Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Could you please turn with me to the book of Hebrews?
For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But My righteous one shall live by faith;
And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction,
but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
And then Hebrews 12:2.
Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
And then can we turn to the book of John, John 14:12?
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father.
Please notice the directionality there: “He who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also.”
And then let us turn to John 6:28.
They said therefore to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
And then, lastly, James 2. We will start with verse 17.
Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
Verse 20:
But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
And verse 22:
You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.
Let us bow for another word of prayer.
Lord, we thank You for Your grace toward us, that we know that in our midst You are covering in Your headship. Lord, we entrust ourselves into Your hands.
We pray, Lord, that You would be with us, that the words that You desire to speak to us, Lord, there would be nothing in the way, whether on the speaking side or on the listening side; that every one of us, Lord, would be bowing before You.
Lord, we are waiting for what You are going to speak to us. We thank You, Lord. We thank You that You delight to speak to us, and we put all of our hope in You. We pray in Your precious name. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, the theme for our conference, as we know now, is “Live by Faith.” Yesterday evening, we shared together on my portion, the first part of my portion, which was “Faith Received.”
As we shared yesterday, we were reminded that our Lord Jesus is, as Hebrews 12:2 says, the author and perfecter of faith. Our faith comes from our Lord. Not only does our faith come from our Lord—He provides it to us—but our Lord is perfecting the faith. He is causing us to grow.
As our brother reminded us this morning, faith is a living thing, and our Lord is causing this growth in His people. So, not only is our Lord the author of our faith; He is also the perfecter of faith.
We considered yesterday together that the Lord gave us two little hints as to how to live by faith today. We were reminded of Moses when he was offering his letter of complaint to the Lord: “You charged me, Lord, to take these people, and these people are being nursed every day as we go on this long journey toward the destination.”
So, we were reminded that we are to live by faith for today and also for the journey.
To live by faith today, we were reminded to live within the veil—that is, to be drawn close to the Lord. If the Lord is the perfecter of faith and we want to receive faith, if the Lord is the author of faith and we want to receive faith, then where else can we go?
The only place that we can go in order to receive faith is into His presence. It cannot be found anywhere else—in our own manufacturing, in our own confidence, or in the ways of the world.
If we are to receive faith—that beginning faith, and also the growing faith—the only place that we can go is into His presence.
So the Lord, in His grace, came to this earth, and He was crucified for us. At the last moment, when He breathed His last, He cried out, “It is finished.” In His power, the veil was torn in two from top to bottom.
In Hebrews 10, since the veil has been torn, we can live in full assurance of faith. We were also reminded in that same passage that He is our priest.
What that speaks of is not only that we are saved at the beginning and a door has been opened for us into all of glory. He is also walking with us every day, and He is our High Priest.
Who of us goes through life and does not endure difficulty? In fact, as we move onward, and as we have a heart and a yearning to finish the course, to keep the faith, and to fight this fight, there are multiple difficulties. Our enemy will not stand on the sideline and allow us to fulfill our Lord’s heart’s desire. Of course, he will stand in opposition.
As this happens, brothers and sisters, we need someplace to go. In and of ourselves, we have no strength. If we think that we do, we will fall.
But the Lord reminded us in Hebrews that He is our priest. What does that mean? That means that we can go into His presence and lay our burdens down before Him.
We are reminded that He came to this earth, in His wisdom, as a child. He grew up tempted and suffering in every way, so that when we today come to Him, He can draw us in, and we know that He understands where we are.
So we see the preciousness of His life and the preciousness of His intention for us: that we live by faith. The faith comes from Him, and the faith is perfected by Him.
Not only do we live by faith for today, but the Lord is taking us on a journey in our life. He has a course for every one of us.
Now, some of us on this earth may be reaching the end of our course. We praise the Lord that we look back, and we have known many brothers and sisters who look back on their lives and know that they have followed the course. They have kept the faith.
There are also some of us who are just starting on this course. In recent years, perhaps, we decided that He is worth it—that we wanted to live for Him. There may be high school students and junior high school students who are starting on their way and have decided, “Lord, this is the course that I want to follow.” Praise the Lord.
We know that for this, the Lord’s heart is very pleased. What He longs for is that we would know how we can live by faith for this journey, because there are going to be twists and turns, high points and many low points.
But the Lord’s intention is that His people know how to live by faith, so that when the winds and difficulties come, we can make it to the next step and move onward. Then, at the end of our lives, when we stand before the Lord, we can say just as Paul said, “I have fought the fight.”
So this afternoon, by the Lord’s grace, we would like to consider living by faith, and faith received for our journey in this life.
Now, we thought of Moses and his letter of complaint. For a moment, I always like to think of what it would be like if we could imagine ourselves among those people of God roaming through the wilderness.
If we were just imagining for a moment that we had left Egypt, it was a great plundering of a nation, and no one even lifted a sword. We left Egypt with many of the goods of the land. We might have thought that we could live for a long time on those goods.
Well, one day we realized that we were running out of food, and so the people began to complain.
Then the next day they woke up, and the morning dew crystallized into this white, coriander-seed-like thing. The Lord gave instruction that we could collect this food.
So, if we could imagine, let us say that we are sixteen years old and our parents tell us, “Go out and collect enough food for today.” We go out and collect the food, but we think, “We are going to have to do this again tomorrow, so I am going to collect two days’ worth. Tomorrow I can rest up and play on my iPod.”
So we collect two days’ worth of the food, the manna. Then, the next morning, we wake up and realize that the manna has worms, has gone rotten, and we cannot eat it. It was enough for just that one day.
Then the next day, our fifteen-year-old little brother—it happens to be the day before the Sabbath—goes out. He has the same idea, and he takes two days’ worth.
Now, this I am joking about. I am not sure that this ever happened. But the idea is very simple: on the day before the Sabbath, when we went out to collect, we could take two days’ worth, because on the Sabbath the Lord knew that, according to His will, we should rest.
So day by day, through the generations, through the years and multiple generations, what we found is that over forty years, every morning we woke up and the dew had crystallized into this manna. Not one day did it not happen.
We might think, “Well, what about the day after we failed You, Lord, and did not enter the land? That would have been a good day to wake up and find that there was no manna.” But no. That day—every day after our greatest failure—when we woke up in the morning, there it was on the ground, as faithful today as it was yesterday, as long as it was not the Sabbath.
What we see, brothers and sisters, is that if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. His heart is for His will, and He has a purpose for us together and for each of us individually. He will be faithful to what He is doing.
So no matter the failure of His people on that journey, no matter how we had fallen, in the morning when we wake up, it is always there.
What we see, brothers and sisters, is that this manna represents something of our Lord’s nature. In the ark there were only so many things: Aaron’s rod that had budded with life, the commandments that spoke of the truth of God, and this manna.
What is this manna? The manna speaks of the fact that the Lord Himself is faithful. He is full of faithfulness toward us.
The manna was there for today. If we did a Google map of the manna, we would see that the manna was there for a journey. He not only cares for us and gives us faith to make it through today, but He also gives us faith for the journey upon which He has called us to travel.
We thank the Lord for this.
But how does the Lord give us more faith? We must admit that there are some mornings when we think of all the things that might be happening and we think, “I cannot make it through.”
There have been many times in our lives—and we know, when we go to prayer meetings, that in every fellowship there are brothers and sisters who are going through great difficulty and great suffering. How do we have faith for the journey when we feel like we cannot believe anymore?
The Lord is always working, and His heart’s intention is to grant us the faith that we need so that we can keep going.
In John 14, there is no verb form of “faith.” Whenever the biblical writers are trying to speak of the verb form of faith, the word that is used is “believe.” It is believing unto things that perhaps our human eyes cannot see, or where the outward form does not substantiate what is behind it.
So when we see the word “believe,” it is the verb form of faith.
Here in John 14, the Lord is telling His disciples—and Philip, in fact, who was telling the Lord, “Lord, if You show us the Father, it is enough for us to go on”—that he has to believe.
The Lord said in John 14:12:
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he shall do also.
What we see the Lord saying is that when we believe unto faith, there will be a work that comes from that faith. We see a directionality here: believing unto faith results in, or leads to, a work. The arrow goes from faith to work.
Then, in John 6, the people were asking the Lord, “What must we do to work the work of God?” The Lord said, “If you want to do the work of God, what is the work of God? The work of God is that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
This “believe,” again, is this faith-belief. It is not believing in something that they could completely see at that time. He was saying that the work of God is that we believe.
So now we see that the directionality goes from work to faith. In John 14, we went from faith to work, and here in John 6, we go from work to faith.
If we think of this directionality in one dimension, what we see is that it is sort of like we are just going nowhere—going right and then going left, going right and going left.
I am reminded of the first Battlestar Galactica. The Cylon Raiders had that little red eye just going left to right. If we think in one dimension, we might think that the Lord is just doing this with no intention or purpose: faith, work; work, faith.
But if we think of it in two dimensions—and Lambert, if I could trouble you to put that picture up. Lambert helped me do some technological wizardry with a pencil and email.
Oh, it does not work. I will just put it sideways then.
In two dimensions, if you could just think about turning it sideways, what we see is that faith going to work in John 14 is sort of like a revolution. We go from faith to work in John 14, and then that work breeds believing in John 6.
What we see is that there is a circle, a rotation or revolution, sort of like an engine that is going on. The Lord’s intention for growing our faith, or for our receiving faith, is that when the moment comes and we need faith to take the next step, the Lord gives us that faith for the next step.
Then, while we have taken that step, that faith results in the ability to go through that testing. It results in an outward manifestation of the faith.
According to John 6, if we have that working, what ends up happening is that there is more faith. So what we see is this turning, like an engine, of faith and work.
Now, this part I need some help on. I actually asked one of the brothers who is an engineer type: if we think of it in three dimensions, there is maybe—the high schoolers can help me—some rule in physics called the right-hand rule. Is there not?
I see the high schoolers. Basically, what I think is that if there is some directionality in the circle, then there is some moving forward of a current. Is that right?
Well, for those of us with simpler minds, think of an old office chair. You sit in the office chair, turn around in circles, and you go up. You turn in the other direction, and you go down.
If we think of it in three dimensions, what we see is that this revolution can help propel us forward on this course.
The worry is about drawing back, or about our Lord not having pleasure in us. But this little engine of faith, combined with the working out of that faith—as long as it is going—can move us forward together in our lives.
The Lord is orchestrating all of this.
Our brother was telling us this morning something that I had never thought about before: the work from moment to moment is the testing of the Lord. He might put us in a situation where we have faith for that moment. When that moment comes, the faith can be manifested in our life.
Sometimes, as we were reminded, the Lord will permit the enemy to tempt us in this way because He knows that we need another revolution. The grace of it is that it is revolution by revolution. The faith is enough for that turn. He is not going to ask us to go five turns ahead.
In our lives, there is a moment-by-moment, revolution-by-revolution faith. By the Lord’s faithfulness to us, He is shepherding us through our lives, every step, so that our faith can grow. As our faith grows, we will be moved forward.
Of course, we are reminded of James. Sometimes James is confusing to us because we do not quite understand what is going on. But if we look at it again in the context of this circle, we can see it more clearly.
James 2:17 says:
Faith, if it does not have works, is dead.
The scientific definition of life includes the need for organisms to reproduce, to maintain a metabolism in their bodies so that they may grow, and to have the capacity to grow. According to this kind of engine—faith to works to faith—we can see that if we cut off the works, then faith becomes stagnant and there is no life.
When there is no life, brothers and sisters, there is nothing wrong with verse 17. Faith without work, if there is no growth, dies.
Then, in verse 20, what we see is that faith without works becomes useless. It is like being stuck in the chair, unable to revolve. There may be some obstruction in the work part of the revolution, and we cannot go anywhere. We are just stuck there.
Then, in verse 22, which is really wonderful, we read:
You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.
Here we see the word “perfected,” and we think of our Lord Jesus, who is the perfecter of faith. What we see is that our Lord is introducing these testings and permitting the temptations that would cause this engine to grow in every one of our lives.
If we look through Hebrews 11, or even at the life of any dear brother or sister who has gone through this world and completed the course, we see that this functions in everyone’s life. No one comes in and automatically has something intrinsically about them where they grow apart from the Lord’s shepherding hand.
Everyone goes through this growing process, and there is not a person who is spared. This is true for all of us.
I am so thankful for some of our brothers and sisters in high school, junior high, and college who have decided, “This is for me.” Well, you know, this is already operating in your life.
You will see it in your classes and in your interactions with your friends at school. The Lord will introduce all these moments of testing. Just for the moment, He will give you enough faith for that moment.
It is not reserved for the great people of God. It is reserved for all of us who are just going through life. This speaks of His faithfulness.
Now, can I ask you to show that picture one more time? When we look at the circle, though, there are two threats to it. We could block off either direction of the arrow, and there would be a halting in our growing.
If we have faith, but that faith is bound up by the flesh in us, and there is no outworking of that faith, what ends up happening is that we get stuck, as we shared before.
But the opposite is true as well. If we work for the Lord, but it does not result in an increasing of our faith or a perfecting of our faith for that step, then what ends up happening is that it boosts our own flesh, our own ego. That is really dangerous to us.
The purpose of the work is always back unto faith: that we see He is faithful, not in some gifting, work, skill, or training. It is always going back to the Faithful One.
We can stall the engine in either one of these directions if we allow the flesh to come in. Of course, it is important for us to be cognizant of our dependence on the Lord all the time. We have to be wary of the flesh in the functioning of this.
This engine is actually subservient to the cross. It works on two people, really.
If we could turn back in our minds to Caesarea Philippi, we remember that there was a man there named Simon Barjona. Simon was his name; Jonah was his father. He was Simon of Jonah, a man born of a man.
From his father, he probably learned how to fish. He learned how to speak. He learned how to do all the things that he would do in his regular life. This was his inheritance from his father.
Then one day, they were there, and the Lord asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” We remember that Simon Barjona said:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
All of a sudden, the Lord turned to him and changed his name, because for a moment something from heaven—of His Father’s life—was revealed to a broken vessel.
It was prophetic, because we know that after our Lord died and gave up His life for us, all of us have this capacity. But for this moment, there was almost a twinkling of what was going to come.
The Lord saw it in him. He said, “Blessed are you, because this was revealed to you by My Father.” Something of His Father’s life, a revealing of it, had come into this Simon Barjona.
The Lord said, “And you are Peter, and upon the confession that you have made, I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her.”
For just a moment, the Lord saw in Simon of Jonah something that was not of Jonah. It was of His Father, and He changed his name.
To be entirely accurate, using our brother’s analogy, this life is not at all the life of Peter. He changed his name to Peter, a little pebble, but it is the Christ-life in Peter, with nothing of Peter at all.
For a moment, from Simon Barjona to Peter—Christ in Peter, minus Peter—there was such a separation. Something really special happened.
Then, unfortunately, eight verses later, He gave him a third name. That, of course, is the worst name of all. In ten verses, this man had three names attributed to him: Simon Barjona, Peter, and Satan.
Satan finds his resting place in Simon Barjona, in the flesh. We see that there are these two lives in us when we are saved, and they are at battle with one another.
In the world today, in the science of the human mind, and in the philosophy sometimes of Christendom, there is an intention that we heal Simon Barjona. So much of what we have focused on is how we can heal Simon Barjona. We spend much time perfecting Simon Barjona.
But brothers and sisters, the work of this engine and of growing faith, which is subservient to the cross, is that we have to build up that life of Christ—the life in Peter, the life of the Lord Jesus—at the same time that Simon Barjona is brought down.
There is no hope in Simon Barjona. It is very pleasing to hear messages about healing Simon Barjona, but dear brothers and sisters, there is no hope in Simon Barjona.
I would share this with my brothers and sisters who are in college or high school. It is really pleasing to hear messages and sing songs about the healing of Simon Barjona. But dear brothers and sisters, if we go down that road, it is just stalling. The engine cannot function, and the Lord cannot grow in us.
It must be that what the Lord is doing in this engine is that He is being increased and Simon Barjona is being brought down, because Simon Barjona must be dealt with.
In order for the faith to grow and the engine to function, we have to have a wariness of our flesh. We have to fear it, because especially on that backside, from work to faith, it is really easy to get our flesh glorified and riled up.
We need to have the cross on this so that that back turn can continue to function.
In Hebrews 11, I thought in our remaining time we could look at how the engine was functioning in Abraham’s life. We will start in verse 8.
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
This was a very big step for Abraham. At this point, Abraham was full of failing and difficulty. We know that the journey was not smooth, as was shared this morning.
But the question that the Lord asked of Abraham, and asks of us on this course, is: Where are we going? Who is going to lead us there?
This is a very important and critical question to us. Abraham was a man with an inheritance. He was a wealthy man, and his wife Sarah would have shared in that inheritance with him.
But the Lord had revealed to him that there was another inheritance. It was a little murky. I do not know if Abraham really knew all the details of it, but the Lord granted him faith for that one next step: to leave his earthly inheritance.
Sometimes we think that this was an easy thing to do, but brothers and sisters, it is not, as we all know. We all hold on to the world with such passion.
All of us who have earned our living or gone through troubles to get what we have gotten feel in some way that we have earned these things and that they belong to us.
But the question for us is as real as it was to Abraham: Where are you going? Where am I going? Who is going to lead us there?
The Lord’s question was simply, “Leave. Leave Ur of the Chaldees.”
The great thing about our Lord is that He is a master Shepherd. He knows how far we can go at a time, and He gives us the faith to go that next step.
I remember when I was hiking with my boys, and we were trying to hike across a little creek. There were rocks jutting out of the ground. As I was walking across, I wanted them to follow me, but I was not going to choose a rock that fit my step length and not his step length.
I could make it across, but he would not be able to make it across. I would also look to see whether, if he took a big step, the rock would be slippery and he might slip and fall.
So, as I led them across the creek, I was always looking for the right step length. My intention was not that they fall in the water and get swept away. My intention was for them to get across with me.
Our Lord, in a much greater sense, is a wonderful Shepherd. His intention is not that we get lost and eaten by wolves. His intention is that we make it there. The journey is such that He wants us to make it there.
For every step, it is just the right amount for that point in our life, to make it there.
I remember a sister who has gone to the Lord now. She lived on two coasts. When she lived on the West Coast, she was a wealthy woman, and she had a big, fancy, expensive car. It was the top of the line from one of the top car makers.
I remember all of us teenage boys staring at it and thinking, “Wow, what a great car that is.” Then, one year, the Lord put His finger on our sister’s heart concerning that car.
It was a Mercedes. So she sold the Mercedes and bought a little BMW.
For a moment, we might think, “What is that? You went from a luxury car to a luxury car.” But you see, brothers and sisters, to her, for that moment, it was the right step. It was just the right step.
To go to a bicycle would have been a huge step, right? But there is just the right step, and our Lord knows.
The Lord is independently and in His sovereignty leading every one of us on this journey. He knows what length we can go.
We should not look at a brother or sister while the Lord’s cross and the engine are working on us, and say, “Why do you not just take a small step like that?” No, the Lord, in His sovereignty and wisdom, is making us go in the right direction.
With Abraham, at this moment, it was simply, “Go. Just leave.” Of course, he had stumblings as he went.
Before we get to verse 9, what we see is that the Lord had given him enough faith to go out. He did not mention where Abraham was going to end up.
If He had told him, “You are going to leave this land of wealth, and you are going to go to a place where you will live in tents,” that might have been too much for that step.
But Abraham went out, and later on it was revealed to him, as time went on, in verse 9:
By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise.
After the Lord had given Abraham enough faith to answer the question, “Where are you going, and who will lead you there?” Abraham said, “I am willing to go, and Lord, You can lead me there.”
After, I am sure, other revolutions, he gets to the point in verse 9 where the Lord has a second question for him. The second question is: Where will be your home? Where will be your resting place?
This is a deeper question, brothers and sisters. It speaks of where we find our place of rest.
We remember very well that when our Lord came, He said:
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.
But we also remember that on the last day of His life, before His crucifixion, John rested his head on the Lord’s heart. The Lord did this for a reason. He was saying that He came so that all of us who are journeying through would have a place where we could rest our heads.
Strangely enough, I do not know what it is in us, but we are reluctant to do that. We desire to choose on our own where our home is, and we put our resting in different things.
Abraham, as he was growing in faith, built altars whenever he stopped. At Bethel, he built an altar. As he moved on, he would build an altar.
The reason he did this was that the altar spoke of being near to God. Even though they were in tents, he would build an altar. The world would say, “You have no home,” but Abraham would say, “I surely have a home. My home is here at the altar.”
Abraham’s life really became hidden in the Lord’s presence. At every little step, he would find a place to worship.
The altar is an interesting place, brothers and sisters. At its crux, the altar is basically saying, “Lord, I care about my standing in Your presence.”
We offer for our sins at the altar. Of course, now our Lord Jesus is our eternal offering. But that offering was really saying something very simple: “Lord, I care about my standing in Your presence.”
If I did not care, I would not need to make an offering. I could simply go wherever I wanted. But I care how I am before You.
Abraham had in his heart that he cared about his standing in the Lord’s presence. Even though he lived from place to place in tents, he built these altars so that he could worship and be made right before his God.
At the right time, the Lord’s question was, “Where is your home? Where are you going to find your place of rest?”
This is so important to us today, because the calling of the world is so loud. The world asks: “Where is your home? What zip code is it in? What school district are you in? Where are you going to send your children? What are the markers of human success?”
Brothers and sisters, I know this is so real in my life. The world calls out to us and says, “Your worth is in these degrees, these diplomas, and in how others feel about you.”
But brothers and sisters, these things will all die. It is not that they have little value. May I share this with you college students—if you are in medical school or whatever—very honestly: these things are not of little worth. In eternal eyes, these things are of no worth.
We must be clear on this, because if we give a little bit, the enemy will take a whole hundred yards from our life. We have to be so careful that there is no worth in our home on this earth. No worth.
At some point, in His timing, the Lord by His grace reveals this to us. I can tell you in my own testimony that before I went on the journey, I did not know this. Now that I know—or at least know in part—I am grateful that the Lord allowed me to get this far without getting harmed.
I share with you, brothers and sisters: if you are going on this journey, have it in your heart that nothing compares to living in Jesus. Jesus—He is everything.
There is no substitute in any piece of paper or any human, worldly accomplishment. Nothing.
At the right time, this is what the Lord asks of us. We think of Ittai. Ittai was an interesting fellow in 2 Samuel. He was a Gittite.
Ittai the Gittite had, I guess, a large family, and his family had a lot of children too. He was trying to find King David.
They journeyed and journeyed, and they came to the city of David, the city of the king. When they found him, it was just at the point that David’s son Absalom had come to power by currying favor with other people and making deals with them.
All of a sudden, the people’s hearts went to Absalom. They said to David, “We have to make a run for it.” Even before they said that, they had said, “We are willing to do anything for you.” But David said, “Let us go.”
They left together, and David stopped at the last house of the city, watching the people as they left. I think David’s heart was so sad as he watched these people who were going to go with him.
Then Ittai came with his crew of kids, the little ones described in 2 Samuel. David said to him, “You are not of us, and you just came yesterday.” He had just gotten there yesterday after roaming for so long.
David said, “Stay. Stay with the king.” Ittai responded—we should read it together. I do not want to say it wrong. It is really good.
Second Samuel 15. Let us look at verse 19.
Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why will you also go with us? Return and remain with the king, for you are a foreigner and also an exile; return to your own place. You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander with us, while I go where I will? Return and take back your brothers. Mercy and truth be with you.”
But then Ittai responded in verse 21:
But Ittai answered the king and said, “As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, surely wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life, there also your servant will be.”
Therefore David said to Ittai, “Go and pass over.” So Ittai the Gittite passed over with all his men and all the little ones who were with him.
What we see is that Ittai was given the choice. You can have your home in the world, with the king of the world, in the world. David even said to him, “Do not come with me.”
But Ittai said, “My home is with you. Wherever you go, whether for death or for life, I am going to go with you.”
Do you see, brothers and sisters? This is the heart of what the Lord is longing for. He increases our faith until we get to this point.
Later on, as Ittai continued on the journey of faith, he was given command of one-third of David’s army. Every step is unto the next step. Every faith leads to a working out of that faith, and every working out of that faith perfects that faith even more.
So we keep growing in this way. This is what was happening to Ittai, and it is what was happening to Abraham.
Then, in Hebrews 11:11, lest we forget, the Lord gives us people with whom we journey. Sarah comes forward.
Abraham was asked to leave, and Abraham was led in tents, but Sarah gets no glory. Yet she went with him the entire time.
When the promise came that he would be a father of many nations, he could not believe it. He was so old, his body was so old, and his wife’s body was as good as dead. Yet something happened in Sarah’s life where she believed. She had faith. The Lord had increased it from step to step.
Hebrews 11:11 says:
By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
What do we see of this engine moving forward? By this point, she had begun to see that the faithfulness was not in their own ability, in luck, in circumstances, or in training.
What she began to see was that every step of the way, it was because He is faithful.
When we get to that point, brothers and sisters, there is really an adventure. This life that we are choosing to live—brothers and sisters who are in college and high school—what a life of adventure is before you.
In your young life, we move forward, and the Lord will open the way for us to see all the greatness of what He is doing. When we get to this point, we realize, “Everywhere I came, it was because of Him. As I go forward, it is going to be because of Him.”
Sarah had gotten to this point where she saw that it is Him. He is the One who is faithful.
If we read Hebrews 11:12, it says, “Therefore,” meaning because of verse 11:
Therefore there was born of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
Then it says:
All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
I sense that Sarah’s faith bolstered Abraham in some way. We remember in Mark when the four friends brought their paralyzed friend to the Lord.
They could not get in because there was a crowd listening to the Lord. So they climbed on the roof, brought their friend onto the roof, figured out where the Lord was standing, dug a hole through the roof, and lowered their friend down.
We can think of the Lord looking up, with dirt falling, and then they looked in and lowered their friend down. The Bible tells us that the Lord saw their faith.
It is great. You see, brothers and sisters, on this journey together we are bound with brothers and sisters from different places, every different background, every age group. We are all bound together.
Sometimes we are in a situation where we just do not know how we are going to make it. But the faith is already there. It is actually there. We just do not know how to access it so much.
The wonderful thing about the house of God is that sometimes the Lord will move because He sees their faith. It is somehow put together. He sees it, and He cannot not move.
This speaks of the love in the house of God. We cover each other.
In Sarah’s life, she saw that He was faithful. Maybe Abraham did not yet see it, but because of what Sarah did, the promise was fulfilled in Abraham’s life. By faith, there is this carrying together of each other to move forward.
Finally, in Hebrews 11:17:
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.
It reminds us that the Lord had said:
In Isaac your descendants shall be called.
But by this point, I think Abraham knew something. He knew that the Lord is always faithful to His will—always. He is doing something, and He has tunnel vision that it will be done.
Abraham thought, at least according to verse 19, “Even if I slay him, the testimony and will will not stop, because the Lord is faithful.” He believed it. Of course, the Lord said, “Do not do it.”
We see, brothers and sisters, this life of growing faith that the Lord provides step by step.
In concluding, even though there is faith for every moment, sometimes it feels like the burden of the world is hanging over us. I know that it can be easy to feel this way.
Even when we have faith for each moment, there are times when we feel like the burden is too much. We have responsibilities in our homes and at work, and we are serving brothers and sisters. Sometimes it feels like there is a large weight, and we do not know how to make it.
There is a verse of great encouragement. This is Hebrews 12:2-3:
Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
We are also reminded in Hebrews 11 about Moses. Verse 25 says that he was:
Choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.
Brothers and sisters, there is this matter of enduring. Sometimes it feels like there is a huge resistance to our moving forward, and there is.
As our brother shared and reminded us this morning, the enemy today has his focus locked in on us. There is always going to be difficulty.
To the high schoolers and the college students, there is even more focus and attention upon this generation. Sometimes it is going to be difficult.
But enduring basically means that there is a force against us, yet we continue to hope to move forward and we do not stop. We do not pull in our sail and just go wherever the wind and waters take us.
It is that we have an intention in our hearts: the course is in this direction, and the Lord desires for me to go. So I am going to go. I am going to have an intention in my heart that I am going to follow the Lord.
This question of enduring must be in our hearts. But how do we endure? Verse 3 tells us very clearly: we have to remember the cross.
Now, brothers and sisters, sometimes the cross has become so common. We hear it so frequently, we see it all over the place, and it has become so everywhere. In fact, it has sometimes become a mocking thing. We sometimes forget the holiness and preciousness of what happened there.
But brothers and sisters, we should make our home at the cross. We should never allow ourselves to forget what happened there.
When we begin to feel like this is just too much—“I cannot do it anymore”—we should remember Jesus, our Lord.
Remember the cross and the strength that was in Him. There is no man with greater strength than our Lord Jesus.
When the whole power of the enemy was mounted against Him and focused on the annihilation of Him and what He was doing, there was no one stronger than our Lord Jesus.
He endured.
When we feel like we just cannot go on, brothers and sisters, lay our burdens on Him. Remember the cross. Remember heaven and the Lord Jesus, and know that to Him we belong.
Because of this, we can go forward and we can live a life of faith, that the Lord in our lives might find that He is pleased. By His grace, that He might come.
Let us bow for prayer.
Lord, we thank You for Your work through the years and Your continuing work in our lives. We thank You, Lord, for being with us in our daily lives, and also, Lord, for giving us such a wonderful journey upon which we can go by Your side.
Lord, we are particularly thankful to You for our brothers and sisters who are just starting on this journey. Lord, be their covering. Be with them every day.
We thank You, Lord. We give You all the praise in Jesus’ name. Amen.