But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Title for today is Faith. We'll be looking at faith. Again, the fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit being one of the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Does not say that it is the fruit of my will or the fruit of my mind or the fruit of my good intentions or good works. Does not say it is the fruit of the church. It says it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That fruit of the Spirit at work in the heart of a born-again believer. One that has been transformed by the power of God. That is where this fruit comes from. Today we'll be looking at faith. What is faith? The Bible speaks a lot about faith. In fact, without faith it is impossible to please God. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. For by grace are ye saved through faith. The just shall live by faith. Through faith we understand. Faith without works and works without faith are both a dead thing. Timothy had unfeigned faith, which was also in his mother and in his grandmother. Paul said, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is a crown waiting. Jesus asked the sobering question, when the Son of Man shall come again, will he find any faith on the earth? What is faith? Maybe you have an answer. What is faith to you? Any response? A belief. Believing that which we see not. Very well. Turn to Hebrews chapter 11. Believing something that we don't see, does that come naturally for us? I see some shaking their head. We are the kind of people that like to see something, or we like to hold it in our hand, or we want to touch it, or At least it would have to make common sense in order for us to believe it. Hebrews 11 verse 1 to 7. If you care to, you can stand as we read in reverence to God's Word. Hebrews 11 verse 1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith." That's as far as we're going to read. You may be seated. Thank you. God designed life to be lived by faith. God designed life to be lived by faith. Faith is a belief in or confident attitude toward God involving commitment to His will for our life. Commitment to follow His will and purpose for our life. And we say commitment. Easy does it. We don't like commitments. You know, we got our own things we want to do too. We don't want to be tied down or committed to somebody else or something else. This faith that I'm talking about includes or involves commitment. Strong says that faith means faithfulness, belief, trust, with an implication that actions based on that trust may follow. The faith often refers to the Christian system of belief and lifestyle. That's what faith is all about. It's a belief and a lifestyle. Faith has to do with believing, trusting, diligently seeking Him. It somehow has to do with us knowing and doing the will of the Father. It is a confident belief in the truth, which is the Word of God. And the Word never fails. It doesn't change. It's us believing in that truth. Faith, obedience, and good works are all knit together. Faith, obedience, and good works. I mentioned that faith includes trusting. Trusting God. Trusting God to work out the details in my life. You know, sometimes those details get pretty messy and sticky. And we'd like to work these things out on our own to our benefit. And guess what usually happens? There's more problems than a bigger mess, right? God wants us to give these things to Him in faith and trust that He's going to help us through this in a redemptive way, in a way that He receives glory, in a way that is beautiful. Yet we often want to get our hands into it and we mess up. My friends, it's easier. I don't want to say easier. It's better just to give it to God and let Him work out the details as we surrender to Him. Faith also is a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. In other words, we believe in something that we cannot see. Verse 1 says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Didn't it say about, yes, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen. Faith is having trust and confidence in God, although we can't see Him. Substance is something we can take a hold of. Faith is the substance we can take a hold of for things hoped for. Things hoped for we cannot see. I'm a farmer. I'm hoping for the sun. I haven't seen the sun for a while. Well, I guess I did, but not long enough maybe in my terms. Faith is hoping for something that we have not seen or cannot see. It's our hold on God, if you will. A man caught a hold of a rope dangling from a tiny little airplane taking off down the runway. And as soon as the pilot saw it, he circled around and he came back and landed. And I guess the man was okay, other than he was scared. And to everyone's amazement, they had to pry each finger loose from that rope separately. He had a grip on that rope and he was not about to let go. You know why? Because it was his life. He hung on for dear life. Is that what faith is to us? How tight is our grip on faith? On faith in Jesus Christ. How tight do I hold on to the things that have eternal value? Do I refuse to let go? It's going to make the difference between life and death. It will make a difference in our destination when we die. How tight we're holding on to the things of eternal value. And God is not asking us to have faith in Him without giving us some foundation for that faith. Just a few things. Number one, the wonders of creation. Consider the structure of creation. The plants, the animals, even the living organisms in the soil. The order of the solar system. Consider the function of your own body. Imagine with me if you had to maybe push a button in order for you to move a hand. And you'd get the hand in the right place, you've got to push another button so the fingers would move. It is amazing how we are created. We walk around, we move our hands all by thought. It just, basically it just happens. Did this all happen by chance? The second one is the revelation of God Himself in His Word. Consider how He reveals Himself in His Word. How that He wrought redemption for our soul. How that Jesus' blood cleanses us from sin. And how that by that we can have peace and joy and a desire to live a holy life. A foundation for our faith. Why not believe in someone that put all this in place? Another one is the witness and the example of people who live or have lived and died for their faith. Shouldn't that behoove us to believe and trust in that same God? Many more could be given. Examples or pieces of that foundation that give substance and evidence to our faith in God. It's not a leap in the dark Like we don't know what the outcome is going to be. We may not always know what lies ahead. But we can commit it to an all-powerful Creator that takes these things in His control. He delights in doing good things for His people. Verse 3, through faith we understand. Through faith we understand. We comprehend that God framed the worlds. He made something out of nothing. Oh, now we're talking about... How can we believe that? If we make something, we need material. Here it says, The worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Oh, these things were made by the spoken Word. In Genesis 1 it says, in the beginning God. First of all, we have to believe that there is a God, right? in the beginning God. We read here in verse 6, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is. That's where it all starts. We have to believe that there is a God, in the beginning God. If we do not believe that there is a holy, all-powerful, almighty, loving God, then our religion is in vain. The Bible tells us, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. No man was present to witness this creation. So, you know what? We have to take it by faith. The Bible says it, and I believe it. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. We must accept it by faith. Since the Bible is true, we are required to believe it, right? Who wrote the words of Scripture? Where did the inspiration come from? This truth is confirmed by reality. God said, let there be, and there was. And we see that today. His Word is confirmed by reality. Do you realize that we have in our circle of churches today people who are saying that, how can we know that God created the world in six 24-hour days? And I'm like, how did we get there? They are asking the question that if one day is with God as a thousand years, how do we know it didn't take up to a thousand years to create light? That's what He created on the first day. Brian alluded in our Sunday school class to a seven day week. And I almost ask him, how did you figure that out? Where do you think our seven day week comes from? Day one, God said, let there be light. He divided light from darkness. And it says the evening and the morning were the first day. The second day, God said. And He divided the waters from the expanse of sky and space where the stars and the planets are. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Day three, God said. And He separates the water from the earth. He makes it productive. Grass, herbs, fruit trees. The evening and the morning were the third day. Day four, God said. And He put lights in the heavens to divide day from night. And here's what it says. Let them be for signs, seasons, days, and years. And so on day four, God already puts in motion How we keep track of time. He created the sun for daytime, the moon for nighttime. Oh, He made the stars also on that day. I like that. Kind of like an afterthought. He just put the stars out there too. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Day five, God said. And He created whales and fish and all kinds of sea creatures. And birds and fowl. Every winged fowl He created on that day. And consider with me all the different kinds of fish and things swimming in the water. Also, all the birds. We have a very common bird in our area. It's the bald eagle. A humongous wingspan. A huge bird. We also have a hummingbird feeder out and quite a few hummingbirds. And they're just a tiny little bird. All in one day. Evening and the morning were the fifth day. Day six, God said, and He made all kinds of cattle. Creeping things and beasts of the forest. Oh, what else did He make on day six? Man! God created man, male and female, created He them. And He takes a little dust and He kind of forms man. He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life and He takes a rib from the man and He makes a woman. Just a pretty simple procedure, right? I'd like for you to study how many miles of vessels and nerves and muscle and all that's involved in the human body. He just made it and He saw that it was good and He blessed man and they should be fruitful and replenish the earth and subdue it. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Day seven, God rested from all His work that He had created and made. Seven days in a row. God said it and it happened. How do we know that it happened seven days? And not, you know, if we follow this other concept of one day as a thousand years, the earth is not old enough for us to even get together on a Sunday yet. It would be 7,000 years, right? How do we know this happened in six days? And on the seventh day He rested. Because it says it right in His words. If we can't believe the six-day creation principle, then my friends, we have opened up our hearts, our life, to human reasoning, and to a host of lies from the devil. He is going to take this scripture, not just creation, but all of scripture, and have you twist it to make it feel good to whatever you're in. Human reasoning it's called. If I can't make sense out of it, I won't believe it. God designed our lives to be lived by faith. But He also gave us those reasoning powers. You know, many times we relate to life by reason. We call it common sense. That's everyday for us. We do what makes sense. In our business, in our work, I'm sure the ladies in the house, you know, if it makes common sense, we tend to do it. But if we take that to the spiritual realm, Ever since the fall of man, Satan wants to dominate our reasoning. And to reason things out is defined as the mental powers that have to do with forming conclusions and judgments to convince or persuade. The power of intelligent thought. In other words, we only believe what we can figure out. We only believe what makes logical sense. True faith in God goes way beyond human reasoning. Men and women in Hebrews 11 went beyond what made sense. You know, reason can only go so far. And you have to stop. I can't, I can't figure this out. Can you figure out, I had a question at home recently, how that God could always have been. Okay, when we take that and we try to reason and we try to figure that out, you know what, we can only go so far. We cannot figure that out. I can't figure that out. We have to take it by faith. These men and women here in Hebrews 11, you know, some things you cannot reason out. But faith goes beyond reason. Faith goes all the way to the throne of God. And God can do the impossible. That's what He did for these men and women in Hebrews 11. God can do anything. Let's take Cain and Abel for an example. We read about them here in verse 4. Cain stopped with reason. Abel went beyond that by faith. Cain was not obeying God and he knew it. He reasoned that he was good enough and that God should be satisfied with what he was bringing. as a sacrifice. If God was wanting more than that, then He's asking too much of me. Now that's human reasoning. Abel believed God and he obeyed God by faith. And it affected his worship. It affected what he brought as a sacrifice. He brought the best of the sheep. He brought the firstborn. It was a perfect lamb. He sacrificed an animal. He shed blood. God was well pleased. It was acceptable to God. True Christians believe that God gave us His word to be obeyed. That's what Abel did. Does the faith in my life produce worship of God that makes me willing to sacrifice for His kingdom? That makes me want to bring the best to Him like Abel did. Secular religion takes the liberty to interpret God's Word by reason or what makes sense. After all, some people are so difficult to live with. And so we divorce. Divorce is tolerated. Well then what? They become so lonely that remarriage only makes sense. And a host of other things come into question as well. Eternal punishment. God is so loving, He would never cast anyone into hell. Or maybe if He does, it would be for a short time until He has paid for His misdeeds. Conformity. conforming to the culture around us rather than the Jesus Christ and being non-conformed to the world and its evil deeds. Jesus said, you cannot serve God and mammon. Yet we reason away our need to be connected to this world system because of all the good that is to be had When in all honesty it probably most times has to do with money and convenience or entertainment. And we reason it away. Cain's way of reasoning with current issues is still alive and well today. Those who are like Abel love God. and they loved to obey and follow His commands and teachings. Another one we read about is Enoch. His faith was life-changing. He walked with God and had the testimony that he pleased God. It changed the way he left the earth. It says, he was not, for God took him. Does my faith Does your faith produce a testimony that pleases God? It will determine the way I live. It will determine the way I view death, or the way I die, or the destiny after I die. We read about Noah. His faith went Way beyond reason as well. And what made logical sense. He took some radical steps to the saving of his house, it says here in verse 7. You know, reason would never have a man build a monstrosity of a boat on dry land when they had never experienced a flood before. Why would a man build a boat? I can see why he was alone in this project because everybody else said it doesn't make sense. Why would you build a boat? It doesn't even rain. Noah by faith built a boat. He obeyed God. And he saved his house by that. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, is what the Bible tells us. Those who do not take God at His word will perish someday. Just like they did in the days of Noah. Sometimes faith requires us to make some radical moves just like Noah did. To save not only ourselves, but our household, our children, our families. And maybe we'll have to stand alone like Noah did. Do I listen and by faith obey God like Noah did? Even when it doesn't make sense. And we might be the laughing stock. I can imagine people laughing at Noah, working for 120 years to build a boat. It doesn't make sense. You know what I imagine? Most of those people knocking on that boat when it started raining, wishing they could get in. But it was too late. Living by faith is living with the awareness of God's claim on our life. He created us. He redeemed us. We're a part of His family. Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." Hallelujah. We can be in God's family, in God's ark, if you will. Protection. in the family of God. We live believing that God has a plan and a purpose for us personally. Along with that, we desire to know what that plan is, that purpose He has for us, so that we can live it out. We seek His will and we obey like Noah did. This faith in God's Word is a separating faith What do I mean by that? It separates truth from rational thinking. This faith helps us to separate truth from rational thinking. We go beyond reasoning and we build a boat on dry land if God asks us to. We should not reason with God's Word and say, This is what I think makes logical sense. Rather, we should say, this is what the Bible says, and I believe it, and I'm going to obey. Because it's God's Word. Faith continually takes us to the Word as a guide for our soul and our life. We don't just take a few isolated verses, but the Scriptures as a whole. Let us not be shaken or deceived by reasoning away the truth of God's Word or using certain verses to justify our wrongdoing. God's Word will be our judge in the end. Don't twist it. Don't reason it away. Take it for what it says and believe it. Apply it to your life. or apply your life to it would be a better term. Apply your life to the Word. The truth will never change. In conclusion, the value of faith depends on what? The reliability of the object. The value of your faith depends on the reliability of what you have faith in. So if that object is God, what is the value of your faith? It has no boundaries. No limits. God can do anything. You are trusting in an Almighty God. Your faith has no limits. By the power of God, He can do anything in your life. You know, men of true faith can do incredible things. But it's not by the power of their faith or the amount of faith. It's by the power of God that they are trusting in that they can do these things. When we experience the power of God at work in our life by the Holy Spirit, it somehow has a way of producing this fruit of faith. The Holy Spirit produces fruit, love, joy, peace. Today we're talking about faith. It produces faith. The Spirit nudges us to make a choice, to surrender our life to Him. And as He continues to work in our life, that faith continues to grow. It increases. And we trust God more and more as we grow and as we experience His power working in our life. Closing with verse 6, without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Lord, increase our faith. Let's kneel and pray. Holy Father, we come to you today. Thank you for this this faith that we can have. Thank you for your word that is true, that is solid, that will never change. Help us, O God, to take the Bible for what it says, to believe it, and to live it out in our everyday life. Thank you for each one that is here this morning. Bless us, Lord, as we worship, as we work together, as we live together, fellowship together. May our lives be a testimony of what you have done for us. through redemption and salvation. Help us to be that faithful witness to a lost and dying world. Prepare our hearts for that great day when you will come again and receive unto yourself the faithful. We give you honor, we give you glory, for you alone are worthy. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.