Faith is the Victory

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Greetings to each one of you in Christ's name. And I would like to read Psalm 25. It's a song that we sing, and I think it's pertinent for what we experience. This psalm, or song, kept going through my mind. [00:00:31] And this is a psalm of David. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not mine enemies triumph over me. Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed Let them be ashamed which transgress without cause Show me thy ways, O Lord, teach me thy paths Lead me in thy truth and teach me For thou art the God of my salvation On thee do I wait all the day Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindness [00:01:04] For they have been ever of old Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions Discretions according to thy mercy. Remember thou me for thy goodness sake, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The meek will he judge in judgment. The meek will he guide in judgment. And the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. [00:01:34] For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease, and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant. Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me for I am desolate and afflicted [00:02:06] The troubles of my heart are enlarged O bring thou me out of my distresses Look upon mine affliction and my pain and forgive all my sins Consider mine enemies for they are many And they hate me with cruel hatred O keep my soul and deliver me Let me not be ashamed for I put my trust in thee Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. [00:02:39] I see David here pleading with God to deliver him. He's asking for victory. He's asking that he would be victorious over his enemies. And he says, let me not be ashamed. And let not my enemies triumph over me. There are times when it seems like the enemy of our soul is gaining ground on us and we are faced with circumstances that are overwhelming to us. [00:03:10] But the child of God does not need to live in defeat. We do not need to go on in defeat. And we see that David ends this psalm by saying that he is putting his trust in the Lord and that he is going to wait on the Lord. That's the way to victory. That's the way to victory. Line of a song that came to my mind, and I'm going to use it as the title of this message. We could say many things this morning. We could go many different directions. [00:03:41] But this is what came to my mind. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Faith. And so I've titled my message this morning. We need that faith in God that will sustain us in the darkest hours of our lives. It doesn't matter what we face. When there's faith in God, there's reason to go on. We don't have to sit back and become discouraged. Now, faith is something that's talked about much, and we all know where the faith chapter is. [00:04:15] I've chosen to just read, and maybe I'll read some more of it towards the end. But what is faith? I think the Hebrew writer says it well. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is something that I don't see, but I believe in. And it's fairly simple. I think we have all heard it. That as soon as I see something, faith is over with. Because things have materialized. [00:04:45] I don't think any of us have seen God personally this morning, but we felt him, we read in his word, and we're instructed about faith in his word. There's no question about what we should do. And even trying to rationalize in our mind, we can't totally rationalize God. It's beyond what I can do, but we can have faith. [00:05:17] Faith. The dictionary says this, and I only chose one definition. It seems to fit in with this. There were a number of definitions, but the dictionary says this. Believe or trust. Belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something without logical proof. Now, that is kind of radical, but I want to say this at the outset. Human logic, at some level, is an enemy to faith in God. [00:05:53] Now, you can disagree with me. I know that we have to use logic. But there's this thing of utter trust and dependence on God that goes beyond human logic. and we need that dependence, that utter trust or we'll fail. We'll go down in defeat. And we all know that people, all of us have faith in something. Let's make sure that our faith is in the right source. [00:06:27] People trust many different things. They have their faith in material things, in money. We just talked about that this morning in our Sunday school lesson. Even our abilities, people have faith in their ability to perform or do things And they put their trust in that eventually sometimes And it can lead them away from God Some people have faith in their leaders And on some level maybe that's alright But put your trust in God and pray for your leaders [00:06:59] Put your faith in God Only then can your leadership be successful We can have faith in many things, but only faith in God brings victory, the type of victory that all of us want. It brings peace, it brings justification, it brings joy and hope. Now the opposite of this, we don't have to go very far, we don't have to look very far, we don't have to, we can almost be asleep and still see it. [00:07:30] There is such a lack of faith around us, faith in God today. There is hopelessness. There is hopelessness about the financial situation. There is despair. There are homes that are falling apart and there is no hope. There are people that were once close together, but they're far apart today. Their situation seems hopeless. There's fear. There's fear of the future around us. And not only the future, but the present. I'm sure we could say more about that. [00:08:06] But this song, the title of this song, I think most of us would recognize where this comes from. 1 John chapter 5 verse 4 and 5. And the King James, I know there's some other renderings that have almost the same wording as the psalm, but the King James says this in chapter 5 of 1 John 4 and 5. for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world [00:08:40] even our faith who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God now there's a condition for this overcoming faith there's a condition and there's two of them that are found here we have to be born of God in order to have that overcoming faith And we have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus said this, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man, no man, nobody cometh unto the Father but by me. [00:09:16] Do we believe this this morning? If somebody asked you, stopped you on the street, would you believe this to the point where you were willing to give up everything, Your home, your family, to follow Jesus, if that's what it took. How great is our faith this morning. How sure are we of our faith. Are we selling out completely for our faith? Are we hanging on to those things that, let me just say it this way. [00:09:50] We have that possibility of having a little bit of faith in something other than God. And it's the devil's way of destroying that faith, that overcoming faith. Four times Jesus said to his followers, O ye of little faith. And I wondered as I read that, is that why there's so little strength to go forward in our day? O ye of little faith. You know, I have no fingers to point. In my own personal life, I faced some difficulties that I wondered, where is this going? [00:10:24] What am I going to do? But God is there if we have faith in His promises. Now, he also talks about the world and the battle with the world. And we are in a battle. It's no secret. We are in a battle. And maybe the battle isn't, we think of the world and what is going on out about us. And that's all right. That is the world. But the world is right here. The world is personal. And this, do we sense a need of victory in our own life? [00:10:59] We need that overcoming faith to have victory. And maybe the world for us is that squeaky wheel in our spiritual life that we just don't fix. We just keep going. And we can't overcome because we don't take care of it. Now we think also of victory. We're talking, we're speaking about victorious living this morning. because of a faith that overcomes. And I don't know what you think of as you think of victory. [00:11:30] What do you think of? The ultimate victory is the crown when we enter heaven. But think about a battle. The victory is won before the enemy, before the clash, because of small victories leading up to that. And so what I want to say here, it's so important, how do we maintain those, how do we keep being victorious? I think we need a faith. We need faith and we need to stay current with God because of our faith in Him. [00:12:08] Hebrews 11, 6 says this, But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. You know what? The Bible doesn't say that it's very hard to please God without faith. He says it's impossible. You can't do it. You can't do it. We may try, but it can't be done. God won't receive us, won't receive me, if I don't have faith in him that he can take me through. [00:12:41] It's impossible. Hebrews 10.38 says this, Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. We have, if we are to be successful in our walk with God, if we are to have that overcoming faith, we need to give up and give all for him. God has no pleasure in those that only give part of their life. Now, what do you, how do we experience faith? [00:13:14] Faith and my emotions, my feelings, how do we deal with this thing? My feelings hinder my faith many times. And I would guess that all of us have this struggle at times. It's easy to base our faith on our experience. When things are going well, God must be good and we must be faithful or something's going on that is just right. [00:13:49] What about if we meet up with a difficult situation? What if things don't go as planned? What if we've done everything that we could and we thought we were following God and we were in His will and still it doesn't work? The faith that overcomes stays right there. We have to believe without seeing, with no visible evidence. God is still right there, and he has his reasons for taking us through these things. [00:14:20] And there is power in believing without seeing. Jesus said to Thomas, Blessed are such that believe without seeing. If we are to be victorious, we have to go that route. It's the only way. I would like to read Hebrews 11 and I'm going to read just the end of the chapter. This is a very familiar chapter. Let me say this yet. What we have in scripture, faith versus feeling. I think all of us know who the father of faith was. Abraham was the father of faith. [00:14:54] And how many of you think that God somehow worked things out that Abraham just felt good all the time? I think all of us would understand that he was called out of his home. Everything that was familiar to him, he had to leave behind and go where God asked him to go. But since he did it, he's a father of faith. He was a hero. He was a hero. And Abraham, if I understand right, is sitting at the right hand of God. I think we read, I'm not sure, I shouldn't say the right hand of God, but I think in the New Testament you read about the rich man in hell that could see Lazarus in Abraham's lap in heaven. [00:15:44] So there is something that goes with this and I don't think, I am sure, that many times, probably out in his tent, lonely and alone, Abraham asked the question, God, if you care about me, why do you allow these things to happen to me? Hebrews 11 verse 32 to 40. This is just the end of the chapter. And this elaborates on a lot of the things, the struggles that these men had. And I think I'm going to just read it and then make some comments here. [00:16:20] And what more shall I and what shall I more say for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah of David also and Samuel and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 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 the aliens [00:16:52] Women received their dead, raised to life again And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance That they might obtain a better resurrection And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings Yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment They were stoned, they were sawn asunder Were tempted, were slain with the sword They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins Being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy [00:17:22] They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect The important thing that I want to note here is these all persisted in the faith They kept going. Now if you look at that list, that's awful, awful things happened to these men. [00:17:54] If you go back in our history, I think you'll see the very same thing. Men that were taken from their homes and burned in front of their families and friends because of their faith. And they stood there because they saw the reward. They saw the reward. Genuine faith persists to the end. You know what? Our emotional decisions don't do the same thing. We have to be very careful. We have to be very careful that we do not build on emotions completely. [00:18:30] I'm not saying by this that we cannot be guided or that the Lord can't speak to us through our emotions, but let's be very, very careful. We can go astray if we do that all the time. And I think also this chapter would not be finished or complete if it wouldn't be for this, the suffering. It's a testimony of these men and their, their courage and their faith and how they stuck with it. [00:19:03] It would not. We do not know if our faith is genuine until we have walked through the fire. Maybe that's not the right wording. Maybe that's not the way to say it. But it seems as though we can have a lot of words. We can say a lot of things. But if there's no action, faith without works is dead. If there's no action to our words, it must be dead. It must be just so many words. James talks about this quite a bit in James 1 [00:19:35] My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience and there's something about this the trying of our faith I've observed people I've observed men and women who have faced fiery trials and kept going and came out on the other side refined With something to offer that I don't have to offer. [00:20:07] A faith that works is something to be desired. Something that we need to look for in our own lives, work towards. And it goes far beyond what I'm feeling at the present, maybe. It's not, I want to say this. Our faith in God doesn't guarantee an easy road, but lack of faith doesn't either. Our faith in God, I want to say this though, if we remain faithful, if we stay with God and His instruction, there is a crown waiting for us. [00:20:47] And that's what these patriarchs of old had. They had that long vision of what they wanted. they wanted that reward I just want to make this little note here James also speaks about trials or temptations if I say it right and I think there's times when we are tempted to fall back, to go back to lose faith temptations of all kinds [00:21:19] my temptation is not the same as yours, and yours is not the same as mine. But we all face temptation, temptation to become discouraged, temptation to follow the world, or you name it. And it does try our faith. It does try us. But let's remain faithful. Jesus said this, and he was in discourse with, I think, his disciples. In Matthew 17, Verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of a mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you. [00:22:02] Now I don't know what we get out of this verse, I've heard it, but there's something about the seed of faith. There's a living something that grows up and becomes strong, takes life within us. Our faith in God as a young child or as a youth may be kind of weak. And we're kind of sitting back, kind of proving the thing, looking around us. to see where this will go. [00:22:35] But it can develop through trials, through life, to produce spiritual giants. Now we have this saying, and I think it comes from this verse, it says, we say, with God all things are possible. And I think that's true. I think we should believe that. Jesus here is speaking about moving mountains. I don't know if you've ever felt like God is asking you to somehow get through something But it almost seems like he's giving you a shovel to remove the mountain [00:23:07] But he will be there If we are faithful and keep going He will help us to move that mountain It is not just me We're not alone in this It's possible through faith So what is the answer in our battle? What should we do? What can we do? We have this battle in our mind, in our heart, with the world, the things that we face. Paul says in Ephesians, Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. [00:23:46] And in my own words, I think Paul is saying this, whatever you do, take up that shield of faith. Don't go and don't do battle without that shield of faith. Take it with you. Faith puts God between us and the enemy of our souls. The one that is trying to discourage, disrupt us. And I notice here, as I was studying the descriptive language that Paul uses here, he's not talking about a dart that flies toward us. [00:24:21] He's talking about a flaming dart, something that has fire with it. And one commentator said that they would dip their arrows in pitch and then they would light them and they would shoot. And there's something that goes beyond just a dart flying towards us. We feel these darts sometimes, or it seems like they're coming at us. But when you have a flaming dart, that not only destroys the person that it hits, but it burns and it destroys what is around it as well. [00:24:57] I think Paul used that language for a reason. But that is the devil's mission in many different ways. He wants to come in the back door. He wants to destroy us. But you know what? Praise the Lord we can stand against the wiles of the devil this morning with that shield of faith. We don't walk alone. God is with us. And he will stop the fiery darts that come towards us. [00:25:30] Not only personally, but as a congregation, as families, if God is with us, he will protect us. There are darts of doubt and fear and mistrust, but let's not lose heart. If God is our shield, I would like to just close with this. Faith is how things are accomplished in the kingdom of God. It is how we obtain things. Jesus said, according to your faith, be it unto you. [00:26:05] And that is exactly how it is in each one of our lives. That is how it works. If we don't like the way our life is, let's start working on our faith. Let's begin building that faith. One writer said this, faith is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. And in a sense, I think that's true. But let's remember, faith is the victory that overcomes the world. [00:26:38] We can take that with us. We can take that to work. We can take that home, in our homes. And we can just take God's word and claim those promises and move forward. Shall we kneel in prayer? Our Father and our God, this morning we bow before you again. And Father, we know that sometimes the devil makes inroads and tries to disrupt what you have going for you. But we are grateful this morning that though there is that discouragement that comes at times, [00:27:16] there is that faith that keeps us going. Those promises to us. And Father, we just ask this morning for the infilling of your spirit for each one of us here. Would you help us to go forward with a renewed vigor and those things that the devil wants to put before us? Father, I pray that you would turn those around and that they would become a victory for you and that we could go forward. We invite your blessing here further in this day. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. [00:27:51] Thank you for watching!