Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the World Changers Church Gold Coast Podcast. Join us as we listen to today's message. Hallelujah. All right. Well, as you're saying hello, hugging necks, kissing babies, making that last trip, find your seat if you could. I'm looking forward to this word this morning. Amen. Anybody else looking forward to the word of God?
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Well, we got the honor this morning to receive the ministry gift, our assistant pastor, Jeremy Duxfield, as he gets ready to come up and minister the word of God. Hey, thank you Jesus. Love you, man. Amen, amen, amen, amen. Give Jesus praise, give Jesus praise, give Jesus praise, give Jesus praise. Thank you, Lord. You can be seated. Man, it's so good to see you all in the house of the Lord this morning. Thank you, worship team. Honey, I know we had a big dinner last night, but I didn't think I was pregnant.
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I know we went out for a big dinner, we had like ribs and -, but I didn't know I was pregnant. I won't take it in offensively. Amen, amen. Wow, a couple of new songs in two weeks, you guys excited about that? We got our worship night coming up next week. Hallelujah. Yeah, yeah, so good, hey? Praise God. All right, let me just get this up and running. It's so good to come on the back of the last, who's enjoyed Pastor Kyle's messages the last couple of weeks on faith?
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And just, yeah, amen, right? And so in my prayer time when I was asking the Lord what we're gonna talk about today, I really felt like the Holy Spirit said that we had to continue on this word about faith. So we're gonna stay here, we're gonna continue a little bit today. I don't know about you, but I feel a stirring in my spirit that God is preparing his bride for something that's coming. I feel like God is wanting to dam up those breaches in our faith walk. I feel like God is wanting to shore up.
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the walls of our faith. I feel like those little areas in our walk where we're not quite as strong in our faith as we wanna be, I feel like God is wanting to equip us in those areas, he's wanting to grow us in our faith for what's ahead. Because I believe that we're stepping into a season where the body of Christ is going to fulfill what God has always wanted us to fill, which is to be that perfect bride.
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to be his soul, be his hands, be his feet, be the light that we're supposed to be in this world. I believe God is preparing his bride for that time, preparing the body of Christ for that time. If you don't know (what I) mean about bride, men, it's okay. We can be a bride of Christ, it's all right. If the woman in here are sons of God, we can be brides of Christ, hallelujah. Amen, amen. So the bride is his body, is his church, and Jesus is coming back for a spotless bride, hallelujah. A spotless bride, and that doesn't mean that our
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works, make us spotless, it means that we're just totally dependent on Him, and we're looking to Him, and our lamps are burning for Him, and He's coming back for a church that is ready to worship Him and receive Him in all His glory, amen? Amen, so we're talking about faith. We're talking about faith, and I'll just get this up and running. So, there's a few things that Pastor Kyle and I, and Pastor Tina and I, and Shelly and I have heard in our conversations with people over the years, and some questions that come up around faith quite often are,
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Things like, do I need to develop my faith? Can I lose my faith? Can my faith grow weaker? Can my doubt override my faith? Things like, if I pray and I don't see the answer, what, does that mean I didn't have enough faith? You know, we hear those questions, and we even often have those questions in our hearts sometimes when we're praying and we're seeking the Lord and we're on this faith walk with Him. But the Bible's really clear when it comes to those things that faith,
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And the faith that we've been given is actually a gift from God. It's not dependent on our actions or our good deeds, or how much we pray or fast, or how much we read our word. All of those things are good things, and they'll actually help our soul.
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align with God's word and align with God's promise and they'll help us build our faith. But our faith that we have now in the Spirit is complete. Just like everything else we get from God, it's complete, it's complete in Him, right? So we're in a process of our maturing to allow that faith to then rise, come from our Spirit man, out into this natural world, into our hearts, into our hearts? well, yeah, into our hearts, into our minds, and into our words, and into our walk with God.
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Okay, so you have the fullness, the full measure of faith has been given to you. You have it all. Complete faith is yours right now in the Spirit through Christ and through Christ and what He's done for us and in us, right? He didn't give you a little bit of faith and me a lot of faith. He gave us the measure of faith, the complete fullness of His faith, hallelujah. So that's good news. That's good news for all of us here. We don't need more faith. We need to develop the gift of faith that's in us to allow it to flow.
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out through us, amen? Because there's areas in my life that I have greater faith in than I do in others. There's areas where I still struggle with doubt, like even getting up here and preaching and ministering, there's doubt that I have in getting up here because I doubt my natural ability, I doubt my natural speaking, I doubt that I'm going to be able to articulate it the way that it's going to be received in your hearts or received, I don't know if I'm going to say the right things. I doubt myself, I do. But I don't doubt.
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And I don't doubt that God will use me to minister to you. I have faith in His ability in me to minister to you so you would receive the Word and receive something that's gonna change and transform your life. I have faith in that. I don't have faith in me standing up here. I have faith in Him to use me. Amen? So there's a difference in that.
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Because if I start trusting in me and put faith in me, then it's easy for me to get persuaded out of that. It's easy for me to look at the winds and the waves that are going around for me and get distracted. Because if my faith is in me, then that faith is limited. But my faith is in God, then it's supernatural. It's never limited. It's limitless. Amen. So the first scripture I wanna bring up this morning, and we're gonna have a few scriptures, and then I'm gonna share a little bit of my testimony with you guys on the last sort of four to seven years of my walk with God.
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And some of the journey that He's taken me on and a faith journey that I've been on. I'm gonna share a little bit. Some of you know my story, some of you don't. I'm gonna share a snippet of it. But specifically, I'm gonna talk about this morning, faith in your battle. Faith in your battle, amen.
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Because we all go through battles. Life is a life, I think, of we're in a battlefield. You know, the Bible says that we're strangers walking, we're pilgrims in a strange land. You know, we're here as Christians in this world, and we're constantly in a spiritual war between good versus evil, between us and our flesh and the Spirit of God in us. We're constantly in a battle. Our life is a battlefield. So how do we have faith in the battle of life and in the battle of our walk with God? Amen.
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So the first scripture I have for you today is Galatians 2:20. And I wanna just really hone in on a couple little things here when I'm talking about the faith that God has given us and the life that we now live with Him. It says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. And this is in King James, so it's gonna be like, you know, tongue-twisting. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. I could read it up there.
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And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. So the life that I live in the flesh and my humanity now, as Jeremy, that you see before me, the life that I now live in the flesh and the things that come in the battle of the flesh and just living in humanity, it says I live by the faith of the Son of God. I live by Christ's faith. I live by His faith and what He's done for me.
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I don't live by my ability. I don't live by my knowing of the word. I don't live by my strength and my wisdom. I live by Christ's faith in me. Amen? Amen. So the life that I live in this flesh, in this humanity, in this earth suit, I live by Christ's faith. Who loved me and died for me. Amen, that'll sink in. Amen. So that's just a little platform, a little foundation as we go on.
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So I live by Christ's faith. It's His faith in me that I live by. So our faith can grow and it can be developed, but it is never more complete than what it already is now. Amen. We understand that? We're on the same page with that? It's never more complete than what it is now because it's Christ's faith in me, not my faith. So what I'm doing is I'm in the process of allowing.
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His faith, His gift of faith in me to now mature and grow and develop and then walk and come out of me and be a part of my journey with Him. And so if we look at 2 Corinthians 5:6-7, see faith is not trusting in the five senses. It's not trusting in taste and smell and sight and touch.
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What's the other one? Hearing, it's not trusting in those things. It's going something past that. It says that we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body, here and now, in this humanity, in this earth suit, we are absent from the Lord, but we walk by faith and not by sight.
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We don't walk by what we see. We don't walk by what our five senses are telling us. We don't walk by whether or not we, you know, see the manifestation of the promise. We walk by faith, amen? So it means that our hope is in something sometimes that we don't see yet. So our hope is never in an outcome or it's never in the fulfillment of a promise. It's in the one who has already promised. We believe our faith is in what God has spoken.
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Our faith is in what God has already said He's gonna do and what He's already done through Jesus on the cross. That's where our faith lives. That's where our faith resides. So it's not based on whether or not that prayer got answered. It's based on what Christ has already said He's going to do. And He already said He's gonna fulfil that promise. He's already said that He's gonna make a way where there is no way. He already said that He'd never leave you and He's never gonna forsake you. He already said that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens them. He's already said that you shall lack, that you shall never lack, but be the head and not the tail.
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Amen, he's already said those things. So our faith is not in whether or not it's happening right now, it's our faith is in the fact that he already spoke it. Amen? Hallelujah. So here's something that I think we all need to understand in our Christian walk. It says, you know, I wrote here, you won't always feel God's presence. Who can testify for that? Sometimes it's like, man, like, God, are you even here? Like, what is going on?
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I know that sucks, but that's just the way it is. But our God is a God of faith. He is a rewarder of faith. It takes faith to please Him. So He could, He could, Mia, He could make a bird come and sit on your shoulder every minute of every day and whisper in your ear and say, God loves you. He could do that. He could make a little birdie come and sit there and say, I love you, Mia. God loves you, Mia. He's got you, Mia. Right, He could do that. He totally could, He's God. He could write your name, Pastor Tina, in the clouds, saying, I will never leave.
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you, nor forsake you. He could do that, he's God, he could totally do that, right? But that's not God's best for us, that's not how God operates. God is a rewarder of faith. God is a rewarder of those who will not trust in their five senses, but believe in their hearts who he says he is and what he says he's done. Amen? So, and I know that's difficult because,
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Like in our humanity, we just want to see it. We just want it. We want the manifestation of it. We want to see it right now, here, right now. But what if I was to tell you that because you can't see it right now, what that's doing in you is it's developing a dependency on the Holy Spirit to walk you to a place when you do see it that you'll be ready for it.
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Because sometimes the thing we want right now is not good for us right now. Sometimes God wants to develop us to a place like Pastor Kyle said in the last few messages where, while we're transitioning through it, God's developing in me an endurance, a patience, a love for others in the midst of my battle when I feel like I'm anxious or I feel like I'm angry, developing in me a gift of being able to say, no, I'm gonna love, I'm gonna be kind, I'm gonna be long suffering, so that when I get to this place of the promise,
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I'm able to withstand and sustain and I can actually run with that promise. Amen. Does that make sense? Yeah. So we don't just walk by faith until we see what we want. We just walk by faith, period. Amen. And when we do eventually get the manifestation, when we eventually do, when faith does give place to sight and we do actually have the promise in our hands, we just praise God and then we keep moving on to the next thing.
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We praise Him and say, thank you Father, you are faithful to your word. Great is your faithfulness, God. Let's keep going. Okay, we don't rest and stay in that place. We take that what God's given us because everything He gives us is for His glory and so that Jesus' name can be exalted, right? It's for our good and for His glory and so that we can move on to the next thing. So I really wanna, so this is a personal revelation that God's given me and I pray and I believe that it's gonna help you guys.
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in understanding faith and understanding this walk with faith with the Holy Spirit. So what is Christian faith? So let's look at Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 together in the New King James, it says, "'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We've all seen that scripture before, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So that word in the Greek, that word substance, that word in the Greek.
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is the word hypostasis (ὑπόστασις). Now this is like, we're getting real teachy here. You guys cool with this just for a minute? And then we're gonna launch it some stuff because I just wanna lay a bit of a platform. So the outline of this word hypostasis (ὑπόστασις) in the biblical usage, it says a setting or placing under, a thing put under a substructure or a foundation. We're talking about faith is the substance of that word substance. So the substance of our faith, the substance of what we hope in, it's a substructure, it's a foundation. Check this out in the next one.
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That which has foundation is firm. That which has actual existence, a substance, a real being, okay, hang on to that, a real being, the substantial quality nature of a person.
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or thing, the steadfastness of mind, firmness, courage, resolution, confidence, firm trust, and assurance. So we saw faith is the substance of things hoped for. It has real actual existence. It's a foundation. It's a substructure. It holds everything up, right? It's what we build upon, okay? Now let's look at Hebrews 1:3. The same word, the same word substance,
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in this, who being the brightness of his glory in the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had had himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So that word substance, faith is the substance, is that same word there, person, Jesus. So the substance of our faith is Jesus, is the person of Jesus Christ.
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So when we have faith, biblical faith, Christian faith, what is Christian faith? It is trusting and relying on and believing in the finished works of Jesus, of what Jesus has done. It's trusting in the person of Jesus. The foundation for biblical Christian faith, for our faith when we walk out everything and believe everything with God and His promises, is that because of Jesus.
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That it's yes, that we hope in that. So the faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The faith that we have is Jesus. The foundation of our faith, the reason that we can have hope, the reason that we can know that the promise is yes and amen, the reason that we know that we can walk through this valley and come out the other side is because of Jesus. It's the same word. The substance of our faith is Christ. That's awesome.
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That's so awesome because it takes all the pressure off you to believe better and have more faith and be better at the confessions and have all the answers. It takes all that pressure off you. It simply says, Jesus, trust in Jesus. That is the essence of Christian faith. Nothing more, nothing less. Christian faith is trusting in Jesus. Man, that's good.
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That's encouraging because man, I suck at my faith sometimes, at my natural faith sometimes. I always, I have doubt, I doubt myself, I doubt my ability, I doubt my confessions, I get down on myself if I haven't been in the Word enough or prayed enough, but this is telling me that the minute that I shift my focus off of my faith and put it onto Jesus and what he's done and my faith is in him alone, that's all that matters. Amen.
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And that encourages me to spend more time with Him, not less time with Him. That encourages me to learn more about Him, not just go and do my own thing. I wanna know this person, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for me and has given me all the promises of God in Him. I wanna know that person so that when I do face the battle, when I am in the battle, my faith doesn't waver. My faith simply says, I'm just gonna lean into Jesus.
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I'm just gonna lean more into him. I'm not putting my faith in me and what I know. I'm gonna put it in him and who he is and what he says he's done. That's what I'm believing in. I'm not gonna believe in my confession. My confessions are powerful, but all they're doing is aligning me to his promise and who he is. They're commanding my soul to come into agreement with what he's already spoken. My confessions don't move God. God's already moved.
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My confession is simply command my soul to come into agreement and alignment with who God is and what he's already said. That's what I'm doing. I'm commanding my soul to come into agreement with him. I'm saying it's your faith, Jesus. It's your word, Jesus. I'm trusting in that. I'm leaning into that. You're gonna carry me through. Amen.
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Faith in the battle, faith in the battle. Hallelujah. So it's the same word. Our faith foundation is Jesus. Our faith is not a blind faith. It is not a leap into darkness, hoping that an answer produces. Our faith rests on the most reliable of evidence, the finished works of Jesus Christ. So Romans 10:17 says, "so faith comes", say that, faith comes.
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"from hearing, and that is hearing the good news about Jesus, about Christ." And that word hearing is what they call a continual tense.
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So it doesn't mean a one time thing, it means a hearing and a hearing and a hearing and a hearing and a continual hearing. So faith comes, my faith comes when I continue to hear the message about Jesus, what Jesus has done for me, what he did on the cross, who he says I am, the promises that I have in him. My faith comes through that continual hearing of the word about him, amen? It's like, this is gonna date me a little bit, but do you guys remember like,
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cassettes and a Sony cassette. Walkman, y'all remember those? Shake your head if you don't remember that. Ha ha! There's people there who don't even know what a cassette is. That's so good. So we used to have these things called, have you heard like an 8-track or like a cassette? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I used to have this Walkman yellow thing. Sony, I spent all my money on that thing, man, when I was lifeguarding. Raised that so I wanted this so I could put my tunes in when I was playing basketball and I could Dr. Dre it down the street.
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And yeah, so I had this cassette player. But what would happen with these cassette players is they had this tape in them. And if that tape got damaged, then the cassette, what it would do, it would get stuck in this loop. And it would be like the same thing. Or it would skip or something like that. Like it would just continue to be in this loop, right? Same thing with like a record player, right?
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And so y'all don't know about that with I, what is it, like Spotify? Spotify doesn't get stuck in a loop, man, unless you put that one thing on repeat and you're like, why have I heard this song like 50 times and that little one is sitting up next to the thing? Anyway, and yeah, so that's what this is saying. It's saying we gotta be on that continuous loop of hearing the message about Jesus. We wanna be stuck on Jesus.
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We want to be stuck on Jesus, man. We just want to be, Jesus going round and round and round and round. So when the adversity comes, when the battle comes, when the challenge comes, it's Jesus. Jesus loves me. He died for me. He paid for my sins. He's already promised the way out. I know that he's for me and not against me. I know he's already given me the blessing. Amen. And we just want to be stuck on that loop in our minds of Jesus. Hallelujah. I reckon that'd be probably worth a fair bit now, one of those Sony cassette players.
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Not mine, not, mine is like, I don't even know where mine is, bottom of the ocean or something. So Old Testament faith always looked forward to the cross. That's why all the Old Testament patriarchs and all that, they were all looking forward to the Messiah, the coming Messiah, they're all looking forward to this day when he would redeem his people. But our faith, our New Testament faith now looks back to the finished works of Jesus.
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We look back to what He's done. We look back to who He says He is and what He accomplished on the cross. We look back to the blood. That's why it says to put it into remembrance. That's what communion's all about, to remember Him. We look back at what He did because that's what builds our faith, that message of Christ reminding ourself of what He's done for us and who He says we are. Amen? Amen. So having faith in the battle is not about the right words, doing the right things or saying the right confessions. Faith in the battle is about where your eyes are fixed and who
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you are leaning on, amen? Amen, so testimony time. Some of you know a bit of my story with my family situation and my beautiful kids upstairs and my beautiful wife here, Michelle, and you've walked with me. Pastor Kyle has been there to walk with me and to encourage me and to help me build my faith. Pastor Tina has been there to be, just a rock,
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when I've needed a rock, you know, she's been there just to be a pillar of wisdom when I've needed a pillar of wisdom. So faith comes by hearing, but sometimes people will speak the message of Christ to my heart to build my faith, okay? Sometimes I don't have the strength in my ability to go to that Bible or to go into that prayer room, but God's given me the blessing of pastors and friends and people around me to be able to remind me of the message of Christ in my life as well. So it doesn't always have to be through that. It can be through relationship.
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People can build us up in that message of Christ. So some of you know the story, and I'm just gonna make sure I go back to my notes just to keep myself on track. But for probably the past like five to seven years,
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My family and I, Shelley, in recent years, we've been in a battle for our family unit. Let's just call it that. We've been in a battle for our family unit. We've been trusting God to be the restorer of the broken things in our family for the last five to seven years. And we've been walking that out. And I did that for a little bit on my own.
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And midway through that journey is when I received Christ and He turned so many things around. Most importantly, He changed my heart and took me from being a selfish and prideful man into a man that just wanted to love and forgive and to see others be blessed and to sacrifice. So God changed, I still deal with pride, I still deal with all those things, but the Holy Spirit convicts me of who I am in Christ now and I'm a new person in Him, right? And so.
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I'm just going to make sure I stay on track because I can already see myself going that way. So our family has been in a battle to basically be complete, to be put back together, to be restored, and we've had to go through family court and we've had to go through lawyers and we've had to go through a lot of stuff over the past five to seven years. And the reason I want to share this with you guys this morning because
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Because faith can be tested. Faith can be battle-tested. Okay, God doesn't bring the challenge. He doesn't bring the battle. He doesn't cause the battle in our life, right? But he does strengthen us to get through the battle. He does give us the tools that we need, the people around us to support us, the words of encouragement that are required to get through the battle.
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So what does faith look like when you're in the lion's den of family court? What does that look like? What does faith look like when you're in that place? What does faith look like when you're spending every last dollar to ensure that your family is made whole and you don't know where that next dollar's coming from? What does that look like? And apply this to your life. What does faith look like when you don't know how you're gonna get the next bill paid or whatever? What does faith look like that? What does faith look like when...
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You have no idea whether or not the next time you step into a courtroom, you're gonna see your kids again. What does that look like? What does faith look like in that moment?
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David wrote in Psalm 103:1-3, he wrote this.
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"Let all that I am praise the Lord. With my whole heart, I will praise his holy name. Let all that I am praise the Lord. May I never forget the good things he has done for me."
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What does faith look like when you're walking through the battle? What does faith look like when you don't have the answers? What does faith look like when you don't know if you're gonna get to be the dad that God's called you to be? What does faith look like? It looks like this. It looks like praising him. It looks like never forgetting who he is and who he says he is. It looks like looking back to the cross and knowing that if he did it, then he will do it now because he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. It doesn't look like how much Bible I read or how much prayer I have. It looks like-
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How much am I leaning on Jesus? How much am I trusting in Jesus with my family, with my life, with everything that I am? How much am I leaning on Jesus? That's what faith looks like.
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I don't know if I was gonna, thank you Jesus. Yeah. So faith looks like commanding our souls in the middle of the battle to praise God. Commanding our souls to remember what he has done. Remember who he is. There's a story in 1 Samuel where David and his mighty men come back from a war.
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And they come back to their camp and everything's been taken. All their women, all their children, all their supplies, everything's been taken. And all his men begin to turn on him. They begin to say, you caused this, this was your fault. I don't know if you've ever been in a place where you've been accused of things you didn't do. I don't know if that's you, yeah. And every pastor said. But.
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I want you to see what David did in this moment. What his faith did. David was a man after God's own heart. I want you to see what David did when everything was against him, when there was, even the people that he loved had decided that they were going to turn. I want you to see what he did in 1 Samuel 30:6. I want you to see what David did when there was no other answer, when his humanity,
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had no other answer. When he didn't know the wisdom that he needed, when he didn't have the strength that he needed, I want you to see what David says. It says, "now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved. Every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God." That's what faith looks like.
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Faith looks like when you don't know the answer, when everything is against you, when you're in the middle of the battle, faith looks like you going before God and strengthening yourself in Him. Strengthening yourself in Him. It looks like you going before the Lord and saying, God, I can't do it. There's no shame in that.
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I think in Christian life, we put shame on that, on feeling like we don't have it all together. There's no shame on not having it all together. The Bible teaches us that we're not supposed to have it all together. We're supposed to lean on Him. He didn't come for the righteous. He came for the sinner, the broken. It says in Luke that "Jesus, the anointing of the Holy Spirit was on Jesus to bind up the broken". Jesus didn't come for us to be perfect.
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He's the only one that's perfect. He came because he's a rewarder of faith and he wants us to trust him, lean on him. So I don't know what your battle is. I don't know what it is. For mine, it was my family and whether or not I was gonna have one. But I can tell you, hand on heart, that God is faithful.
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Do you know, sometimes I feel like we think our faithlessness will somehow cancel God's faithfulness in our lives. Can I tell you, there's actually a scripture that will completely refute that. In 2 Timothy 2:13, let's go there.
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If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. It would go against his character to not remain faithful when you don't have it all together. He cannot deny himself. Faithful is who he is. It's who he is.
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And he can't deny himself. So when you doubt, when you don't know what to do, when you can't figure it out, he remains faithful. Hallelujah. Man, that's good. Hallelujah. Because he cannot deny himself.
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So faith comes by hearing the message about Christ. The more you know who he is, how good he is, how faithful he is, how much he loves you, that's why you need to be in the word of God so that he can reveal that to you through his Holy Spirit. That's why you need to surround yourself with people who know the word of God and can counsel you and disciple you and grow you because the more you know his character, the more you know who he is, the easier it is to trust him.
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The easier it is to push past the natural five senses and the things that are screaming against you and the things that are screaming against his word and say, no, that's not true. This is true. Who he says he is is true. He's faithful. He's just. He's righteous. He's kind. He's loving. He's the provider. The more you know his character, the more you know who he is, the easier it is to push across, to step out of the battle and step into the promise.
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Because the battles are going to come. They're never going to end. We're in a battle. We're in a spiritual war. We're always going to be in a battle. But how are we stepping out of the battle and stepping in to Him and leaning into Him? Because we can choose to stay in the battle and let the battle overtake us, or we can choose to step into Him and lean into Him and let Him take care of the battle because He fights your battles and rest in His promises. Amen.
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Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Woo. Amen. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 11, starting in verse one. Do you guys know in Hebrews 11, so I talked about this, faith is the substance of things hoped for, faith is Jesus. Even though we don't see Him, we know that He is who He says He is.
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Even though we don't always feel him, we know that his promises are true, his promises are yes and amen.
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So faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. As we go through this chapter, and we won't read the whole thing, but this is what they call the "hall of faith". Anyone heard of the chapter of the "hall of faith"? Some of you guys might have not heard it, but basically it lists out all the Old Testament patriarchs and stories of the Old Testament. And it says some amazing things. It says, "by faith Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness. By faith, Sarah."
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"did not look at her body and the age of her body and her womb being dead, but believed the one who had spoken the promise that she would carry the nation of Israel, she believed God." This is by faith these people did things. Can we get a couple of those up Timmy? Maybe like verse two, verse three, where it says by faith.
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"By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than came through which he obtained witness and was righteous, God testifying on his gifts. And though he being dead, still speaks." And then it goes, "by faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death". Next one, "by faith Noah being divinely warmed". Next one, "by faith Abraham". Next one, by faith.
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"Sara so by faith by faith by faith".
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Man, I don't know your battle, but I felt God put this on my heart this morning. By faith, Pastor Kyle and Pastor Tina, you moved from America, took your whole family by faith and came to Australia to follow the call of God on your life. Linda, by faith, you wake up every morning and you speak over your body and you declare God's promises over your body. Mia, by faith, you don't look at what the world says about you, but you believe what God says about you. By faith, you do that.
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Sarah, by faith, by faith you're stepping out and you're declaring who God is over your life, even when all the world around you can sometimes want you to go the other direction because it's easier for you to excel if you don't believe in God, but by faith you're choosing to trust God. By faith, every one of you in this place can say, by faith I'm doing something, by faith, Kimmy, by faith you chose not to quit and you chose to trust God.
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With everything in your health and your whole life, you decided not to quit by faith and you decided to trust God. Sam, by faith, you chose not to allow man's opinion of you to persuade you from speaking the gospel over your friend and now he's saved and he's in the kingdom of God. By faith, man, by faith. So have a look at verse six in the same scripture.
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It says, "without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him". Can I just tell you that your faith in Jesus is the doorway to your fulfilling of the promise, to the fulfillment of your promise?
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Okay, everything you're believing God for, everything that you're trusting God for, everything that you've laid before on the altar, all of it comes to pass by trusting in Jesus, because it is faith that makes the impossible possible. All things are possible to them who believe. It was by faith that I chose to walk into every one of those court hearings and say, I don't care what that person says up there, I know who my God is, and I don't care how long it takes.
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God has said that my family will be whole, and my family is whole. It was by faith. It wasn't by my actions. It wasn't by how much Bible I knew. It wasn't by any of those things. It was by faith. Faith is the currency of the kingdom.
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Without faith, it's impossible to please Him because you have to believe that He is. You have to believe that He exists. You have to believe He is who He says He is. You have to believe that He's done what He said He was gonna do, and He will do what He says He's gonna do. You have to believe that. That's what faith looks like. It's just trusting in who He says He is and what He says He'll do. Amen. Hallelujah.
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and He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. I love that. God promises that if you trust Him, you'll see it. That's what He's promising right there. He's promising that if you trust Him and you hang on and you don't let the battle beat you, you will see the promise.
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So I don't know who needs to hear that this morning. I don't know who's hanging on by a thread of their faith right now. Maybe you feel like you're that person that's oh ye of little faith. Can I tell you that if you trust in Jesus, if you look to Jesus, if you put your trust and your confidence in who He is and what He says He's gonna do, can I tell you that you'll be rewarded for that? Hang on a little longer. Put your faith in Him. Don't put your faith in your confession or your good works or your good deeds. Put your faith in Him and who He says He is.
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I don't know who's hanging on by a thread this morning, but there's a scripture in Mark 9:24, and it's a story of a young man who's possessed by a demon and he's been thrown into a fire, and the father comes and he says, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief". There's no shame in admitting that you don't know and that you're struggling with your faith. There's no shame.
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in saying, I don't have the answers, I need help. There's no shame in going before God and saying, God, I know that you've promised all these things in your word, but I just can't find the strength or the energy to get in there right now. Can you just help my unbelief? There's no shame in that. And then Jesus says in the next verse, check this out, He says, Jesus says, "if you can believe, all things are possible to them who believe". "If you can trust in me".
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"If you can put your faith in me, if you can believe I am who I say I am, then all things are possible to them who believe". My family is a testimony to all things being possible. Hallelujah. The statistics were not in my favour. Everything was not in my favour going into that. But God is, I have God's favour. Amen. And all things are possible to them who believe. Hey.
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Amen. Alright, I hope you enjoyed the word this morning. Yeah, praise God.
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So faith in the battle is not about you, your strength, your wisdom. It's about you leaning on Christ. The battles will come. You are in a battle. You will forever be in a battle until we go home to be with the Lord in glory. It's not about anything other than how much are you leaning on Him? How much are you trusting on Him? How much are you allowing Him to speak a better word than the word-
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that may be currently being spoken over you in the battle? How much you allowing him to speak a better word?
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Because His words for you are, man, they're life. The words I speak, they are life. He says they are life, they are hope. But we gotta have ears to hear. Bible says that, let him who has ears to hear, let him hear. And faith comes by hearing the message about Christ and hearing and hearing and hearing, whether that be in a podcast,
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whether that be on a teaching, whether that be worship music, whether that be getting in your word and letting the audio Bible speak over you. Faith comes by hearing and by hearing and by hearing and by hearing the message about Jesus. Amen? Amen, hallelujah. Father, I just thank you, Lord God, for the gift of faith that you've given us, Lord.
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And God, I thank you that no matter where we find ourselves, what battle we may be facing, Lord God, you have spoken a better word, a better promise over that situation, Lord God. And those people here today, Lord God, that may be just hanging on by a little bit of faith, God, I pray that today that you've...
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You've grown that faith, that they've been strengthened in their faith, just like David strengthened himself in the Lord God, that they've been strengthened in you today, Lord God. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would bring back to their remembrance all of those promises that you've spoken over them, all of the mountains that you've moved on their behalf, all of the valleys that you've made flat, God. I pray that you would bring back to their remembrance everything that you've done. And God, I pray that they would get a revelation of who Jesus is.
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that he is the author and the finisher of their faith, Lord God, that he brought it about and he will bring it to completion. I pray, Lord God, that they would learn to lean into Jesus, no matter what they're facing, that they would learn to lean into Jesus, Lord. And Father, if there be anyone in here this morning that doesn't know you and hasn't given their life to Jesus, I just pray with every head bowed and every eye closed.
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If you would like to receive Jesus as your Lord and your Savior, I pray that you would just lift your hand now as a sign of saying, yes, I want to give my life to Jesus. And secondly, if you're in a battle right now,
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If you feel like everything's waging around you, if you don't know how to push past the senses and the natural and step into who you are in Christ, and you just need someone to pray for you and over you and encourage you, I pray that you would just lift your hand right now. If you're in a battle, if you're going through something and you, you just need to be encouraged. I pray that you would lift your hand. Thank you for the hands. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for the hands. Father, I thank you that you see. You are the God who sees. You are the God-
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who knows us. And Lord, I thank you God that no matter what we may be facing, Lord God, you promise victory. You promise victory to those that would trust in you, God. That those that would put their faith in you, Lord God. And I thank you, Lord God, for an encouraging strength over them now, Lord. Just like we sung in those songs today, Lord God, I thank you for a fresh wind in their sails, Lord God. A strengthening in their hearts, Lord God.
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Father, I pray right now that that battle would be a turnaround and that what the enemy meant for evil, God, you would bring about good from it.
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I pray that your name would be glorified through this battle, Lord God. Not that you caused it or brought it about, but I pray that you're gonna use it for your kingdom, you're gonna use it to mature your people, and you're gonna use it to make your name known in this earth, Lord God. I pray that there's gonna be a testimony that comes out of this battle, Lord God, that will not be able to be refuted. That when they share what you've done and the way that you've carried them through it, Lord God, that others would see who you are.
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And say, yeah, I want to follow that God. So I pray for them now, Lord. In Jesus' name. Everybody said amen. Hallelujah, thank you, church. Pastor Kyle, I'm going to invite you up to close out the service. God bless you, love you all.
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P. Kyle: Wow. Thank you, Michelle. P. Jeremy: Thank you, baby. P. Kyle: So blessed to have Michelle here with us today and just a blessing to us in worship. Amen. I've got to say that Jeremy, that's probably one of the best messages I've ever heard you minister wherever you are.
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Amen. And we'll get used to honoring the vessel and giving God the glory. Amen. But that truly was the gospel truth. I thoroughly enjoyed that. It was real, it was personal, and it felt like a message lived. Amen. So what I wanna do right now is if I could have Jeremy and Michelle just stand over here with me. Could you stretch your hands this way for this couple?
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I want to prophesy something today. I believe the battle is over.
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They may be more things and residue, but I just want to prophesy. And the reason you're stretching your hands is a physical representation of how you're going to connect with what's being said. So Lord, we just thank you that whatever residue tries to happen out of this circumstance would just be seen as that, the enemy's last ditch effort. But Lord, we thank you that the battle is over.
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That finances are going to increase, sleep is going to increase, connection is going to increase, and family will just be in its richness and whole in Jesus' name. And we all say amen. Amen, love you guys. Thank you for tuning in to today's message. To connect or find out more,
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you can reach us online at worldchangers.life. Remember to subscribe for more uplifting messages from our past oral team, and may you continue to walk in faith and transformation until we meet again.
