Alright, if you can turn your Bible to Hebrews chapter 11. Alright, we're going to be just focused on one verse this week, but I want to read it in context in verses 1, 2, and 3. As you guys know, as I mentioned last week, chapter 11 is kind of a transition from the foundations of faith in theology to practice.

And so chapter 11 is, again, giving forth the evidence of how right view of God is what causes people to live by faith. And then we are moving to chapter 12 where it challenges us to practice these things. So chapter 11 is where we're transitioning into that. And then these are the beginning verses of it.

Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the words were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Let's pray. Lord, we pray for your blessing over this time. May your word have its effect on our hearts. I pray that you would soften it, open our eyes, open our ears, that we may understand and hear you and you alone. So we ask for your grace through your word.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the previous passage in chapter 10, one of the statements that led us to chapter 11 is that the righteous will live by faith. So this is a question that we ought to be asking every once in a while, or maybe even weekly.

How much of what you pursued this week was by faith? How much does your faith determine what you value, what you buy, where you go, what you do? And how much of it is simply based on I like this, I want this, I want to go here, I want to do that.

How much of our lives are being directed by faith and how much of it is directed by our desires? If we're not careful, we can live our lives just kind of going with the flow and every once in a while interjecting because we hear a sermon or we hear a Bible study or maybe something that we're doing that reminds us, yes, I am a Christian so I should be doing this or I should not be doing this.

But how much of our lives are intentional? The major that you choose, the field that you're going into, does that have anything to do with your faith? The person that you choose to date and marry, does that have anything to do with your faith? The career path, where you live, where you go, decisions that you make, what does that have to do with faith?

The life of a Christian described in chapter 11 is that everything is done by faith. Not simply the big picture, I made a decision to follow Christ, I'm going to go to church, but everything else that we live by sight but not by faith. It's important for us that we live according to what we believe, that all things that we do, that that should be the primary question that we ask.

Is this something that I do because I believe or is this something that I do just because I desire? Well, again, chapter 11 is a list of heroes in the faith in the Old Testament who lays a foundation for us and tangibly shows us that this is what it means and this is what it looks like to walk by faith.

Remember last week we looked at the first two verses and he said, "Faith is," remember, "the substance of things hoped for and it is the evidence of things not seen." And so the first point that we made last week was faith is what? Tangible. It's not just something we feel, you can actually observe faith.

You can see faith being played out and that's what chapter 11 is about. These are people who believe and because of their faith, this is what their life looked like. The second point of last week was what faith is not. Faith is not faith in faith. Just because you have faith doesn't give you power over anything.

So we know what faith is. It's tangible. We know what faith is not. And then the last part of it was faith is powerful. That even if we have a faith of a mustard seed, as small as a mustard seed, that connects us to the Holy God. And it is that tiny connection, no matter how small it is, that causes God to act and it is His power that causes us to be able to move mountains.

So the third point was that faith is powerful. So the whole chapter 11 is a presentation of the power of God through faith, how it was played out in the lives of these believers. And then chapter 12 we're going to go to, therefore, this is how we ought to live.

So to give you a broad picture of what's happening in chapter 11, let me give you the summary of what he's going to say before we get into it. I'm going to get more into it in a few weeks, but let me just give you the conclusion of what he's trying to say in chapter 11.

Chapter 11, verse 33 to 30. By faith they conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, women received back their dead by the resurrection, and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they may obtain a better resurrection.

Now we may look up to that point and say, wow, that's powerful testimony of what God does through faith. That they conquered their enemies, they escaped the edge of the sword, the weak people became strong. So when we look at that, we say, wow, that's what we need to do.

If I just had faith, I could accomplish anything that I desire. But that's not his whole point. If you look at the whole of the text in verse 36, and others experienced mockings and scourging. Yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword, they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

Now who would want to walk by faith if that's what living by faith looks like? You know, we typically think that if we're faithful to God, God will be faithful to us, and we define what faithfulness is. That if we started a business, it's going to do well. If we're studying hard, we're going to get good grades.

You get in a relationship, all things are going to get fixed. If you're unhealthy, God's going to make you healthy. If you have financial issues, God's going to answer you, and your financial is going to be better. So we typically think, if we're not careful, that if I have enough faith, whatever problems that I may have, that God's going to fix it by faith.

But remember why he's writing this letter. He's writing this letter because that wasn't coming for these people. That they waited months, possibly years, and time is going by, and the persecution isn't letting up. They were initially started joyfully, allowing their enemies to take away their property, and they celebrated that they were persecuted in the name of God.

But now time has passed, and their problem is not getting fixed. So some of them are starting to drift back into an easier way. They weren't rejecting Christ. They were just taking a part of their world, and taking part of Christianity, and kind of living in the middle. So they're not going to be rejected by the church, nor are they going to be rejected by the world.

They're just kind of living in the middle. And those are the people that he's writing this letter to. So not only is he reminding them that there are people who did great things because of this faith, but he tells them that because of this faith, they suffered. Some of them had to die because of this faith.

Think about Apostle Paul. Here's a man who was on the top of the world, is wealthy, well-educated, already famous, has authority and power, and he gets knocked off of a horse. And the rest of his life, until the day he dies, he's living on the streets, persecuted, beaten. His fellow countrymen, people who looked up to him, they're the ones who are mocking him.

They're the ones who are stoning him. Not only does he do that, he's going to every single city, trying to get other people to join him. I mean, who would want to join Paul? Remember, you know, the text that we're studying in Thessalonians? I think it's the next text, this week's text.

Paul reminds them. He said, from the get-go, he says, if you follow Christ, remember, persecution and suffering is coming. Now, who would want to follow Paul? Who would want to follow Jesus if he told them from the get-go? You know, our tendency, again, in a modern-day church, is to invite people with chocolate, hoping that they'll eventually be able to eat broccoli.

You know, promise them a community, promise them purpose, promise them joy, and then at some point, we're going to sneak in the cross, and hopefully some of them will become genuine followers that way. Paul says, from the get-go. He said, I warned you, when I preached the gospel about the life in Jesus Christ, he warned them from the get-go that suffering and persecution was coming if you follow Christ.

I mean, if you were an evangelist, you know, if you were a salesman, I mean, the worst thing, if you buy this car, it's a piece of junk, bad gas mileage, you know what I mean? After two years, you're going to have to take it to the shop. I'm like, who's going to buy this car?

And yet, the Thessalonians became model citizens, model citizens in the kingdom, and their faith began to spread. Why would they follow Jesus Christ, if that's what's waiting for them? It's because they saw, by faith, a greater kingdom, a greater trade for this temporary life, this eternal life that God promises.

See, only people who actually have faith will follow Christ biblically. You can become a cultural Christian. You can come to church. You can become a leader, but you will never move beyond cultural Christianity, because when you follow Christ of the scriptures, there are times that he will allow you to experience blessing, and that blessing will lead to God's glory and spreading of the gospel.

But there are many times it will lead to much suffering, because God has ordained that your suffering is going to bring about the glory of God. And the only reason why anybody would follow that Christ of the Bible is if he believes that there is life beyond the cross, beyond death.

And that's the point that he was trying to make. He said, by faith. The reason why Abraham left his comfort zone, even in the Old Testament, and he walked out into the desert, is simply because he believed. So every single person that is mentioned in chapter 11 are people who believed.

It wasn't because they were more noble than anyone else. It wasn't because they were harder workers. It wasn't because they were more educated. It's simply because they believed. That's the point of chapter 11. They believed by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith. In fact, there's almost no line, right, in the whole chapter 11.

Every single person that is introduced here starts with that phrase, by faith. So clearly the point that he's trying to make is that if you do not have faith, you cannot follow Christ. But if you do have faith, it is only by faith that you will be able to persevere.

So this morning, when we look at verse 3, he lays the foundation, before he gets into the actual people, he said, we showed you last week, verse 1 and 2, that faith is tangible and faith is powerful. And before he gets to the people, he said, but faith, we understand that the world were prepared by the Word of God.

Now why does he begin with that? Why doesn't he just jump in with Abel, and why does he lay first and foremost about creation? Well, one, it's chronological, obviously. He's being thorough. He's going through all the things that are required by faith. But before he even gets to the people, he taps into something that everybody universally already believed.

In other words, it's kind of like saying what I said last week about gravity, right? Like I didn't have to convince anybody in this room, it's like, gravity, you believe in gravity. You don't believe in gravity? How can you not believe in gravity? I don't need to say that because I already know that we're all in unison, in agreement that there is gravity.

We can't see it, we can't explain it. How do you know it's there? Because we're stuck to the ground. This is evidence that there's gravity. So we all believe that. So what the author is doing is establishing that everybody actually has faith. And he says, we're actually standing on this foundation of faith.

And that's what he's doing by first establishing chronologically that you and I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be able to exist if we didn't believe, if we didn't have any faith. In fact, R.C. Sproul says this, "Until enlightenment, the most firmly established article of Christian faith in the secular world was that of creation.

It had been established not only by revelation, but also by reason, not only by religion, but also by science." Okay? Now, let me tell you ahead of time. That's the first point. Why does he, why did we have verse 11? Before we get into the other verses. One, foundation of faith begins with creation.

The second point is that foundation of faith believes that God as creator. Now first and second point really is a setup for the third point. Okay? So I'm just giving you the heads up on that. Right? It seems fundamental and elementary that first two points, that if you actually believe that, it'll establish the third and most important point, which is going to get us to the other parts of the text in chapter 11.

Okay? So the second point, why does we have verse three? Because foundation of faith believes that God is creator. Before we believe that God is our savior, our initial contact with God is as our creator. So that's why in Genesis chapter one, how does it start? Genesis chapter one, verse one, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." So God is introduced to us from the very beginning of the Bible as the creator.

We come to the New Testament and Jesus is introduced to us. Now we know we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John is the last of the four gospels. Which of the four gospels introduces us to Jesus as God? John. Right? John does. So John is the one who introduces Jesus in his identity from the get-go.

And this is what it says. John chapter one, verses one through three, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God and all things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being." So not only is God introduced to us as the creator, Jesus is introduced to us as the creator.

So the first relationship, first identity between us and God is God the creator and the creation. That's the foundational base in which the redemptive history is built. If you reject that, everything else that you build on top of that is going to crumble. And let me explain what I mean by that.

The fundamental sin of mankind is rejecting God as creator. The fundamental, the initial, original sin of mankind is rejecting God as his creator. There's only two types of people in the world. Those who believe that God is our creator or those who believe that mankind ultimately is the answer.

Either you worship God or you worship man. And it's divided into two parts. In Psalm 14, verse one, it says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" If there's anything that we can prove, if there's anything that we observe the universe and by logic and by science that it points to a creator, it's this.

I mean it's kind of like looking at a child, you know, walk into a room and he's got chocolate all over his mouth, in his teeth, in his breath, all over him and you walk in and say, "Who ate the chocolate?" He said, "Nobody." Right? Like, "Nobody?" "No." It's on your teeth.

It's in your mouth and clearly you ate it and then all the evidence points to the fact that you ate it. But he said, "No, it didn't happen." The Bible says that God has left his imprint of who he is on all of creation. In Romans chapter one, 18 to 20, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." So he begins by saying the only reason why people do not see God is because they deliberately choose to repress God's imprint on creation.

Verse 19, "Because that which is known about God is evident within them." God left not only his imprint on creation, he says, because we're part of that creation, God left it in us. You know, a lot of times people describe it as there's something, there's a hole missing, there's emptiness, what's the purpose?

He says, "God left his imprint." So if you deny God, automatically there's some emptiness. Because God created us for the purpose of his glory, so the moment that we separate from him, we're lost. He said that he left his imprint not only on creation, creation of the physical world, but in us.

He says, continuing on, he says, "For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes has eternal power, and his divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." You know, if you've ever been evangelizing, and try to talk to just, you know, different people, I have found, this is just my personal experience, I have found that atheists are the easiest people to talk to.

They're the easiest people to talk to. You know, and the reason why is because it's not that hard to explain that there must have been a creator, there must have been a designer, there had to be in the beginning. Because no matter how intelligent they are, no matter how much they studied science, they don't know.

And they will never know. They study, they dig, they get a PhD, they get multiple PhDs, and at the end, where is the beginning? Nobody knows. So the difference between a believer in God as a creator, and an atheist, an atheist basically says, "Well one day we will know.

If we keep studying." I don't know if he will, but I think science will eventually uncover the truth. So you have to believe that. Either you believe man, and his achievements, eventually is going to answer all the questions that you have, or your observation will lead you to say, "There had to have been a beginning." He was intelligent.

The Bible says that mankind chooses to, willfully, reject God as their creator. And so they have to suppress this truth. You know, it's not too hard to explain, even to a young child. Every one of my kids, when they went to school, they learned evolution, and they learned what was contrary to our faith.

And when we have to explain, when I have to explain about, well, does it make sense or not make sense, because they have teachers who are telling them that you have to be a dummy to believe that God exists. Because what's being taught is, that you came from a mamiba, and enough time went by, we became banana eaters, and then eventually the hair fell off, eventually we became intelligent, and we built, you know, the airplane.

That's what's being taught. So you know, I forget how old they were, but at one point I had this conversation with all of the kids, you know, using different illustrations, but let's say if you woke up one day and you saw a big dent on the side of your car, and right in the middle of it you see a footprint.

What's the first question you're going to ask? Whose footprint is that? Who did this? What if they came by and they said, "Well, that's nobody's footprint. It just happened." How could that be? I see a footprint there. Well, I mean, there's a wind blew really hard, you know, and it blew so hard that that shoe came out of nowhere and it hit it so hard and left a footprint, right?

I've never seen that happen before. Is that even possible? It's like, well, that's the only answer we have. Nobody would accept that. And we're talking about a simple dent on a car. A simple dent on a car with a shoe print, you will not accept that because somebody obviously did that.

You compare that, a dent on the car versus what you see in the universe, the amount of oxygen that you and I need just to get up and survive, the temperature that we need. If it goes a little bit higher, we burn to death. If it goes a little bit lower, we freeze to death.

If the earth rotates a little bit faster, we'll die. If the gravity is too heavy, we'll die. I mean, think about the distance between the sun. If we get too close, we'll burn to death. If we get a little bit too far, we'll freeze to death. Think about all the complexities of the universe that needs to be in place and at work all the time, 24/7, just so that you and I can wake up in the morning.

And I'm just talking about, with my limited knowledge, just a speck of how this universe works. Some of you guys are science majors, so you know better than that. And you compare just the eyeball, right? I know we have eye doctors, and all they do is spend 10 years studying the eyeball.

And they're amazed about how the eyeball, this is just the eyeball. We're talking about a dent in the car. You won't accept that that just happened. You cannot accept that because that defies logic. And yet, the world tells us this is how the universe works. According to evolution, we go from chaos, right?

To what? Chaos to order. According to evolution. But everything that we observe, we go from order to chaos. You have a brand new car, five years later, is it newer? No. Something as simple as a car, a material, we know that the older it is, it's more delicate because it deteriorates.

So according to evolution, don't worry about wars, because it's going to figure itself out. Everybody's worried about climate change. I mean, according to evolution, it should be fixed. Give it enough time. We're not going to be living in utopia. Give it enough time. The earth is going to be perfect.

Give it enough time. Every problem is going to get fixed. If you buy into that. And that's why the Bible says a fool says in his heart only if he chooses to suppress all the evidence that we see. That clearly points to a creator that you can live without God in your life.

Everything points to the fact that there is a creator. There must be a creator or life does not make sense. Your birth does not make sense. Your life does not make sense. Your death does not make sense. In fact, yesterday I had an opportunity to try to share the gospel with this old man.

He was 90 years old. He saw a very thick theology book that I had and he started asking me questions. What is that? So I just assumed he was a Christian. So I said, Oh, are you a Christian? He said, No, no, no, I'm not a Christian. I think he was just bored and he just wanted to make conversation.

So I said, Great, you know, I don't have to, I'm not pursuing. He's talking to me. So it's a great opportunity. So I started asking him, so what do you believe in? He said, I'm an atheist. So I asked him, Are you an atheist because you chose to be an atheist or are you an atheist because you were born in a certain family who influenced that way?

And then he told me about how his dad hated religion. You know, he grew up in Ireland and he came from a poor foreign family and he blamed all the problems in the world on religion. So he grew up in that home. So I asked him, so do you think, are you influenced by that or did you consciously make a choice to be an atheist?

And he said, to be honest, and again, this is a 90 year old man. He said, to be honest, yeah, I was heavily influenced by my upbringing. And then, and then, you know, I, you know, okay, that's an entrance. So how do I, how am I going to share the gospel with him?

So I asked him why I'm not an atheist. I told him why I'm not an atheist. And I began to share with him that I can't believe that all this is by chance, that our death, you know, our birth, our death, that the, how the world works, ecology, our, our, our body.

And I said, how can we look at that? And I started, I gave him that illustration about the car dent, you know, and I said, I don't know how you can look at that and say, and then I could tell he's starting to shut down. And he started to kind of pull back and say, you know, the great thing about America is we have freedom to believe or freedom not to believe.

And I said, that's great. That's, that's right. You know, that's why I love America is we live in a free country, right? You have the freedom. No one can make you believe, right? And no one can make me not believe. But that's why we're able to have this conversation.

I can open dialogue so I can learn about you and you can learn about me. And he was engaging me. I wasn't asking him, he was asking me because he just, he was just a friendly man. So I started asking him about that. This is what I believe and this is why I believe it.

And as soon as I began to say that, he started shutting down. He said, well, well, well, you know, like that's your opinion. And I said, yeah, yeah, it's my opinion, but this is based upon what I observed. And I asked him, what do you think is going to happen after you die?

Do you think all this is it? That after you die, there's nothing, you came randomly, you live randomly, and then you die randomly. And then he wouldn't answer that question. He said, you know, the good thing about living in a free country is we can do whatever we want.

That's what he kept on saying. Yeah, exactly. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm doing whatever I want, right? So I mean, it was a friendly conversation, but I could tell that what I told him made him feel uncomfortable. And it was just a dialogue. We want to talk about it.

I think I could have talked about anything. He would have been fine because he wanted to engage. But the moment I told him why I believed in the Creator, he said he didn't want to hear it anymore. That was it. It was a friendly conversation. I wasn't pushing him.

He was coming to me. And yet that was one conversation he did not want to have. It is not difficult when you look at the imprints that God has left in the universe and even in our own lives of who He is. When you suppress the truth like the world does, they clearly see things that they can't understand.

There is order in the universe that they don't understand. Even by their own definition of the physics that they teach in the university doesn't fit what they believe. Because everything is supposed to go from order to chaos and yet the overarching truth that they teach is it's going from chaos to order.

So by their own teaching it contradicts one another. So whenever they can't explain anything, what do they call it? Mother Nature. Now this Mother Nature is powerful because we're here by Mother Nature. Mother Nature is extremely powerful because the earth rotates at a perfect speed, at a perfect distance, all of this.

It is creative if you look at all the different things and any field that you go into. You can just dive into that the rest of your life. Any field. All of creation points to the fact that there has to be a creator or it doesn't make sense. It says in Romans 1 21-23, "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing to be wise." Isn't that the world?

Doesn't that perfectly describe the world? That we're the wise. If you're a Christian, you're foolish. You're backward. You don't know science. They don't believe in science. And more and more, we live in a government that if you happen to be a man or woman of faith, you're foolish, so you don't belong in the public arena.

"Proclaiming to be wise," it says, "they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures." There's only two groups of people. Either we believe God as the Creator or we believe in man.

Either way, it requires faith. Tremendous faith. And all he is saying is, it requires much more faith, much more mental gymnastics, much more blind leaping to believe that there is no order, there is no power, there is no creativity behind what we see in creation. Now having said all of that, I told you all of this is really to get us to the third point.

The third point is foundational faith believes that God is sovereign. He's sovereign. That's the point that he's really trying to make. All of everything that he says is really only trying to lay the foundation to get to that point. And this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the rubber meets the road that if you believe that God is sovereign, it'll affect every part of your life.

You notice here that he, in verse 3, it says, "By faith we understand that the worlds..." It's in plural. Why is that in plural? Why does it say the world? Why is it in plural world? Well, there's something happening in the Greek there. The Bible usually has two different words for world.

The cosmos is the world that you and I normally think of as the earth, the creation, the physical world. The word that is used here is "ion," which typically is translated "age" or "generation." But it's in plural. So most of the commentators believe that the word "ion" in the plural form is referring to the totality of creation.

All of it. Not just the physical world, but even the spiritual world. That's why often when the Bible describes God as a creator, he doesn't say he created the physical world. This is what it says in Colossians 1 through 16. "For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." In other words, he didn't just create the universe. It wasn't just the Genesis chapter 1 he's referring to. He's talking about the spiritual world. He's talking about the authorities in the world, the kingdoms, both heaven, earth, and under the earth.

He created heaven and hell, everything that you and I know that exists. God is the originator. That's the point that he's trying to make. Not only is he the originator of all creation, he said he created it out of nothing. Ex nihilo. Out of nothing. You know, there's a lot of famous magicians, or they call themselves illusionists, because they are tricking us to see things that we don't see.

So I remember a long time ago, you know, I think it was David Copperfield who did a magic show on television, and he made a jet airplane disappear. And I remember as, I think I was in high school when I saw that. Wow, how did he do that? Years later, they said it was a camera trick.

You know, they basically took the camera and they just did this. I was so amazed for years, you know. And I know that, probably you guys know who David Blaine is. I remember first time seeing street magic, and he was on the street and he levitated, right, from behind.

I said, wow, that guy's, you know, maybe he's possessed. Later on they found out that one of his foot kind of tipped forward and he lifted his back. It's like, oh, that was it? Every magic trick that we see is just an illusion. They take something, a sleight of hand, mirror, or whatever that they're doing, that even when they make things appear, it's all to make it look like it came out of nothing.

Only one being can actually make something out of nothing. That's God. Where there was nothing, and by His Word, it appears. Do you know why it's emphasized that, like, whenever God, the Bible talks about His creation, He said it's by His Word. By His Word. By His Word. Do you know why He says that?

Because you and I, when we say something, I mean, we don't have that kind of authority. I didn't drive to LA. I wish I had the authority to just open the window and say, "Be gone!" Right? Or maybe that there's fire going on. It's like, "Get out of here!" Right?

It has no authority. Who has that kind of authority to use the Word? And things happen. Only a king. Because a king walks down and he says, "You know what? This street needs to be gone." And literally, that becomes law. You know, from now on, you're going to worship this monument, and so that becomes law.

Only somebody with authority, when they speak, it happens. So when it mentions over and over again that by His Word, that simply by His Word, it wasn't His hard work and years of planning. He just said it and it happened. So the fact that God as a Creator, who creates something out of nothing, simply by His Word, all of it is referring to His power that nobody else has.

It's talking about His authority. Now think about that. How that relates to this doctrine of sovereignty. Think about all the problems that we get anxious about. When His disciples needed money, He said, "You know what? Let's go get a job. We need to get a job." What did He tell His disciples?

"Go get that fish. Open its mouth." People didn't have enough food. What do we do? They're anxious. He said, "Well, just give it to them." Give them what? And He fed 5,000 people, just out of nothing. And this is the reason why when the disciples were on that boat and the storm came, they were afraid to die.

Jesus is sleeping and the disciples are getting upset that Jesus doesn't care and He wakes them up. Remember what Jesus says? He gets annoyed with them. He says, "You of little faith." Isn't that weird? How many of you would be on that boat and just in perfect peace? We'd be doing the same.

Remember, these guys are lifelong fishermen. They know the waters much better than Jesus. Why did Jesus rebuke them? That seems unfair. Because what human being would not have been scared? What human being would not have been anxious? The difference was Jesus was on the boat. He was rebuking them because He said, "You do not know Me.

Do you think you will die if I don't want you to die? Do you think you will live if I wanted you to die?" And what He was rebuking was their lack of faith in who Jesus was. It wasn't because they were scared of the boat. It was because they didn't believe in Jesus.

And so that's where this doctrine of God as Creator, speaking out of His Word, ex nihilo, out of nothing, all of that is to set up that do you believe in this sovereign God? That whatever is happening in your life, whatever is happening in our generation, that God has not lost control.

The things that we fear, that if we obey God, what if? What if I won't get this? What if I won't be there? What if I can't get this job? What if I don't get healthy? What if things don't come into order? What if I do this? What do you believe in a sovereign God?

If He created the whole universe, everything that we know, simply by His Word, out of nothing, couldn't He just create it if He wanted to? Couldn't He just say, "You need money?" Out of nothing, right? Couldn't He just do that? You know, everybody's worried about this climate change and all this.

Couldn't He just say, "Gone?" Everybody's worried about the politics. Boom, gone. If He didn't want the authority to be there, you know, do you think He's trembling? He's like, "Oh, I hope these people pick the right person." You know, my redemptive history is going to be ruined if we have the wrong person in there.

You think God is shaking in His boots on His throne? No. He is sovereign. Absolutely sovereign. And that is why these men and women of faith were able to walk into darkness. Because their light wasn't through their eyes. It was God Himself. That even if we suffer, I trust Him.

Whether we are delivered and blessed, whether we suffer, I trust Him. Because He's the sovereign. So that's the foundation that He is laying to tell us that this is the faith that they're standing on. Ephesians 1.10, "Also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will." Again, in Romans 8.28, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Do you know why non-Christians don't follow Christ?

Because they simply don't believe Him. It's up to us. We have to make this right. We have to make this world right. So they suppress the truth and they continue to pursue their glory. But the reason why Christians struggle is because we go back and forth, back and forth from believing this.

All things work together for good. All things work together for good. And so we get caught up in saying, "We need to get here." And so we need to work hard and make decisions and do things to get here. And then when it looks like we're not going to get here, we get anxious, we fight, we struggle and we get into all kinds of problems because we're trying so hard to get here.

But God did not command us that. He said to be faithful, "Do not turn from my word to the left or to the right. Your success is going to depend on do you trust me?" You know, I've shared this so many times before, but that story of Jericho just, it's always mind-blowing that why would God switch out the commanding officer Moses with Joshua who has no experience, right before they get into this 40 years that they've been waiting to battle to get into the land of Canaan, and all of a sudden they got this young, inexperienced general to get in there, and the only instruction he gives them is, "Don't turn from my word to the left or to the right.

Don't turn from my word to the left or to the right." And then right before they go, the only instruction he gives them is, "Take this box and walk around the city." He just does it. They were trained. They're like soldiers in basic training. If the commanding officer tells you to move, you move.

You sit down, you sit down. If the cloud moves, you move. If it sits down, you sit down. And that's all they've been doing for 40 years, basic training marching, and all of a sudden this young officer, just in case that maybe Moses might take the credit, just in case the nation of Israel may look at Moses and say, "Oh, Moses.

Thank God we had Moses." He switches them out. And then so Joshua takes him and he said, "Walks around on the seventh day. Now do this seventh time. Today, today I'm going to give you this land." Seventh time, you're going to tire out the whole army of Israel before they get into a battle with a fortified city that has walls, who have been fighting in their history, trained men, and you got these guys walking around with their families and children with a box, with an untrained soldier up at the front, and then you're going to walk around seven times.

He's going to blow the trumpet. What are you doing? How will you be successful doing that? But you know what happened? They did exactly what God told them to do and they blew the trumpet, walls fell down, and they walked and literally just walked into the city. Not by might nor by sight, but by my power, says the Lord, by my spirit.

That's the same lesson that we are taught over and over and over and over and over again, all throughout history. And every single person that's mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 is an evidence of that truth by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith, not by might, not by might, but by his spirit.

Look at what's going on around us right now. The pandemic, the racial tensions, the political turmoil, the economic struggles, the educational system, international relationships. I mean, look at the turmoil that is around us, natural disasters. I mean, it's enough to take even the most grounded person to be shaken.

But do we believe in this God? Do we believe in this God? Do we walk by faith or by sight? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are. Lord, in our weak faith, we cling to you. Sometimes we struggle, Father God, to keep you at the forefront of our minds.

We thank you for our corporate gatherings. We thank you for teaching us, reminding us, Lord God, how desperate we are when we are far from you. I pray that for the next few weeks, as we wrestle with the examples that you've given us, the cloud of witnesses that you've set before us, that we will not simply study it as history, but as examples to follow.

And so we pray, Father God, that your grace will be sufficient, that we may walk and live lives truly worthy of the gospel that you've given us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen.