World Changing Faith Part 1 – Lawson Perdue

World Changing Faith Part 1

World Changing Faith part 1 with Pastor Lawson Perdue. When you have faith in God it will change your world! Faith is different from what most people think!

World Changing Faith Part 1 Transcript

Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in today. We’re gonna be talking about world changing faith. Faith in God will change your world. And so you don’t wanna miss this broadcast where we’re teaching on what faith really is, and it’s different than you think. So stay tuned and receive God’s good word today. Blessings. Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’re here with us today, and we’re sharing on world changing faith. You know, when we look through the New Testament, there are really two overriding themes that we see in the New Testament. We see the theme of grace, and grace is essentially what God did for us in the person of Jesus Christ when he died and rose again. You know what? If grace didn’t pay for it, we probably don’t have a right to it. But the second theme that we see is faith, and faith is our positive response towards the gospel, or our positive response toward the grace of God, to what God has made available to us in Christ when he died and rose again. So when we hear the gospel, when we hear the good news, when we hear what God has done for us in Christ, the natural response is faith. And the Bible tells us a lot about the subject of faith. We’re gonna begin here in Hebrews 11:1, where the Bible says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Now, I personally do not believe that that is a definition of faith. If we would define faith, faith in its simplest form is trust, confidence, assurance. And so what does this mean that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen? Well, as we begin to look at it, study this out, look at Hebrews 11, look at this in context, because in Hebrews 11, the writer of Hebrews goes through all of the different people of faith, heroes of faith we might say from the Old Testament. He begins with Abel from Genesis. And he goes right on down, talks about Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses and David and Rahab and all these different people of faith. And these people, you could tell that they were people of faith. How could you tell that these people were people of faith? You could tell that they were people of faith by what they did and by what they said. You see, faith is the substance of things hoped for. These people were people of faith and you could tell that they were people of faith because their lives had substance. If your life has no substance, it means that you’re really not are a great person of faith. If you really have faith, the writer of James right after Hebrews says this, “You show me your faith without your works, but I will show you my faith by my works.” Faith without corresponding action, faith without works is dead. One translation says it this way, “Faith without works is just like a body without the spirit.” It’s just the corpse. It’s not going anywhere. It’s not accomplishing anything. It’s not producing anything. So he says, “Faith is the substance of the things that we hope for and the evidence of things not seen.” You see, because we have hope in God, faith is a evidence of God that you cannot see. Praise the Lord, I remember one time I was ministering, we were in Nepal and a little young boy, probably about seven or eight years old. I asked him about his God. And he said, “Come with me and I’ll show you my God.” And I asked him, I said, “Does your God have eyes?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Can he see?” “Oh, no, he can’t see.” I said, “Does he have ears?” He said, “Oh yes, he has ears. But no, he can’t see.” “Does he have hands?” “Yes, but he can’t do anything with them.” “Does he have feet and legs?” “Yes, but he can’t walk. He can’t move.” Well, I’m telling you about a God that has eyes and ears, and he works and he moves among us. And we can see the work of God. We can have a personal relationship with the God who created the universe. And when we get involved with the God who created the universe, it changes our world. I love this. We entitled the series “Faith to Change your World.” World changing faith. Dr. Lester Sumrall wrote a book “Faith to Change your World.” His first statement in the book when I read it years and years ago was this. He says, “Faith to change your world, not just to bless your chickens in your backyard.” Now, praise God, faith will bless your chickens in your backyard. Faith will help your chickens in your backyard. You can have faith and that can help your livestock, it can help your livelihood, it can help a lot of different things, but we’re talking about world changing faith. And he talks about all these people who literally changed the world by their faith. Noah was a world changer. Abraham was a world changer. Moses was a world changer. David was a world changer. And they changed their world by their faith. And so when he says faith is the substance of things hoped for, because we have hope in God, our lives have substance. And you can tell that we are people of faith by what we do and by what we say. It says, “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” Now, the Bible tells us in John 1:18, “No man has seen God at any time. But the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father,” he comes from the bosom from the heart of the Father, “He has openly made him known. He has revealed him.” So if you wanna see God, you look at Christ. And when you see Jesus Christ in the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you can really begin to see, you know, who God is. You see, we believe that Jesus is the full and the final representation of God. We believe that Jesus is the visible representation of an invisible God. The Bible calls him the image of the invisible God in Colossians 1:14. So when we have faith, faith is substance of the God that we hope in. It’s evidence of the God that you cannot see. Now, when Jesus walked on the earth, he came to put a face on God. He came to reveal who God is. Praise the Lord, now as we study this in Hebrews 11, we can see faith going from generation to generation. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, to Jesus, praise God. Now, I do not believe in generational curses. However, for believers, if you’re born again, when you receive Christ as your savior, God became your father, and God as your father cannot give you any generational curse. However, I do believe in generational blessings. And I believe that this covenant that went from Abraham, Isaac to Jacob, to Joseph, to Jesus is a covenant that we enter into when we believe on Jesus. And so when we look at Hebrew 11, we begin to see faith, demonstrations, and declarations. We begin to observe people of faith. These are God’s heroes. These are world changers. I believe that we can be world changers today. And I believe that their faith was a substance of their hope in God. It was evidence of the invisible God. How can you tell that someone is a person of faith? You can tell that someone is a person of faith by what they say and by what they do. Let’s look just a little bit here in Hebrews 11. It says “By faith Abel offered.” You see, we know that Abel was a person of faith because he made an offering. Now, he offered to God, the scripture says here in Hebrew 11:4, “A more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of gifts. And by it, he being dead yet speaks.” Abel is speaking to us. Did you know the Bible says that Abel’s blood cried from the ground? Now, I believe Abel’s blood cries from the ground for judgment, but I believe Jesus’s blood cries from the throne room of heaven, where he put it on the altar before God after he died and ascended into heaven, that he put that, and I believe the blood of Jesus Christ cries for mercy, but Abel made an offering because he was a person of faith. Because you are a person of faith, what are you doing with your faith? We can see all these people of faith were people of action. It says “By faith,” in verse five, “Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God translated him. Before he had his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God.” Now, it says that, “By faith,” he says, “Without faith,” in verse six, “It’s impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” So we can tell that people of faith are people of faith by what they do. And we look at all these different people. Noah prepared an ark for the saving of his house. He built an ark. Now think about Noah for a minute. Noah built this ark. You know, it was about 450 feet long. It was about 75 feet wide. It was three stories high. What an amazing task. Did you know this took Noah and his family nearly 500 years? Noah was 500 years old when God spoke to him to build the ark. And he was 600 years old when they entered into the ark. 600 years old when the flood came. Did you know when God gave Noah instructions to build the ark, that most Bible scholars believed that it hadn’t even rained on the earth until that time? The dew came up from the earth and watered the earth. So it was totally an act of faith. And God gave him instructions and told him exactly how to build that ark. Wow, what faith he had, to hear God and to get instructions like this. “By faith, Abraham obeyed God and went out into a land not even knowing where he went. Through faith, Sarah received strength to conceive seed.” All these different people who were people of faith were people of action. “By faith, Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac. He made an offering of Isaac. By faith, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to suffer affliction with the people of God. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. He forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured seeing him who is invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover, the sprinkling of the blood, pass through the Red Sea.” You see, faith is an action. You cannot separate faith from action. “By faith, the harlot Rahab.” Did you know what? Faith will help you no matter what challenges you have. “By faith, this harlot Rahab,” you know, “Perish not with those who believe not.” Because she received the spies in faith, in peace. Did you know what? She believed in God. When you read her testimony back in the Book of Joshua, she said, “Your God,” she was talking about what God did 47 years earlier. So we see all these people, and it says “Through faith, they subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens, received their dead raised to life again. Others had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings. They were stoned, sawed in pieces, tempted, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins, goatskins,” all these different things, but these people attained a good report through faith. So you cannot separate faith and action. Faith is first of all an action. By faith, what? We understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God because we have this revelation of God. We act like we believe in him. Noah built an ark. Abraham looked for a city. Abraham offered his son. Abel gave an offering. You know, all these different people, not only do we see they’re people of faith by what they do, but we see they’re people of faith by what they say. It says in Hebrews 11:20, “By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed the sons of Joseph. By faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones.” Did you know, they obeyed Joseph’s command some 400 years later? And so these were people of faith. And we can tell that they were people of faith by what they say and by what they do. And if you are a person of faith, if you believe in the true and the living God, and if you believe in Jesus Christ, you can’t help but say some things differently, and you can’t help but do some things differently because you believe in God. I’ll be back right after this short break. Friends, this week we’ve been sharing on faith in God will change your world. And I am so happy to be sharing with you this faith package. I have this book from my good friends, Mark Hankins, Mark and Trina Hankins, on “The Spirit of Faith. We have “World Changing Faith,” one of my best series. We have “Four Keys to Faith.” And then finally we have “Have Faith and Doubt Not.” These are some of my very, very best teachings on the realm of faith. And if you begin to understand faith, I believe it will literally change your life. It’s changed mine, praise God. It’s changed my financial position. It’s changed my spiritual condition. It’s changed my physical condition, and it’s all good. God wants to do good things in your life. And he does it through grace and faith. So if you want to get this teaching, just give us a call today or check us out online. Thanks so much, and blessings. Praise the Lord, friends. I’m glad that you stayed tuned with us. We’ve been sharing about faith. And we talked about how you can tell people are people of faith. You can tell that people are people of faith by what they say and by what they do, by their words and by their actions. Now, I wanna talk about some faith foundations. Did you know that God loves faith? Without faith, it’s impossible to please him. It says in Hebrews 11:6. It says in verse two that by it, “The elders obtained a good report.” Now we could see some of the good report that they obtained. We talked about how Abel made an offering. Now it says, Moses, we talked about Moses on down in Hebrews 11, about verse 25. “Moses changed the destiny of the nation of Israel.” We talked about the faith of the harlot Rahab. “She entered into the covenant.” Did you know there are only two women that are named in the lineage of Jesus? And they’re both Gentiles, Rahab and Ruth. And they entered into this lineage of Jesus by faith. They entered into the covenant by faith. When we read about David, it says they conquered giants and they took territory. Now, I just had Mark and Trina Hankins on last week, and when we shared with Mark and Trina Hankins about the spirit of faith, Mark said something, and he has it in his book, “The Spirit of Faith,” which we’re offering, you know, offer. And in this book, “The Spirit of Faith,” he said, “People are either pilgrims, they’re settlers, or they are museum keepers.” And he said, “A pilgrim, their people are pioneers. Pioneers, settlers, or museum keepers. A pioneer is a person who is always moving forward, always looking to take more territory.” Did you know that David conquered giants and took nations, took territory by faith? He was passionate for God. Now, how did David obtain a good report? How did Rahab obtain a good report? It’s really interesting when you look at these people in the Bible. Did you know that Rahab was a prostitute? Now, she probably didn’t wanna be a prostitute. She probably was just trying to make a living, but she got delivered out of that. When she got delivered, praise God, with the nation of Israel, when she put her faith in God. And she became one of the two women that are listed in the lineage of Jesus. Hallelujah, what a deal. And so she was turned from prostitution to put her faith in God, got listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah, what a marvelous privilege. David was a murderer. David, you know, you think about this, he had someone murdered, you know, to cover up his own sin. He sent them to the front battle. You know, he didn’t kill them himself, but he had them killed. And he knew they would be killed when he put them in the front of the hottest battle and said retreat from the back of them, and that happened. And so, but yet, he’s in the, you know, in the faith hall of fame, I was thinking about this years and years ago, and I thought, “God, how could you put David in the faith hall of fame when he did what he did?” And you know, as I was praying about that and meditating about that, God told me, “Did you know what David’s greatest act of faith was?” I said, “No, I don’t know.” He said, “David’s greatest act of faith was overcoming his own personal failure to walk in a relationship with God.” And so, man, I don’t know how you’ve messed up, but I want you to know that God loves you, and that God desires a relationship with you. And if you desire a relationship with him today, he desires a relationship with you. And so if you’ll pray and ask him to forgive you and give your life to him, he’ll come in. If you desire him, that is the Holy Spirit working on the inside of you. You may say, “Well, pastor, you don’t understand what I’ve done.” Well, did you know? It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. I met a pastor in Mexico who goes and preaches in the prison in Mexico. And he led a man to Christ who had committed 16 murders. He had murdered 16 people, and yet a man received Christ and received his salvation. Isn’t that a marvelous thing? You say, “Well, I don’t think God could.” Listen, God could save anybody. Did you know if it wasn’t for the grace of Jesus, none of us would be saved? And so thank God for these great people of faith. How did they get a good report? They obtained a good report, it tells us at the end of Hebrews 11, by faith. How did Abel obtain a good report? He obtained a good report by faith. How did Enoch obtain a good report? He obtained a good report through faith. Now, when we study in Hebrews 11, it talking about Abel’s gift in Hebrews 11:4, did you know that Abel’s gift, God is the one who testifies of Abel’s gift. Let’s go and look at it really quickly. And we’re gonna talk about Abel and Enoch here. In Hebrews 11:4, it says “By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained a witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.” I hope God testifies of the gifts that I’m directed by him in doing what he called me to do. “And by it, he being dead yet speaks.” “By faith, Enoch,” look at this in verse five, “was translated that he should not see death. And he was not found because God had translated him. Before he had this translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God.” Now we’re gonna go to Genesis 5, and we’re gonna read just a little bit about Enoch. Did you know that Jude says that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, he was the seventh generation from Adam, prophesy that the Lord comes with 10,000 of his saints. And this tells us about Enoch. It says in Genesis 5:22. Well, we’ll start in verse 21 to verse 24. “Enoch lived 65 years and begat Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years, and begat sons and daughters.” So Enoch lived to be 365 years old. “And all the days of Enoch were 365. And Enoch walked with God, for he was not, but for God took him.” Now, Enoch, the Bible says the seventh from Adam prophesied that the Lord comes, this is in the Book of Jude, with 10,000 of his saints. And did you know that Methuselah ended up living longer than anyone else in the history of humanity? If I’m correct, Methuselah lived 969 years. Now, if you study the genealogies and you study the generations and the timeframes, did you know that Enoch, who was a prophet, named his son Methuselah? Methuselah means “At his death, the deluge comes.” And when Methuselah died, the flood of Noah came, the greatest flood that’s ever been on the face of the planet. And so these were great people of faith. They had a relationship with God. They knew God. And as they knew God, they testified. They lived right. They had a relationship with God. They lived by faith, and also they spoke great words of faith. And so how would we define faith again? We would define faith as trust, confidence, and belief. Simply put, we might say that faith is knowing God. And so when you have, when you know God, when you have an intimate, personal relationship with God, did you know what? That directs your faith. You see, the Bible actually says in 2 Corinthians 5:7, this is the amplified version, “For we walk by faith that as we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves according to our conviction or belief, respecting man’s relationship to God and holy divine things. Thus, we walk with fervor, not by sight or appearance.” So when we know God, we walk in a completely different way, and you can tell people of faith are people of faith by what they say and what they do, praise God. So when you believe the word of God, when you believe in God, when you believe in Christ, you live in a completely different way than the rest of the world. Praise God, and did you know what? Faith in God will change your world. I’m so glad that you tuned in. If you need prayer, I want to invite you to call us today. We have prayer ministers that are standing by that are trained that are ready to receive your calls. And we receive lots of testimonies from people who hear the word, believe the word, and get someone to agree with them. You know, the Bible says “If two or three of you shall agree on anything that they touch in Jesus’s name, that it will be done by our father, which is in heaven.” And I wanna say thank you so much for tuning in, for being a part of the broadcast today. If you need to receive Christ, if you need to receive prayer, if you need product, or if you wanna partner with us, we would love to hear from you today. Thanks so much, and blessings.

[Announcer] What is faith? Do I need more of it? And how do I exercise what I have? In this package containing Mark Hankin’s book, “The Spirit of Faith,” and CD series “World Changing Faith,” “Four Keys to Faith,” and “Have Faith, Doubt Not,” you’ll learn the answer to these questions and more. You can get this special package for $59 when you call 719-418-4000, or visit charischristiancenter.com.

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