the promise. The promise is ridiculous. The promise is so impossible, so improbable, that it tests us, it pushes us. Abraham, a man without children, your seed will inherit the world. Well, okay, let's go with Hagar for a while. There's a little bit of a lapse in faith there. But again, a test on Abraham, a man who had no seed whatsoever. What seed's gonna inherit the earth? He had no seed. The world, wasn't like the world was paying attention to Abraham at that point. Just a wandering pilgrim across the land of Canaan at that point in his life. And so this is hard for any of us to realize. What? Christians make up 3% of this county. Not very many attend churches on a Sunday. They don't care about Jesus, don't care about his body. So 3%, we're like a total minority. We're gonna take over the world. Start saying stuff like that, they're gonna think you're crazy. So I want you to understand the impossibility, the ridiculous nature of this promise that God gave to Abraham. Well, suffice it to say, the world needs the blessings of God. No question, we all need this. Life from the dead, of course, and obliteration of all the evil in the world, all the sin in the world, all the sickness. We spend most of our lives talking about all of the problems in the world. Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, they're all talking about problems in the world. Everybody's aware of the problems in the world. God's cursed the world, now look at it. Everybody's talking about the bad news in the world, all around us. all the sin in the world, all the hypocrisy, all the psychological illnesses, all the demons and deceptions, everything that's so bad out there. But Jesus is gonna obliterate all of that and bring a reign of perfect righteousness. And there'll be nothing but that which is good and right and beautiful and life-giving forever and ever, amen. Now that's the way it's going to end. That's the promise of God to us. By the way, let me just say this. Could it be any other way, given that God has come down to solve the problem? If there is a God, and if God is good, and God is gonna solve the problems of the world, what do you think it would look like? What do you think it would look like? Well, I think it would look like this. I do. But the point is, it's hardly imaginable. And it's hardly imaginable because People live in the sewer. Imagine living in a sewer under a city where you're just there. You grow up in a sewer under a large city. That's all you know of. You live with all the smells and the discomforts, the diseases, the dangers. and all the rest, and it's just your life. And you know, people in India, orphans in India live in garbage heaps and such, and that's their life. They can't really imagine anything else. And so as you receive the promise of God this morning, you have to be ready for a paradigmatic improvement. That is a paradigm shift, a complete radical readjustment of everything that's going on in your reality today. This is the vision that God has given to us. We live in a world with all the smells and discomforts and diseases and dangers, the violence, the murders, the evil that makes up the dead life of the world all around us. This place is messed up. I just read this week, 43% of college kids are on psychotropics and antidepressants. And that's up from like one and a half percent in 1990. 43%, almost half of the nation is on psychotropics. The nation is insane. The nation is depressed. The nation has come to the point that they're almost entirely in despair. Hopeless, without God in the world. This is the world we live in today. A world that needs the hope of Christ everywhere. This is precisely the promise that we need. That God is going to do this. God is going to bring a complete reversal of all of the evil in the world. God is reversing the curse. God will bless the nations. God will bring about the perfect rule of righteousness by his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what we're to believe. To believe God. To believe God. We believe others. Believe God. Believe the impossible that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered in the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who believe in him. Now let's move on to verse 17, which I call the rock solid basis for our faith, verse 17. As it is written, God said, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of him whom Abraham believed, God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. Now, let me say this, people rely on promises. They cannot live without hope. Hope is essential for life. The hope that things are going to get better, This is the way people are. Now, of course, to the point that we have given way to despair, it's the psychotropics, it's the suicides, it's the drugs, it's the 100,000 diversions, it's the constant checking your cell phone, it's trying to avoid reality as best as you possibly can. But for anybody who's still alive to life itself in the modern age, you can't live without hope. You can't live without believing somehow that things are going to get better and they're going to need a promise. They're going to need to hear from somebody that America is entering the golden age. And yes, they will hear the promise. They will hear it. And it might just keep them going. It might keep America going, a little more optimism, making America great again, the golden age of the Republican party. The promises that are made to you by politicians, good enough? Somebody mentioned, if we're moving into the golden age, it's probably only gonna be four years. Biblically, it should be closer to a thousand. But people need the promise. They need hope. And they promise it to themselves. And they'll hear the promise from a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I'll love you forever, amen, whatever. They'll hear it from politics, they'll hear it from themselves. But brothers and sisters, for the magnitude of the problems that we deal with in our lives, we're going to have to get a promise from God himself. God's promises. Who has promised all of this? God has promised to us. God has promised to us. And the promise is sure to all the seed, to all those who believe, not just to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles. But here in the verse 17, we find a couple of things. Number one, Abraham was given this promise in the presence of God. That's the first thing you need to understand. And this is really interesting in that, have you read through the book of Genesis and see that God approaches Moses, I'm sorry, Abraham, and sits down with Abraham and has dinner. The only comparison I could think of was Jesus by the seashore cooking fish for his disciples. Jesus sat down and had a conversation with his disciples around the meal. And we find that same thing here, that when God gives a promise to Abraham, he looks him in the eye. He doesn't send it by a third party. He invites Abraham into his presence and he looks Abraham in the eye and he gives him the promise intentionally and personally to Abraham himself. He does it in the presence of God. The promise is delivered face to face. In Genesis 18, we read towards the end of the chapter, the Lord got up and left. That's more my rendition, but that's, that's what, so God comes to Abraham, has a conversation, certifies the promise again, and then he got up and left as soon as he finished speaking to Abraham. My point is this, is that when God speaks to us through the word, by his promises, it's eye to eye, it's personal. It's this is God speaking now to you. So you have to receive. If you're going to believe the promises of God, you have to first believe that God is looking you in the eye this morning and telling you, I promise you this. I promise you this. That's first, Abraham was in the presence of God. Secondly, God is good for his promises. And this is why, two reasons given in this verse. God is good for his promises. Now you see, we have big promises here, no question, the reversal of the curse, the blessings of God upon us and upon the world. We have big promises here. We have a big God who's competent to bring this to pass. See, these are the sorts of things you have to believe. Number one, you have to believe the promise is to you. Number two, you have to believe that God is good for his promises. And here were two qualifications that make him eminently qualified for making these promises. Here they are. He gives life to the dead. He is a God who raises the dead and he calls things that didn't exist into existence. Stop for just a moment. God calls things that didn't exist as though they existed. He calls them into existence. Children, look around you for a moment. All this didn't exist 7,000 years ago. Where did all these elements come from? Where are the trees, the mountains, the dirt, the globe, the stars? Where did all this come from? It didn't exist. God called it into being. He imagined it, purposed it, fought it, then he called it into being, and it was there 7,000 years ago. Jed, Jed didn't exist seven years ago. Jed did not exist seven years. How did Jed get here? Jeremiah, you didn't exist, what, 14 years ago. You did not exist, you weren't here. I looked around, I couldn't find Jeremiah anywhere, 14 years ago. No, you're here. What's the difference? God did that. God did that. God imagined Jeremiah. And he says, we're gonna have a Jeremiah. And he made Jeremiah. What was it, 13 years ago? Jesus made three tons of food out of nothing. God calls the universe into existence out of nothing. That which didn't exist, now it exists. And the point is this, the point is as we believe in God, we believe the believable, we believe that God can do and will do what He has promised. God can do it. God can do it. These are the four words that are so essential this morning. What is impossible for man is possible for God, absolutely. He calls those things which did not exist as if they did exist. Let me give you a couple other examples of this, illustrations, applications of where this happened in Old Testament history. You remember Gideon hiding out for the Midianites in the threshing floor of the barn. Under all that hay, angel of the Lord comes to him and says, I see you under there, more or less. You mighty man of God, you. Didn't look like a mighty man of God, did he? He was so afraid. He was the least of his father's house and the least of the tribes of Israel. And yet God called him mighty. And God determined him to be mighty. That he would be the mighty man of God he turned into. God looks at you and He says, I'm gonna make you a living, walking, talking servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will do it. God raises the dead, He restores life where it's gone. I believe this is even more impossible than creating life to begin with. Now, there could be some debate on that issue, but the idea that, well, for one thing, you have to overcome the curse itself that God himself placed upon man as he sinned against God in the garden. So you're up against this curse. And so the idea of reversing the curse itself and raising the dead has got to take some power. Ezekiel 34 brings this out and accentuates the impossibility of it. And I want to go there one more time because I, and I want to read specifically, I know I've referred to this before, but I want to read from Ezekiel 34, how the spirit of the Lord took Ezekiel into the valley of dry bones. And here it says, the bones were very dry. What does that mean? It means they were dead. Not a question of whether it's clinically dead or not. Let's check the brain waves. There is no brain. The skull is all dried out and a piece of it's over there. So this is very dead. This is extremely dead. This is dead, dead. Can these bones live? The spirit asks the prophet this question. Can these bones live? God asks you a question. The best answer is this. Oh Lord God, you know. You know the answer to that. Better way to say it. And that's what Ezekiel said in this passage. Then the Spirit of the Lord said, prophesy to these bones and say to them, oh, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones. Now again, this is Ezekiel speaking to dead, dried out bones lying out in this open field. Thus says the Lord God to the bones. Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. So here's what Ezekiel did. I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a noise and suddenly a rattling. And the bones came together bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over, but there was no breath in them. And then God breathed the breath of life into them, and they became a mighty army. Now, the application to this shows up in verse 11 of the same chapter, Ezekiel 34. Then, 37, sorry, 37 verse 11. Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel." They indeed say, our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off. So again, a sense of the impossibility of the situation, the utter dreadful, incredible impossibility of what you're facing at the time. But then, therefore, The Spirit, again, says to Ezekiel, prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, O my people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves and bring you into the land of Israel, and then you shall know that I am the Lord. When I open your graves, O my people, and brought you up from your graves, I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land, and then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, says the Lord. So again, the validation, the evidence, the indication that God has done a work is this radical miracle done in dead people, where at one time, the word of God made no impact upon their lives. At one time, they had no spiritual sensitivity at all. At one time, they loved the world and had no love for God. But God changed it. God raised the dead. God made a difference, an impact. He did a miracle that is as powerful, as influential, as significant, more so than the creation of the universe itself. So let's not minimize the work of God. He creates the universe out of nothing. He creates life to begin with. And that itself is a miracle that all the scientists in the world cannot explain. God raises the dead. He's transformed murderers and adulterers, people who have persecuted the church, into those who become apostles and martyrs for Jesus. And I know there are a lot of fake healers out there. There always has been. Always has been this sort of fakey thing where there's maybe some kind of a physical renewal and yet there really wasn't one. There was some kind of a spiritual testimony for something that was done, but it really wasn't done. The devils always show up. Simon the sorcerers, they show up, they do their pseudo miracle thing and they produce their fake conversions. The devil does it all the time. But the point is that God, when he does it, he does it for real. He turns cannibals into pastors. He turns terrorists into evangelists that become powerful evangelists in Africa for 40 years. And the gentleman I'm thinking of just passed away a couple of years ago. He saves marriages. He turns idolaters, people who worship themselves, to genuinely worshiping and serving and loving the true and living God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. God does these things. Last night in family worship we studied a little bit of the paralyzed man who was let down before Jesus in that room because it was so crowded they had to let him down from the roof and there he was paralyzed and I made the comment that this is Johnny Erickson Tada this is somebody who didn't have wheelchairs back then he was in his bed he was always in his bed if he was gonna go from one place to the other he's paralyzed no doubt a quadriplegic And Jesus healed that man. He forgave his sins and he healed that man. That man got up, took his bed and went out. Friends, that's the kind of thing our Lord Jesus Christ does. This is shocking. This is not fake. This is the real deal. Jesus really raises the dead. Jesus takes a man born blind. It's interesting, the man born blind in John chapter nine, where he's interacting with the scribes and Pharisees that cast them out of the temple and all the rest. And he turns to these guys and he says, from the beginning of time, There has never been an instance recorded in any history where a man born blind was healed. This is a miracle beyond all miracles. And he's expressing this to these men. Of course, they're so hard of heart. They say, we're not gonna believe it. We're not gonna believe it no matter what happens. And so they have this hardness of heart that even if somebody would raise, you know, 600 people from the dead, they still would not believe. That's the hardness of men's hearts. And yet this man at least recognized the power of Jesus Christ in his life, where all of his life he was blind, and then he could see on the day that Jesus approached him and healed him. God is qualified, imminently qualified to keep His promises. He raises the dead. He makes a universe out of nothing. God can do this. God is qualified. And you've got to believe in God. You have to believe He's true to His promises. Never doubting, not doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. Let that man suppose he'll receive anything from the Lord. He's a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, nothing doubting, believing God's promises, as Abraham did. Moreover, these are the last of the verses, 18 through 20, Abraham believed, despite the discouragements to belief, the challenges to his believing, He still would believe. He continued to believe. And the challenges to your faith, the discouragements to faith will be inevitable in your life. No question about it. And certainly it was that way in the life of Abraham. Contrary to hope, contrary to hope, in hope he believed. so that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken. So show your descendants be, verse 19, and not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead since he is about a hundred years old in the deadness of Sarah's womb. Now here's the point. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. He waited at least 25 years for the miracle. And the impossibility of the situation ratcheted up every day, every week, every month, and every year. Why? Because he was getting older. The impossibility of God coming through on the promise was just increasing, becoming increasingly impossible with each given day. But Abraham's faith was strengthened Now, yes, it was weak at first with Hagar, but over the succeeding 15 years, Abraham's faith was strengthened and strengthened and strengthened more. Children, Abraham's faith was stronger and stronger. So in application, we ourselves will face the challenges to our faith. The impossibilities will become more and more evident to us, at least from a natural perspective, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. You see, we don't see these things yet. The conviction that God who created that which doesn't exist out of that which did not exist into something that does exist will bring about that which we cannot see now into something that we will see eventually. So this is the whole deal about faith. You don't see it now. What is it that we don't see? Well, what Abraham didn't see was what? The birth of a child. He didn't see it for 25 years. So what is it that we cannot see? We cannot see much of a breakthrough in righteousness in the world around us. We can barely make it out. There may be something in my home, perhaps in this church. The resurrection of the dead, perhaps we haven't seen it yet. Redemption, salvation, sanctification, fixing the problem of sin in your home, addictions, idolatries, depression, demonic oppressions over our minds, sometimes our home as well. The utter impossibility of pride, about the resistance that pride pushes against. Pride, the impossibility of pride. The continual setbacks in ministries. Discouragement after discouragement after discouragement. Over and over and over again. The record of 25 years of ministry. Or 35 years of ministry. Setback upon setback upon setback. I'm giving examples here. The lies and deceptions that dominate all around us. that even affect our relationships. There's so much hypocrisy and so much failure to acknowledge the real sins. Whatever it is, just lies and deception that constitute so much of life today in politics, in the home, in the church, et cetera, et cetera. We have all of these things, rebellious children, the impossibility of unsaved relatives, et cetera, et cetera. What can possibly break through the impossibilities of our lives? And make no mistake about it, all of these things form a challenge to our faith in God. They tempt us to discouragement and hopelessness. But then the impossible comes to look even more impossible. Day by day, the hardness of heart gets harder. The deadness gets deader. The blindness gets blinder. The pain becomes even more intolerable. Reasons for hope seem to diminish every day. But faith says, I will believe in God anyway. I will trust God's promises. I will trust that Jesus will save me and my family. I will trust that all things will work together for good to those who love God. I will trust God's promises. I will trust God. God is good for this. I believe in God. I believe his truthfulness. I believe his power. I believe he'll come through for me. That's what faith says. I'm going to believe in God anyway. I'm going to trust that Jesus will reconcile all things to himself. I know there are so many loose ends in my life today. I know there are things that need to be fixed in our family. I know there are things that are just desperately wrong within the body of this church, but I know that Jesus is going to fix it all. He will reconcile all things to himself. I don't know how he's gonna do it, and I don't know exactly what it's gonna look like when it's all done, but it's going to happen. I believe it, and I trust it, and I'm hopeful in what Jesus is going to do in the future. Abraham believed against hope. He did not stagger. I like that word in the King James Version. He did not stagger in unbelief, but he, Believed, he hoped against all hope. Everything that said, do not hope, he hoped anyway. He continued to hope against all hopelessnesses. Well, brothers and sisters, we live our lives this way every day. We're expecting a miracle from God that will blow our minds. No matter how bad the circumstances get, we're expecting God-sized miracles to happen in our lives, in our future, in eternity, that will blow our minds. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. We're expecting it. This is the expected, hopeful, faith-filled life that we live as Christians, expecting a miracle of God because we need miracle. Does everybody believe that? Anybody not need a miracle, like everything's good? Okay, good. I'm just hoping you're on the same page here. All right, let's close it. Verses 22 to 22, 20 through 22, this are the cultivation of more faith, the results, the development that's going on in Abraham's life, He is strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. What Abraham has here is a growing certainty. He is more and more convinced. He's increasingly sure. As the years go by, he's more and more expectant of what God is going to do. No more doubts. Now the challenges, the trials, Moriah, the testing, the fire, will test our faith. It will either harden the faith as steel or burn up the dross one way or the other, but the fire will do it. The fire will do it. The fire will do it. And I believe this is the crying need of our church and really the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what I spent the last four weeks working on is the strengthening of faith according to the will of God in our churches. There's such a need for this. We are too weak. We're too fearful. We're too doubtful. Can anybody agree with me on that? We need to be stronger in faith, strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced that what He had promised, He was also able to perform. So this is what I wrote. Cheap faith is not going to work. It burns up in the fire. So lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. Let us be strong in the Lord for battle from here to heaven. Let us be strong in faith. We're called to endure, to persevere by enduring faith. Let us be strong to stand on conviction on the truth of God's word. Let us dig in for the next 50 years continuously and consistently resisting the constant pressures to drift, to lukewarmness, to compromise, to concede with the world. Let us be strong for the evil day, the onslaught of tempting thoughts. That strength is needed to resist the enemy who will accuse brothers of false motives. Accuse ourselves of false motives. That strength will resist all temptations to false judging. Accusing others of false motives. Notions of false doctrines. Doubts, discouragements, accusations. More doubts, more accusations, more discouragements. discontentment, lust, pride, faithless anxiety over this issue or that issue, ingratitude, gracelessness, strife, gossip, quarrels over minor things, diversions, distractions, envy of another's gifts, competitions, comparing ourselves with other churches, fixation on gain, budgets, bodies, butts, buildings, programs, the arm of the flesh. These are the temptations, but to resist, to resist with strength. Let us be strong for our brothers, restoring the one taken by sin in a spirit of gentleness, considering ourselves lest we be tempted. Let us always and ever be full of zeal, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. We will hang in there in hope under the most hopeless conditions. We will hope against hope. We will rejoice in the fire. We will find perfect peace in the fray, and love in the presence of the most malicious foes. We will be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, with that soul strength for a Christ-indwelling, rooted and grounded in love, filled with the fullness of God. Friends, this is the strength we need. We need to be strong. Stronger, stronger, stronger in faith, believing, stepping out of the boat more and more. Waves, winds picking up, who cares? Continue to walk on water. Go through those tests that God puts in your life with strong faith, looking to God, looking to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, no matter what happens, no matter what happens, no matter what the world, the flesh, the devil deal with you. Therefore, in closing, it was accounted to Him for righteousness. It was accounted to Him for righteousness. We'll get into this more next time, but that faith is what matters. The faith is what matters to God, to believe Him. Does that make sense that God gives you a promise and He's offended if you say, I don't trust you, God? Does that make sense? Would you be offended to promise your child something and your child look you in the eye and say, just don't trust you, Dad? Would you be offended? Of course you would be. God wants you to trust Him. God wants you to believe Him. Trust God. Trust in Jesus Christ, His Savior, the powerful, absolutely competent, totally sufficient Savior for all of us. No matter who we are, no matter where we are, no matter what we've done, He is able to save us to the uttermost. Anybody who comes to Him by faith, by faith, coming to Jesus by faith, believing in Jesus. Amen. Let's pray. Father God, we come to you. We're concerned, Father. We're convicted that we have not trusted you as we should. You are so trustworthy. Your promises, they can be taken to eternity with us. Father, we pray for faith today. to believe the words you give us in your word. Father, I pray the son would soften the wax in the hearts of those who listen to the word this day. Oh God, I pray for an increase in faith, just believing you. That expectation of the great things that you have for us as your children. You loved us, you gave us your son. How shall you not with him also freely give us all things? And you've already given us your Holy Spirit as well. What more could you do? What more could you give us, God? We believe you, we trust you. Increase our faith, strengthen faith, Father. Strengthen faith for all of us. In Jesus' name, amen.