This message is one of the Times Square
Church Pulpit Series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
None of these messages are copyrighted and you
are welcome to make copies for free distribution
to friends.
And that's sort of like when this huge
slab of concrete is hanging over your head
and it starts slowly to slide upon you
and you begin to sink under the weight
and it's going to crush us.
It will crush me.
And then I remember that the Lord says,
my yoke is easy, my burden is light.
And I realize when I'm yoked with Jesus
and I give him the weight of things,
he, his bigger, stronger shoulders, he's yoked with
me, carries the weight.
I had a shifting of trust and it
began to show itself this week.
But praise God, the Lord ministered a word
to me.
The first part of this word was ministered
to me by my husband and I am
asking the Holy Spirit to be able to
just take it and minister it to you.
I want to speak today about a walk
of faith.
And you know, in the scripture, in the
Old Testament, the patriarch Joseph, he met his
brother Esau one time and Esau was in
a big hurry to get with Joseph to
a meeting place.
And he wanted Joseph to hurry along with
him.
But Joseph was traveling with his wives and
his children, a pregnant wife and small children.
And he said no to his brother Esau,
you go ahead.
He said, I don't want to overdrive the
young one.
I don't want to go at a pace
that hurts the young and those that are
with child in our midst.
And I felt today that the Holy Spirit
wanted to teach us and show us aspects
of a walk of faith, but that he
did not want the word to be in
overdrive.
He didn't want it presented in such big
inflated terms that the new among us and
the young among us and those that are
struggling would be left behind.
So the Holy Spirit knows how to minister
this word to us.
And it's not steps of faith because they
aren't steps of faith.
The very young among us can grasp in
an instant of faith and a belief in
Christ and move on.
And those that have walked with him many
years can slip out from out underneath his
yoke and be crushed by the weight of
things, even though they have a head knowledge
of many things.
But I trust that the Holy Spirit is
going to give us some insights into a
walk of faith that we may please him.
Father, I thank you for this word.
Jesus, when you come upon a word, when
you send the Holy Spirit to be a
teacher, you light that word.
You set it aflame in our hearts.
Lord, these people that are before me, oh
God, they're not here by accident.
Lord, I believe that you've brought them here
for this time.
Lord Jesus, I just now ask you to
minister by the Holy Spirit.
Put something in our hearts.
Oh God, when we leave here this day,
it is something that is ours in the
inner man, and we live upon it to
your praise and glory.
In Jesus name I pray.
Amen and amen.
The title of my message today is called
Licking Fish.
And I would like you to turn with
me in your Bibles to Mark 6.
Mark 6.
In Mark chapter 6, starting at verse 30,
is the story of Christ feeding 5,000
people.
He said 5,000.
And that miracle is told in all four
Gospels, which is a very unusual thing for
one miracle of Jesus to be recounted in
all four Gospels.
Which means it tells me that there's something
very significant about this miracle, that all four
wrote about it.
Now when they wrote about it, they all
brought in a little different point of view,
and they all remember different people saying different
things.
So what I want to do is us
to read the first six verses together in
Mark 6, and then for the rest of
the story, I'm going to weave in what
the other writers and the other Gospels were
saying about this miracle.
So we get a composite drawing of what
was happening at this time when Jesus fed
the 5,000.
So starting with me in verse 30, Mark
6, it says, And the apostles gathered themselves
together unto Jesus, and told him all things,
both what they had done and what they
had taught.
And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves
apart into a desert, and rest a while.
For there were many coming and going, and
they had no leisure so much as to
eat.
And they departed into a desert place by
a ship privately.
And the people saw them departing, and many
knew him, and ran afoot thither out of
all cities, out went them, and came together
unto him.
And Jesus, when he came out, saw much
people, and was moved with compassion toward them,
because they were a sheep not having a
shepherd.
And he began to teach them many things.
And when the day was now far spent,
his disciples came unto him, and said, This
is a desert place, and now the time
is far past.
Send them away, that they may go into
the country round about, and into the villages,
and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing
to eat.
So here's the disciples after a day of
teaching in ministry, saying, Send them away, there's
nothing here, they need to go buy bread.
And in the book of Matthew, it recounts
Jesus as saying, They don't need to depart,
you give them something to eat.
In Mark it says, They said, Well, shall
we go and buy 200 penny worth of
bread?
In Luke 1 says, Shall we go buy
meat?
In Mark it records Jesus as saying, How
many loaves and fishes have you?
Go and see.
And of course, the answer, the report came
back, there were five loaves and two fishes.
They said, But what's that among so many?
And in John 6, it says, And this
he, Jesus, said to prove them, for he
himself knew what he would do.
And the disciples needed to see in this
situation what they would do.
Jesus was going to prove them.
Proving means to show what is in them
or what is not in you.
Faith had to be what set these men
apart.
Jesus knew that.
And the time for them to learn a
fundamental truth of faith and a faith walk
was now at hand.
Now, it's not that these men were bereft
of faith, because when we began to read
the recounting in Mark 6, they were gathering
together, Jesus had sent them out two by
two, and they had seen in their recount
of what happened that they saw Satan falling
out of the sky as lightning, because as
they went out teaching two by two, giving
what they had been taught by the Lord
Jesus Christ, they saw devils cast out.
They saw people healed.
They saw the kingdom of God go forward.
So it was not as if these men
had no faith.
They had a measure of faith.
One thing that Jesus knew that after every
blessing is an attack.
So while they were men of faith and
they had personally seen the kingdom of God
go forward in their ministry, it was also
a time if you read in Matthew, it
was also a time, a very sobering time.
They had just learned about the death of
John the Baptist, where he had been headed.
And this must have been very troubling, I
felt to the disciples, because Jesus had said
that the spirit of Elijah, Elias, it says
in the New Testament, which is the Greek
for Elijah, was upon John the Baptist.
And Jesus himself had extolled this man and
said, none born of woman is greater than
John the Baptist.
And I believe in their hearts they esteemed
this man in a way that they didn't
esteem themselves even.
And now he had lost his head.
It was an exciting time, but it was
a sobering time.
Jesus knew they needed to be men of
faith.
So he proved them with the question.
He proved them.
He said, you feed them.
You feed them.
Now I could just sense in them that
charge and that responsibility, that, that commission that
Jesus was giving to them at that moment,
you feed them.
Okay, well, all right, well, what's in our
hand.
And they would look and they would see
there was five loaves and two fishes.
And the one, you know, we started to
hear some of their, uh, responses of how
to, how to deal with this, this command
of Jesus to feed them.
So they thought, well, should we go and
buy bread?
And you could think the one who said
that when you could see everybody turn around,
look at them and go, no, you know,
first of all, do we have the money
for that?
And second of all, by the time we
get across the desert, get in the boat,
go back.
That's not a workable situation.
So we buying them food, us going to
seek bread or meat that that's not going
to work, but, but I could imagine the
practical good idea guy had even given more
time speak up.
And I could see that he, he looked
and he saw the fishes and the loaves.
And the only way that he could see
that this could happen, that he could feed
this 5,000, I could say, I know,
I know.
We'll pass the fish around.
We'll tell everybody, lick the fish.
And to him, it was a great idea.
You know, if everybody would just lick the
fish and pass it on by the time
I got through to 5,000 men, it
would be just bones.
But Hey, we did it.
Didn't we, we worked with what we had.
And here's where a good imagination really gets
you in trouble.
Imagine you're the 347,000 person.
And it's been licked that many times.
It wasn't even really a good idea, but
you could see Jesus told us feed them.
And this is what we have in our
hand.
No one, if they had, you know, got
the bull horn, just lick the fish and
pass it on, lick the fish and pass
it on.
You could see in that crowd of 5
,000, nobody was satisfied.
Everybody would still be hungry.
The majority repulsed.
Scripture says, Jesus told them, sit down.
He blessed the little that was there.
All were satisfied.
All were fed a miraculous occurrence, all fed,
no licking, chewing, digesting a satisfying meal.
And there was leftovers.
But beloved, the first lesson of faith is
not looking in our hands or our resources
to do the commands of Christ, to understand
we are empty and that enough, there is
no resource to fulfill what God asks us
to do in a walk of faith, a
walk of faith means that you and I
cannot do it in ourselves.
We have no resource.
When Jesus asks us to do something, it's
an understanding that we do not shift into
the gear that says, okay, if you're asking
me to do this, what have I got
in my hand?
What do I have in myself to be
able to do what you are asking me
to do?
Men of faith know how limited, how empty
is their hand.
Scripture says, have faith in God for whosoever
shall stand to this mountain, be thou removed
and be cast into the sea and shall
not doubt in his heart, but shall believe
those things which he saith, it will come
to pass, shall not doubt in his heart.
I believe that is a man and a
woman that's beginning to say in my ideas,
if God is asking me to do something
to believe him, to believe his word, to
this word when I read it, know that
it's addressed to me, it's speaking to my
life, it has the answer from that situation,
it has the peace from my mind, if
I believe it.
If I turn away from it, I'm just
going to end up trying to lick fish
to be satisfied and it won't happen.
And when it says a man shall not
doubt in his heart, it's a man not
trusting in himself.
The Bible says the kingdom of God is
in you, but it's not of you or
about you, it is in you.
And we were slow to learn because Jesus
said, when I return, shall the son of
man find faith on the earth?
Will there be a people who can cast
their mountains into the sea?
Because they believe me.
Will there be a time, will there be
a people that can be a mountain moving
people?
Beloved, the scripture says, without faith it is
impossible to please God.
For he that cometh to God must believe,
one, that he is, and two, that he
is a rewarder of them who diligently seek
him.
And he is saying here, work all you
want apart from faith, and you have not
pleased me.
God knows that our flesh would love to
work for him rather than believe in him.
Faith to be true faith also must be
tried.
And it's God's love for us that's going
to put us in faith-stretching situations.
That's why he told them, you feed them.
So that they would forever remember they couldn't.
So that they would ever remember that command.
Although in their heart, they would have loved
to if they could have, but they could
not.
And they had to turn to one whose
hands were full in their midst.
The one whose hands were never empty.
Because he's a rewarder of them who diligently
seek him.
Faith brings a release of power.
It is possible, beloved, our mountains go to
the sea.
When I'm anxious, I'm not having a faith
response.
When I'm worried and fretting, angry or depressed,
I'm not having a faith response.
But beloved, we, many of us who have
been called into faith, who love Jesus, who
want with all our heart to please him,
who want to know what it is to
live a life of faith.
Who, when we read the scripture, it says,
have faith in God.
We want to say, yes, Lord, I want
to be that.
I want to have faith in you.
I would please you.
I would learn what that is.
I would glorify you and bring honor to
you to see my mountains go into the
sea.
In order for that to happen, we know
that there needs to be belief that God
is good and that he has a record
of faithfulness in our life.
And we understand that, but somehow it just...
knowing these truths sometimes are not enough for
us to live in the kind of faith
that we know he's asking us to.
The kind of faith that will glorify him.
And these obvious truths seem to have a
difficult time of lodging in our heart so
that we can move forward in faith.
So I ask you, what kind of heart
is it that grasps faith?
The disciples wondered that because one time they
went to Jesus and after hearing him preach,
after understanding as he began to tell how
the kingdom of God moves forward, they began
to understand that the key was faith.
That it was shifting their confidence and trust
away from themselves, but understanding with God all
things are possible.
And so what did they do?
They went to him one time in a
moment of inspiration and they said, Lord, increase
our faith.
And Jesus answered them with a parable.
If you would turn with me to Luke
17.
Luke 17.
He's going to answer their question.
They said, increase our faith.
And in Luke 17, starting at verse 5,
it says, And the apostles said unto the
Lord, increase our faith.
And the Lord said, if you have faith
as the grain of a mustard seed, you
might say unto this sycamine tree, be thou
plucked up by the root and be thou
planted in the sea, and it should obey
you.
Now we start out by telling them the
effects of faith.
And beloved, do you know how many times
a verse like that is quoted in the
scripture?
This is not empty words.
This is not something, this is not a
picture Jesus is painting so we can get
an idea of how grand faith is.
But every word of Jesus Christ is life
and spirit and truth.
He's saying, now this is how powerful faith
is.
Would you have it?
There's what, if a man or a woman
be found full of faith, this is what
can be done in their lives, in their
hearts, in the kingdom of God.
So after he described the effects of faith,
now he's going to tell them, how do
we get it and how does it increase?
And he goes on to tell them, starting
verse 7, But which of you having a
servant plowing or feeding cattle will say unto
him by and by when he has come
from the field, go and sit down to
meet?
Will we not rather say unto him, make
ready wherewith I may sup, gird thyself and
serve me till I've eaten and drunken and
afterwards you shall eat and drink?
Does he thank that servant because he did
the things that were commanded him?
I think not.
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done
all these things which are commanded you, say
we are unprofitable servants.
We have done that which was our duty
to do.
In a nutshell, Jesus was saying the kind
of heart that I can speak to about
faith and the kind of heart that will
have faith increase is a heart of a
servant.
A servant.
Jesus saying here, that is somebody who who
puts themselves in a permanently a subservient relationship
and says I'm consumed about doing your will.
That's what a servant here means.
And he's saying a person with a servant's
heart has some very special characteristics about that
heart that you don't find in other relationships
with me.
There can be a heart of a child,
there can be a heart of a bride,
and all these things are important to know
in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
But he's saying if we're going to talk
faith walk now, if we're going to talk
about speaking to mountains, speaking to trees being
uprooted, and moved out of the way, we
now need to talk about the heart of
a servant.
And this is what a heart of a
servant is like.
First of all, a servant relationship is not
a complicated relationship.
It's not worried about self.
When you ask a servant to do something,
it's of little consequence to him when, what,
why.
That's not his concern.
If the master is asking him to do
something, then his concern is in doing it.
It is the heart of a servant like
this that can grasp faith.
Because this heart says what you will, O
God, your time, your way is your business.
Mine is to obey.
A heart of a servant doesn't expect explanations
and it doesn't ask questions.
You can ask a servant to do hard
things and it will be done.
And it so follows the life of Jesus.
It sums up his heart and spirit while
he walked the earth.
He said of himself, it was said of
Jesus, he came not to please himself.
It says son of son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
So practically, how does this servant's heart react
when God gives them a promise?
Well, beloved, in Isaiah 12, 1, God makes
a promise.
And he says this.
In that day, you shall say, O Lord,
I will praise thee.
Though you are angry with me, thine anger
is turned away and you comfort me.
Now there is a command and a promise
in this.
And the heart of the servant would say,
Lord, I'm going to lay these these words
to heart.
It says in that day, though you are
angry with me, thine anger is turned away
and you comfort me.
Beloved, when that word is preached to us,
we understand that that day that it's talking
about is the day of our salvation.
And when we ask Christ to come into
our life by faith, we were brought out
of the side of where the goats were
and those who were abiding under the wrath
of God.
And we were cleansed by his blood and
put into a relationship with the father that
we now have the privilege of calling him
father.
And we were his children.
And the Bible says that the rod of
the wicked shall not rest upon the righteous.
And so this scripture is telling us that
though you are angry with me in that
day, the day I trusted you, the day
that I said, Lord, I believe you are
and I'm coming to you and I believe,
oh, God, you will accept me because of
Jesus Christ and I'm cleansed because of what
Christ did.
And you've accepted me into your family because
of Jesus and because you love me on
that day.
I am no longer your enemy.
I am your child.
And you deal with me differently.
And it says here in Isaiah 12, though
you were angry with me, thine anger is
turned away and you comfort me.
And beloved, the heart of a servant can
say, oh, God, I will praise you and
comfort me and let you comfort me because
you are no longer angry with me.
What about the days, oh, God, when I
feel like you're angry with me, when I
disappoint you, when I fail you, what about
the days when I'm angry with myself, when
there's something in my brain pounding, I need
to pray more, I need to read more,
I need to witness more, I need to
do more.
And Lord, I feel that your wrath and
your anger is upon me.
I feel like I'm falling so short.
What do I do?
Do I go on with this grim determination?
Oh, God, I will do what I need
to do so that you will be pleased,
so that your kingdom will come forth.
Beloved, that is a shifting of trust.
That is where we start to end up
praying and reading and doing these things so
that the kingdom of God can go forward.
Beloved, the kingdom of God moves forward when
we, by faith, move in faith.
When we say, Lord, it's not my grim
determination to do the things I think you're
asking me to do, but it is by
recognizing, oh, God, that by me in you,
by me trusting you, oh, God, you've called
me as your own and you're giving me
a heart to want to do these things.
Now, Lord, come and subdue the flesh.
Come and subdue the laziness.
And sometimes God will tell you, just go
to bed and sleep.
When we get into this, this mindset that
God is angry with me, we need to
understand with a heart of a servant, oh
God, by faith, look at your, you're the
ones who concerned about how your kingdom goes
forward.
This is your business, how this is done.
Mine is to please you.
If you tell me you're not angry with
me, it is your heart to comfort me
when I'm feeling the most vulnerable and the
most condemned.
Then, Lord, by faith, I will.
You see, the Holy Spirit has been sent
to convict us of sin.
He'll be faithful to it.
We don't have to worry that he won't
show up and do that.
He will.
But beloved, if he is not, if we're
saying, Lord, teach me in this faith walk
to hear your voice, that I may tell
the devil's voice to be silent when he
condemns me.
That is what I need you.
That's how we move forward in faith.
We say, I will not let the enemy
condemn me unrighteously.
But Lord, when you speak, I will hear
you.
And so many times we need to hear
he's not angry with us before he can
deal in the way he needs to deal
with us.
And we need to accept that and believe
that we need to take that into our
heart.
But the interesting thing about Isaiah, Isaiah 12
to the next promise that's found there, it
says, Behold, God is my salvation.
I will trust and not be afraid.
God is going to fulfill that.
He says, I'm going to be your salvation.
Blessed is the man who trusts me.
No good thing will he withhold from them
that walk uprightly.
We sang it.
I will trust and not be afraid.
But beloved, for that to be reality in
our life, I will trust and not be
afraid.
This is where the heart of a servant
comes in so strongly.
When God is going to teach us a
walk of faith of how to trust him
through our fear, how to trust him and
learn to put away the fear, how to
trust him and give him the fear, how
to trust him and deny the fear.
There's many ways, but beloved, we have to
trust that he's going to take us through
that fear barrier, his way, his time, his
path.
If we have our heart set on God
now in order for you to deliver me
from the fear of man, from the fear
of rejection, from the fear of not pleasing
you, from the fear of whatever, Lord, I
know you're going to take me this way.
You're going to have to move left.
We're all going to have to move left.
And then God turns right to the heart
of the servants, not concerned that there's a
right hand turn.
But those that haven't learned it need to
grasp on it and they need to feel
they have to instruct God through their prayers
and they need to instruct God and tell
him what to do when they're talking through
their fear.
God is saying, no, you've got to be
at that heart of the servant and just
follow me if you think we need to
go left, but I take a right.
Don't let your faith be shaken.
That's not faith.
If you're trying to tell me what to
do, if you, if I, if you think
we need to go left and then we
go right, your faith will be shaken.
But if you leave the question of who
leads and whose follows settled in your mind,
we will move a lot farther.
A person you can say, Lord, I want
to be a person of devotion.
I want to have a prayer life.
I want to know what it is.
Lord, I thought you speak to me so
often that you want a time with me,
just me and you alone in the prayer
closet.
And you have tried so many times, and
it seems that that cry of your heart
to be a man of prayer, a woman
of patience, falls to your feet.
Beloved, I want, I want you to know
something.
When you pray that prayer from your heart,
God hears it.
And if he hears it, he answers it.
We will have that request.
I will have that request.
You will have that request.
But it's very similar to like when Jesus
said to his disciples, we're going in a
boat, we're going to the other side.
And when they got in the boat, all
of a sudden the wind and the waves
started beating up against that boat.
Now, Jesus said, we're getting in the boat
and we're going to the other side.
And that's exactly what happened.
Now, a heart of faith is able to
say, God, you said, trust you and not
to be afraid.
Now, in the meantime, there are winds and
waves and storms coming up against that faith.
But that has nothing to do with the
fact that the boat will not reach the
other side.
If Jesus said it's going to the other
side, it is.
So it is a heart of faith that
learns come what may against it.
If Jesus said it's going to the other
side, that's what I trust.
When the winds and waves come, when it's
a right turn instead of a left, what
I say is, Lord, I'm the servant and
I follow.
So every time the path takes another turn
at that moment, I have the privilege of
saying, Lord, I trust you.
That is a heart of faith that is
growing in faith.
It is a servant's heart.
How we get there, when we get there
is your concern.
But I hang on to the fact we're
getting there in Christ's name.
That is a heart of faith, beloved.
And faith rejoices sometimes through tears, sometimes through
fear.
But a heart of faith is learning to
rejoice.
Lord Jesus, I'm hanging on to that word.
And I glorify you when I lift my
hands up in the midst of my fear
or the midst of my tears and decide
at that moment to trust you.
That is when faith grows in the heart
as nothing else.
That's when saying, Lord, I'm not responsible for
how you're going to do this.
I just know that my faith, a heart
of faith says, if you say it, it
shall be done.
We do not get ourselves full of self
-doubt.
If the apostles had said, you know, the
reason why we're not getting to the other
side is we forgot to buy bread.
The other side is that you didn't do
this and I didn't do that.
Beloved, many times we are the ones who
cut out our legs of faith from underneath
us because we allow the voice of the
condemner to act as if he's truth, to
speak as if he's truth in our heart.
Beloved, I want you know, in Isaiah 57,
sometime you get a chance, you read that.
I read it this week and I was
shocked.
Isaiah 57 is a recount of Israel's gross
idolatry.
It was a time in their national life
and in their religious life where they were
totally given over to idols.
They were totally given over to gross idolatry
in Isaiah 57.
But in the middle of it all, starting
in verse 13, as the Lord is telling
us exactly what they did in living color
in verse 13 of Isaiah 57, it says,
but he that put his trust in me
shall possess the land and shall inherit my
holy mountain.
This is at a time when the land
is being polluted.
The land is overrun with idols.
But in the middle of it all, God
speaks the word and he says, those that
can hear me right now, if you will
stop, if you will put your trust in
me, I say the land is still yours.
I say the mountain is still yours.
In the middle of gross idolatry, because he
has a people and he's saying, you can't
out sin me.
If you have a heart to trust me,
I will send the Holy Spirit and convict
you.
And then it's your privilege to get up
and condemn the condemner and say, I have
believed the final word.
He says, the land is still mine.
The mountain is still mine.
In the middle of my idolatry, in the
middle of my unbelief, if I can still
hear his voice, I can stop and say,
Lord God, forgive me and give me that
heart to say, look away, look away from
what I'm doing right now.
Look away how empty my hand is.
Look away how unfaithful I am.
But I still hear you speaking a word
to me.
You say the land is still mine.
If I will rise up and trust you.
Hallelujah.
A servant says, I follow and I believe.
I trust.
Servant says, I'm following a crucified savior.
I'm following a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief.
I'm following a man who knows what it
is to fall under the weight of a
cross, though without sin.
Beloved tempted in all points like we are.
He in this season of grace has not
turned into our condemner.
And we as servants need to understand that
God does not give us a detailed roadmap
because that's not faith.
When we believe because God said it, that's
why we believe it, not because we see
it.
Now, beloved, this what I'm speaking is not
faith is not a weapon that we use,
that we can sin lightly because you see
what I said earlier, if we begin to
sin, we stand all of a sudden apart
from Christ and that crushing slab of concrete
will come down upon us.
There will be no faith walk in sin.
There is a faith walk when there is
a trust that God, you are leading me
and you know how to lead me through
to a walk that pleases you.
And this is what another revelation now that
we know when we cannot shift our trust
from ourselves, our empty handed selves to doing
the work of God, that we must stand
by the one whose hands are always full.
And then we realize we need a heart
of a servant to follow him, that we're
not questioning him when he doesn't take the
route we think when he doesn't follow our
good advice and our prayers, when we let
him lead, when we're willing just to do
what he's asking us to do.
That's another aspect of faith.
But beloved, there's a third one.
And that one is found in 1 John
3, 9.
If you can quickly turn there.
1 John 3, 9.
In order to understand this verse, it is
the heart of a servant that has said,
Lord, lead me your way in your time,
that is now going to understand what this
verse is saying to them.
It says, Whosoever is born of God does
not does not commit sin for his seed
remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because
he is born of God.
Beloved, this verse is not saying that Christians
don't sin because 1 John tells us in
other parts of his epistle here, he says
that whoever says he doesn't sin is a
liar.
He says in another one of 1 John
1, 9, if we confess our sin, he
is faithful and just to forgive our sin.
He is not saying here that Christians do
not sin.
But what he is saying here, that whatsoever
is born of God does not commit sin
for his seed remaineth in him.
That seed is Christ.
The life of Christ implanted in us when
we believe.
It is that seed that remains in us,
this life of Christ.
Christ in us does not sin.
Christ in us cannot sin.
This life that we have, this everlasting incorruptible
life given to us at salvation that lives
in us is the essence of our new
heart and our new spirit.
It is Christ with a full hand living
in us.
It is the life of Christ in us
that cannot be corrupted to fear.
It is the life in us that cannot
be corrupted to unbelief.
It is the life in us that cannot
be corrupted into rebellion.
It is the life in us that says,
Lord Jesus, I would do your will.
It is that faith that is Christ in
us.
It is a living word in us.
And that living word, the Bible says it's
by hearing the word of God.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
word of God.
And we have Christ in us, so we
have this ability to have this incredible faith
because the faithful one is in us.
It is his life that cannot be corrupted
by fear, cannot be corrupted by unbelief in
us.
And so all of us that are born
in Christ have this potential to have a
rich faith because the word is in us.
The word is in us.
The life of Christ that cannot be corrupted
lives in us.
And he is the faithful one.
He is the one that we draw on
to walk this life of faith.
And it is a servant's heart that begins
to realize more and more.
And Lord, in order to walk the way
that you're asking me to, I have to
draw on something deeper and stronger than just
a desire to want it.
I have to begin to walk on this
life of faith, the seed that is in
me.
If I am born of God, then I
have the seed of Christ living in me
that cannot be tempted to fear, that cannot
corrode down into unbelief.
And it is that that I draw on
that I may walk a walk of faith.
Hallelujah.
When we have Christ in us, it is
the law of God after the inward man.
It is the spirit within us that is
completely against sin and unbelief.
It gives us a hatred for sin.
And we have a thirst to believe.
There is a cry in all true believers
to resist unbelief in Christ.
We're like a compass.
You ever held a compass?
And that needle, it can sometimes be so
easily turned, but it will always, always reseek
north.
It will always, always point back to the
true.
And that is Christ living in our hearts
by faith.
And so we can say in John, first
John five, four, for whatever is born of
God overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that overcomes the
world.
Even our faith.
It is our faith in the Christ that
lives in us to overcome the world.
There can be a faith walk that overcomes
the world because the world no longer has
a part in us.
We have learned to draw on the faithful
one who lives in us, whose hands are
forever full and able to complete all the
commands of God, able to cause us to
believe fully the promises of God.
And beloved, as we walk with him in
that kind of faith, trusting in this holy
one within us, we are able to overcome
the world because the world has no part
in Jesus Christ and he lives in us.
And he can bring us to the point
of learning a walk with him, of drawing
on him in us that we can overcome
the world.
This is the faith that's promised in first
John five.
I'm beloved just to make it real and
to close out.
I want to, I want to show us
how that lives out in a life, how
this kind of overcoming faith that even overcomes
the world, that kind of faith is lived
out in a life.
And it is found in Daniel, the book
of Daniel.
If you want to turn with me quickly,
it's Daniel three.
Now we're familiar.
I think many times when we talk about
a life of faith immediately to my mind,
anyway, we kind of think of a David
faith, you know, where he, he was to
meet the giant.
And the Bible says he ran to meet
the giant.
He was full of faith.
I believe he has a gift of faith
at that moment where God has spoken a
word to him and told him he was
going to have, he was going to have
that enemy's head for the kind of faith
that he ran to meet the giant.
And that is a type of faith.
But there is another kind of faith that
is found in Daniel that the book of
Hebrews speaks about in the book of Hebrews.
It talks about there's a kind of faith
that can subdue kingdoms and shut the mouths
of lions and have the dead raised up.
But then it says there's another kind.
And that's like a David faith.
But there's another kind of faith that says
we're refusing the deliverance.
It talks about a kind of faith where
it is so submitted to the will of
God, a faith that says, God, you choose
a faith that says, God, my life is
in your hands, live or die.
There is a faith, the Bible says that
the world is not even worthy of this
kind of faith.
But beloved, if Christ lives in us and
he promises a faith that overcomes the world,
I don't think it's a faith for a
few.
I think it's a faith for the weak
and the trusting.
And the Bible tells us in Daniel about
the Hebrew children, and it talks about how
a wicked king had made a golden statue.
And he said, everybody who doesn't bow down
to it gets thrown it burnt to death
in a fiery furnace.
And three Hebrew children living in this strange
land says we will not bow.
And the king was so enraged by their
defiance, he ordered the oven seven times hotter,
let them know that's what he did and
then told them to bow.
And in Daniel three.
It says, starting at verse 17.
Let's start at 16, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
answered and said to the king, Oh, Nebuchadnezzar,
we are not careful to answer thee in
this matter.
If it be so, our God, whom we
serve, is able to deliver us from the
burning fiery furnace.
And he will deliver us out of thine
hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee,
O king, that we will not serve thy
gods nor worship the golden image what thou
has set up.
Now, beloved, the promise to them is this
in verse 17, he will deliver us out
of thy hand.
He will deliver us.
We will not bow.
We will not bow to anything.
And he will deliver us.
But the interesting thing was they were not
dictating to God how the how they were
leaving to him.
And they declared before everyone this kind of
faith.
God is able to.
He's not spoken a word to us.
He is able to deliver us out of
your hand.
But I'll tell you, I mean, he's able
to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.
He is able.
But I'll tell you what he has delivered
us from you.
He has delivered us from this world system.
He has delivered us from anything you can
do to us.
He has delivered us from the burning fiery
furnace.
He is able.
But I'll tell you what he has delivered
us from you.
He has delivered us from this world system.
He has delivered us from anything you can
do to us.
He has delivered us from the burning fiery
furnace.
He is able.
But I'll tell you what he has delivered
us from you.
He has delivered us from this world system.
He has delivered us from anything you can
do to us.
He has delivered us from the burning fiery
furnace.
He is able.
But I'll tell you what he has delivered
us from you.
He has delivered us from the pull of
this world.
He has delivered us from the fear of
man.
He has delivered us from the fear of
death.
He has delivered us from compromise.
He has delivered us from a lukewarm heart.
He has delivered us from unbelief.
He has delivered us from a heart that
looks to self.
He has delivered us from you.
And he's able to deliver us from the
fiery furnace.
But if not, we still don't bow.
That's a very sobering faith.
But beloved, I believe that that is a
picture of faith delivered from the world.
That is a picture of faith that's available
to every believer in Christ, babe, or otherwise.
If we believe that there is an incorruptible
life living in us, we can be faithful
because the faithful one abides in us.
But we need to trust on that.
God will put us in a place, beloved,
where we need to remember not to shift
our trust, where we will not be driven
by the voice of the enemy, where we
will begin to learn, God, you're in control.
You're God.
I will not dictate to you.
If you say something to me, I will
trust the Christ in me to show me
how to believe to the utmost.
And then, Lord, you will learn to cut
all the world and all its influences off
me.
Ultimately, that is a faith that overcomes the
world.
Beloved, it's not for the few.
It's for those that say, Lord, it is
possible because you died that I may have
your life, that I may live your life,
that I may live your life again on
this earth.
We're not called to lick fish.
And we're not called, beloved, to walk in
our own strength that we'll be crushed by
it.
We can never walk the way Christ asks
us to live.
They are seemingly impossible demands.
Love your enemy.
We can't do that in our own strength.
But a walk of faith, we can do
it.
We can do it in Christ.
We can do we shift away from our
empty hands and say, Lord, you feed people
through me.
It is possible, beloved.
But are we willing?
Is that the kind of heart we want?
This is a last day call for a
faith that when Jesus comes, there's a people
who can move the mountains into the sea
because Christ has come and Christ lives in
us.
He says, when I come to the earth,
will I find the people that want this?
Will I find the people that will believe
me?
I believe here, this is what he's doing
in Times Square Church.
He's giving us a love for his word
and a trembling at his word that is
able to create that faith that we may
walk to please him.
Will you stand?
My altar call today that the Lord laid
on my heart is for those that fear
is eating your faith.
There is fear eating at your faith.
And for those that have a shifting focus,
you've been shifting your trust from Christ to
self.
That's why your burdens are getting so heavy.
That's why every command that he every time
you come to church, you feel almost condemned
is because you're trying to do it in
your own strength.
You shift.
You say you trust Christ, but there is
a shifting and you're trying to do it
in your own strength.
And you realize today that you're empty handed.
But the one in you is full to
capacity.
But Lord, you're saying, Lord, I acknowledge before
you, I've been trying to do this in
my own strength.
And for those that have fear, will you
come?
In the war of faith, faith is like
the nuclear weapons that we have against the
enemy.
If it's that powerful, then the truth is
everyone in this auditorium could say, I will
fight.
I fight fear and I fight a shifting
trust because the enemy knows how powerful faith
is.
But beloved God's word to those today that
say, Lord, I would have a heart of
faith.
I would be a man or a woman
full of faith, a Paul, a David.
I would be that kind of person.
The Lord is saying he will deliver us.
He will deliver us.
He will deliver us from our fear, from
our shifting trust.
He will deliver us.
That's his word.
The same word that he gave to Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego is ours.
He will deliver us.
And no matter what we face in the
battle of faith, he will deliver us.
He's going to teach us that walk where
Jesus, when I pull my full trust in
you through the tears and through the fear,
you will come through and you will deliver
me.
And my faith will be based on something
solid that I've proved you.
I've proved you.
Jesus proved the disciples, but now he's asking
some people, will you prove me?
Will you prove me?
Because I will deliver you.
I will.
And in the days to come, we will
be a people that will be able to
say, let the furnace come.
It holds no fear because he has and
he does and he will deliver.
I will let him choose whatever path my
life has to take.
I'm going to release the fear of that
because the God who loves me above all
else will only do what is for his
glory and through love for me.
And in the end, I will be good.
I will come out the stronger and the
better.
The Hebrew children were not left alone in
the furnace, but they came through brighter and
stronger because they let God lead.
And God gives the best to those who
leave the choice to him always, always.
And so we know that if we come
by faith and say, Lord, you lead, I
follow.
And I'm going to have a faith that
even a furnace will not back me down,
that the world will have nothing in me.
And when Jesus comes, you find us faithful.
Let's lift our hands up.
Father, we just thank you today.
Thank you, O God, that you are a
great conquering king who goes before us.
Thank you, O God, that you will deliver
us.
Nothing is too difficult for thee.
Nothing is impossible to you.
My puny fear, my shifting trust, my battles
are nothing to you.
And so, Lord, I place them in your
crucified hand.
And Lord, I thank you that you're going
to give me that heart of faith that
when you speak a word to me, I
trust it to thee.
That most to the end, to the praise
and the glory of your name.
Thank you, Jesus.
You're going to give me a testimony because
you're so faithful and you will deliver.
Amen.
And amen.
Father, thank you for this work today.
God, we thank you, Lord, for how you're
speaking to us as a church, Lord, and
giving us your word to sustain us in
whatever awaits us.
God, in the coming days.
Thank you, Lord, that you give us promise
to the prophet Isaiah that in the midst
of the fires that burned God.
There is a bride.
There is a worshiping people, Lord, songs of
praise and adoration coming through God, giving honor
and glory to the only one who can
keep his people.
Father, we thank you for that.
God, thank you for that knowledge today.
God, keep us and bless us.
Father, I pray for those who have to
go home today.
Father, at this point that your hand of
blessing be upon them.
God bless our coming in, bless our going
out.
Keep us, Lord, our people praising you and
trusting in you and believing you.
Thank you for this.
In Jesus mighty name.
Amen.
And amen.
Beloved, we meet again tonight at six o
'clock and I believe there's going to be
a shout in the house of God tonight.
Let's go singing a victory song.
We have a victory song we can sing.
All right.
God bless you.
We'll see you tonight at six o'clock.
Shake somebody's hand.
Encourage one another.
This is the conclusion of the message.