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Part 11 of 11
Build Series
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We are in the Build series, and today we're teaching on building your faith. This lesson is critical because last week we discovered in 1 Thessalonians 3 that when the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, he was proud that they had accomplished mastery in two things: love and faith.
Often in church, we teach a lot about love. We understand the love chapter in 1 Corinthians 13. But today I want to dig in on faith. If you are going to grow and master your faith, you need to know: How do I grow and master my faith? Many people call it faith, but it's not faith. I say it's hope on tiptoes—almost faith, but not quite there. I want us to get to a place of biblical faith.
There are five types of biblical faith mentioned in the Bible. I'll be teaching on the last one in detail, but we'll discuss all five.
When you read in Ephesians 2:8, it says, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God."
Saving faith is the faith just to be saved. You had to at least have this or else you wouldn't be calling yourself a Christian. It is the belief that Jesus paid the total penalty for all of my current and future mistakes. That means not just the mistakes I made in my past, but any mistake I'm going to make in my future—Jesus already bled enough for me.
Saving faith is so powerful because it reminds us that there's nothing that you have to do to be saved besides believe in what Jesus did. If I believe in the finished work of the cross, that means that nobody can trick me out of salvation.
If you believe that once you make a mistake you are further from God, that means you don't understand saving faith. Saving faith covers all of your mistakes to make sure that your sin can no longer drive a wedge between you and your Father. There's nothing that you have to do to earn the love of God. He loved you already. Isn't it good to know that God loved you already? Before you even said yes to him, he was already giving a resounding yes to you.
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We find this in Luke 1:37-38. "For no word from God will ever fail." I could preach this and be done with church today because it's just that good.
No word from God will ever fail. I don't care what you're thinking. I don't care what fight you're in right now. I don't care how it looks. No word from God will ever fail. If God says it's yours, you might as well go to sleep at night and give God some glory because it has to be yours.
Verse 38 says, "I am the Lord's servant. Mary answered, 'So may your word to me be fulfilled.'" What she was saying is, "I don't got to make up no promise. I don't got to create no blessing. All I got to do is submit to what God said." If I submit to what God said, that faith gives me access to everything God has assigned to my name.
Submission is powerful because when you're walking in submission faith, you don't got to work for it. You get it because your father paid for it.
We find this in Matthew 8:5-7. When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him: "Lord, my young servant lies in bed paralyzed and in terrible pain." Jesus said, "I will come and heal him."
This is called surrogate faith. The servant who was in bed—we don't know if they ever believed in Jesus. We don't know if they had any faith. We don't even know if they were expecting to be healed. But somebody who loved them stepped in the gap.
Somebody who loved them said, "If you can't get to Jesus, let me get to Jesus for you." This is called being the intercessor. When you have surrogate faith, this is when you got to step in the gap for people who don't got enough sense to step up for themselves.
This is for all my moms and dads in the room. This is for my brothers and sisters in the room. This is for my sons and daughters in the room who are saying, "I got to go to God about my child because they don't have enough sense to go to God for themselves. I got to go to Dad about my mom. I got to go to God about my father because they don't know how to pray for themselves."
You can start saying, "God, before they leave this earth, my father's going to be submitted to Jesus. Before they leave this earth, my mom is going to be submitted to Jesus. Before they leave this earth, my son, my daughter, my sister, my brother would not be struggling, would not be broken, would not be in bondage." This is surrogate faith. You don't have to keep complaining about what's happening in your family. You can start going to God on behalf of your family.
This is found in 1 Corinthians 12:9. The gift of faith is the ability to believe beyond one's normal capabilities. This is your ability to believe beyond what is normal.
People with the gift of faith look crazy to everybody because it don't make sense. It's a gift. The gift of faith is not one of those ones you got to work for. It's literally the gift the Holy Spirit gives you. You could have got saved a week ago and you already believe that cancer has to bow before you.
"I ain't been saved for a long time. I don't got a lot of Scripture. But what I do believe is that the blood of Jesus works. And I believe that if my mama struggling with cancer, she got to be healed. I believe if my father struggling with illness, he got to be healed. I don't know all the Scripture. I don't know how to pray the way y'all pray. But I believe that God hears me when I call on heaven." It's the gift of faith.
Some of y'all got the gift. You may not have all of the religion that goes with it, but you know that God hears you when you pray. You know that when you call to heaven, heaven responds. This is called the gift of faith.
This is the fundamental and foundational way that Jesus taught his disciples to pray and to step into faith. We find it here in Mark 11:22-24.
"Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours."
He's teaching us faith. I need you to grab this. He said, "Now when you go to prayer, once you ask God the end of that prayer, you are to start walking like it's already in your possession." You have to start walking like it already belongs to you.
He says, "And once you believe that you have received it, it will be yours." I need you to grab this because the world stole this biblical principle and called it manifesting. But they didn't create this. It came from the word of God. Jesus was teaching this 2,000 years ago, saying once you start speaking a thing and talking to your Father, you got to start walking like it's already in your hands. And if you believe it's already in your hands, guess what? It's getting ready to be there because this is what's called faith.
When we understand faith, Jesus explains it as the ABCs of faith. Let me break down how to walk in systematic faith.
The first thing you got to do is ask for it. So many of you have desires in your heart and you believe it's going to happen, but you've never actually asked God about it.
James 4:2 says it this way: "You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it. So you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it."
Instead of you being jealous and being envious and mad about they relationship and they job and their career and their promotion and what they got, instead of looking at somebody else and being jealous and mad, get glad and ask your Father about it. Because if you simply ask your Father, you don't have to be envious of what your neighbor has. Your Father knows what you need.
Now, look what verse 3 says: "But when you ask, you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives." You got to check yourself and say, "Are my motives right?" I had to ask, "Why do I want this car? Is it because I want something that's better than everybody else or do I actually need it? Why do I want this house? Is it because I want something better than everybody else? Why do I want the promotion? Is it only because they got one?"
You must ask according to the will of God. I cannot ask in faith what is not in agreement with God's word. Once you understand the word of God, you can stop saying stuff like, "If it be God's will," because it is if it's in his word.
He says in his word, "Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together." That means you don't got to come to this church or that church, but you do got to go to church somewhere because his word says he wants you to go to church. Once we understand the will of God, we'll stop saying "if it be the Lord's will, I'll give something." It's his will. He said in his word that he wants you to give.
It's like saying "if it's his will, I'm going to forgive them." It is his will and he wants you to forgive them whether you want to or not. You don't have to keep co-signing "if it's his will" when you read your word and know it's his will.
When you ask, you must ask in Jesus' name. In John 16:23, Jesus says, "In that day, you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly, I tell you, my father will give you whatever you ask in my name." Jesus is saying, "My name is the access code. It's the password." Because at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. At the name of Jesus, every tongue will confess.
But when I'm praying, I got to go to the Father. And when the Father says, "What gave you permission to come here?" you say, "In the name of Jesus, the one who died for all of my mistakes and my sins, I'm declared innocent in that name." Jesus gave us access to the Father. He was here to bring us back to the Father, not to himself.
After I ask, I have to believe. Biblical believing is different than the world's way of believing.
Biblical believing is to accept something as a fact even though you have no sense realm evidence. What that means is I'm accepting that it's a fact just because God said it. I don't got no proof. I know I sound crazy to some of y'all, but if God said I'm the head and not the tail, guess what? I'm the head and not the tail.
"Well, you don't like the head." Well, sorry for you. You don't see the future. I see the future. I am the head and not the tail. Above and not beneath. The lender, not a borrower. Why? Because God told me I am. And since God told me I am, I'm demanding that my life begins to match up with his word.
It's different. It's no sense realm evidence. God's word is the only thing that proves that it is true. I've grown to the place to accept that God's word is true and everything else is a lie. Either God's word is true and my situation is a lie or my situation is a truth and God is a lie. Whose report are you going to believe? But I choose to believe the report of the Lord—that what God said about me is the absolute truth.
One of the people in the Bible who struggled with their faith was Doubting Thomas. In John 20:24-25, it says, "Now Thomas, also known as Didymus or twin, was one of the 12 and was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.'"
He made a decision not to believe. This means that believing is a matter of your will. Believing is a decision. You can choose to believe or you can make a decision to not believe because every person creates their own criteria for their faith.
Every person creates their criteria for their faith. God has them in the Bible to teach us that we can do what he did for them. If they did it, God is not a respector of any man's persons. Whatever rules he gave to Daniel, we got the same rules. Whatever opportunities he gave to Paul, we got the same opportunities. There were people who created their own criteria because faith gives you the power to create your own world.
There was one woman who had been sick for 12 years. She thought, "I've been sick for 12 years. I ain't supposed to be sick. If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I believe, because I can choose my own criteria. I believe that I will be healed." And she pressed through the crowd. When she touched him, virtue left Jesus's body and he says, 'Somebody touch me.' Why? Because her faith created her own miracle.
Another example is the centurion, the Roman officer. He said everybody that Jesus was healing normally had to touch Jesus or Jesus had to touch them. They had to touch Jesus in some way. He comes to Jesus and says, "Hey, my servant is ill at home." Jesus says, "Hey, I'm getting ready to come heal. I'm going to go lay hands on her because that's what everybody else needs." He says, "No, I don't need you to come. I believe if you just speak the word, my servant 2,000 miles away is getting ready to be healed." And Jesus said, "Oh, I ain't never seen no faith like this. Be it unto you as your faith has decreed." And the servant was healed immediately.
This means we see two people create their own criteria for their miracle. What criteria do you have? What are you expecting God to do? What statement of faith are you releasing? That God, I believe you can do this for my child. You ain't never have it for nobody else, kid. But thank God you're a God that does new things. Thank God that you're a God that does things that eyes haven't seen and ears haven't heard. Thank God that you can move in ways that are brand new in the world. Just that my faith has a belief for it.
Look here in verse 26: "A week later his disciples were in the house again and Thomas is with them though the doors were locked and Jesus came and stood among them and said 'Peace be with you.' Then he said to Thomas the doubter, 'Put your finger here. I heard you was talking crazy unless I see it. Okay. Put your finger here and see my hands. No, no, no. Reach your hand out and put it in my side. He says, "Stop doubting and believe."'
Some of you waiting, "I'ma wait till I see it." That means you're operating by doubt and not faith.
Verse 28: "Simon said to him, 'my Lord and my God.'" Thomas is getting ready to shout. Oh Jesus, I believe it's you, my Lord, my God. And he's getting ready to give God some praise. And Jesus said, "No, because you've seen me, you believe. But blessed are those who have not seen and still believe."
I'm preaching to a room of people that said, "I didn't have to see Jesus walk the earth to know that he's alive and doing well, because he's alive on the inside of me." Blessed are those who never saw but still believed. Blessed are those who operated by faith.
This is where confession gets real. I have to put my words in agreement with God's word.
Proverbs 18:21 says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." I have to learn to start speaking what God said about me. Because the more I speak it, the more my spirit receives it as truth. The more my subconscious mind receives it as truth. The more I speak it, the more bold I come in my faith. The more I speak it, the more confident I get in his promises.
I have to know that I can give life to his promise and death to my fear by what I speak.
Find what God's word says about you because once you get that, you have a greater identity. Look what it says here:
Once you find how to put your mouth in agreement with God's word, you no longer struggle what people have to say about you because you know what God said about you. And once you know what God said about you, it don't matter the post, no matter the rumor, no matter what they say, because you know who you are and you know who's you are.
Once you know who you are, you no longer have identity crisis. "Well, they said this about you, but I know who I am because I know what my Father said about me. I know he told me before I was in my mother's womb, he knew me and he ordained me there and gave me a name and gave me an anointing. I don't need your opinion when I have his word." I know what God's word said about me.
After confessing the word of God, I got to get to a place where I start to demonstrate. I got to walk it like I talk it. I got to start showing that my confession has some action behind it. I have to show God that through my actions, I'm in faith to believe his word.
Whatever he said about me is getting ready to happen in my life. My behavior has to match what I'm believing God for.
One of my examples is my mom. When she was young, my three oldest sisters have a different dad than the last nine. My mama had 12 kids. My mama had the first three. After that, she was a single mom raising the first three.
She was believing God that she was going to get married. And people was telling her, "You young with all three of those kids, ain't no man going to want to take on that responsibility." And she was like, "Yeah, I know y'all never seen it, but I know that God can do it."
After church, my mom said after church, she would be rushing home so she can cook and get the house ready. They're like, "Why you always rushing home to get the house?" She was like, "Because I got to make sure that everything together and my house is together for my husband. I can't be lolly gagging around at the church laughing and playing with y'all because I got to make sure that when I get home my husband got food and that the house took care of." She said, "And people were laughing at me. But what I was doing is I was demonstrating to God I believe you getting ready to give me what I prayed for. I got to prove to you that my behavior matches my expectation. I got to prove to you that when I confess this thing I actually believe it's getting ready to happen."
And when it happened, it blew people's mind, but it didn't change her mind because she was already demonstrating.
What does your life demonstrate? Are you already demonstrating to God that you believe is getting ready to happen? "Well, I've been praying to God about this business. Well, why don't you have the LLC? Why don't you have the bank account? You ought to be calling the bank right now."
"Hey, I need to open up an account for about $25,000." "You got the money?" "No, I don't got the money yet. But I believe that God's getting ready to send the check for my account. And so I got to open the account so that it's ready to deposit the check when I need to."
Walking by faith and demonstration, you're going to seem crazy to people sometimes because sometimes when you're walking in the demonstration of faith, you got to buy stuff for things that don't exist yet.
For my moms in the room, maybe you've been believing God for a child and the doctor told you that you can't get pregnant. But you go by the crib anyways. You prepare the room in your house. You start saying, "When my baby gets here, I'ma put the crib on this side so that when I wake up, I don't got to walk too far to get to it." And it may seem crazy to some people, but what you're showing God is I believe you are so real that you're getting ready to do everything I asked you to do. I'm choosing to believe your word over their opinion.
Demonstration would make you seem crazy. Imagine a woman pressing through the crowd. Everybody probably thought she was crazy. "You really think by touching somebody's clothes you going to get healed?" She was like, "I really, I really believe that." And God did exactly what she believed.
This exposes that faith is not invisible. You can see when someone is truly moving in faith. Mark 2:3 says, "Some men came bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four of them. And since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat that the man was laying on. And when Jesus saw their faith, when Jesus saw their faith, I'm talking about demonstration. When Jesus saw their faith, he spoke to the man and healed him."
Why is this incredible? Because many of us think that faith is invisible. But faith cannot be invisible. Faith is literally defined as: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for," which means that faith has substance. So if something has substance, that means it's tangible. It cannot be invisible. It cannot be invisible. Jesus saw people moving and he was able to see their faith.
Question for you: Can people see your faith? Can they see it? When people look at you, do they see you walking in the place of demonstration to say, "Yeah, I don't have it, but I'm so convinced that God promises it's yes and amen, that I'm already moving like I already got hired at the company. I already started buying clothes for the job I don't got yet because I believe that God is doing it for me."
Faith without movement is dead. Faith without action is dead. James 2:17 says, "In the same way faith by itself if it is not accompanied by action is dead." So if I'm saying I'm believing God for something and my behavior hasn't changed, I'm not actually believing God for it.
If I tell you pack your bags because we flying to Greece in the morning and I get to your house and you didn't pack your bags, it's proof you didn't believe that you were actually coming with me. Because the way you move will always determine if you believe the promise of God or not.
After demonstration, you have the last one: expectation. There are five things that you can expect from God when you're walking in this journey of faith.
When I've asked God, shown God that I believe, started to confess with my mouth, got my mouth in agreement with God's word, then started to demonstrate it—my family, my friends thought I was crazy because I started moving like I already owned the house, already owned the car, already owned the company. I started moving like I was already married, like I was already somebody's wife, somebody's husband. I already started operating from a place of faith that I wasn't waiting for God to do it. I had already accepted that what he promised me was mine and in my possession already. So I demonstrated, and last I have this expectation.
God will give me a plan on how to move in my faith. When walking in faith people like, well faith is just crazy. No, it's not just crazy. God gave you a plan.
When my mom said she was waiting, she said God started giving her a plan to start moving like you were a wife already. Start getting home and making sure the home is clean and prepared. Imagine what your husband wants when he walks into the house. I want you to live like that already. God gave her a plan to walk in faith.
The correct application of the knowledge I already have. So wisdom is how do I apply what I already know? Because sometimes you can know a bunch of stuff and still not know how to move. When you're standing in faith, God has to give you the wisdom on how to apply the knowledge you already have.
You receive the favor of God. God will raise up somebody somewhere to use their power, their influence, and their ability to help me.
I went through when they told me, "You can't buy a $3 million building for a church and your church only three years old. The bank needs at least five years of taxes." And I said, "Well, God going to use somebody somewhere to use their power, their ability, and their influence to help me. I know it don't make sense to you, but we were already praying in the parking lot like we own the church already. We were already worshiping in the parking lot like it was." And then God rolls up somebody in Denver to use their power, their influence, and their ability to help.
That which man's wisdom doesn't understand and cannot explain. When you're in faith, many of you have seen this. We saw 19 cases of cancer healed in one year. Men's wisdom doesn't understand it and they can't explain it. But it's a supernatural. It's when God puts his super on top of your natural. You're standing in faith as a natural person, but God put something super on top of it. And now you can't explain it. It doesn't make sense. It should have killed you. Should have took you out. Your life should be over. But God brought a miracle into your life to change you.
This one people don't like to hear, but you need this one. The strength to endure until the change comes. Because faith is not magic. Because faith is not magic.
You know your credit score is 400. You got to give God more time. I claim the house. You ain't even paying your rent. You got to come on. Give God something to work with. It ain't magic now. Because faith is not magic.
I may have to wait longer than I want to, and I need faith and patience to inherit the promises of God. My last verse is Hebrews 6:12. It says, "We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."
Which means that sometimes my faith needs patience. Some of you, you got the faith part. The problem is you always quit early. You always quit prematurely. You were right there, right on the cusp, right on the precipice of what God was getting ready to do. And then you get there and you're like, "Man, it's taking too long. I just quit." Because you have faith, but you need patience so that you can actually inherit the promises of God.
I want to remind you that when you stand in the faith, you got to ask God. You got to actually give it to you. You got to believe. You got to believe that when you speak to this mountain, it has to obey you. You got to make sure you start to confess it. That my people around me should know what I'm in faith for. I shouldn't have people around me, my best friends and my family, and nobody knows what I'm in faith for. That means I haven't been confessing what I'm expecting God to do.
I need to make sure I'm walking from a place of demonstration. I got to start walk like I'm talking. Start moving like I already own a business, own a home, own a car. I start walking like God made me the head and not the tail, above and not beneath, a lender, not a borrower, a leader and not a follower, the first and not the last. I got to move from a place of demonstration.
And then I start to work in my expectations. I'm expecting the wisdom of God, the favor of God, supernatural miracles. I'm expecting God to give me patience and strength so that I can receive what I am in faith for.
