Faith That Doesn't Sink

Trusting the God You Cannot See

Shwabe

Contents

• Introduction: Everybody's Word Nobody Defines
• Chapter 1: The Substance of Things Hoped For
• Chapter 2: It's Not What You Do For God
• Chapter 3: Faith Has Feet
• Chapter 4: Whose Strength Are You Trusting?
• Chapter 5: He Drives the Car
• Chapter 6: The Rest of Faith
• Chapter 7: Eyes on Jesus
• Chapter 8: When God Makes You Wait
• Chapter 9: Faith in the Fire
• Chapter 10: When God Disciplines You
• Chapter 11: Faith Rests on an Empty Tomb
• Chapter 12: Guard Your Faith
• Chapter 13: Faith That Finishes the Race
• Invitation: How to Actually Believe

Introduction: Everybody's Word Nobody Defines

Faith might be the most-used word in the whole church and the least understood.

We throw it around all the time. Have faith. Keep the faith. Just believe. Step out in faith. We put it on coffee mugs and bracelets and the wall over the couch. And then you stop somebody in the hallway and ask them what faith actually is, and watch what happens. They stall. They reach for something. Most people land on one of two answers, and both of them are wrong. Some say faith is a feeling, that warm, hopeful something you work up in your chest on a good Sunday. Others say faith is believing something you can't prove, closing your eyes and jumping, the very thing the world calls blind.

The Bible is not vague about this. It says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It's not a feeling, and it is not blind. It rests on real ground, and it is the single most important thing you can have, because the same Bible says that without it, it is impossible to please God. Not hard. Impossible. So this is not a small subject. This is the thing your whole life with God stands on or falls on.

Here's the sad part, and it's the reason for this book. A lot of us say we believe and then live like we don't. We'll tell you God made the universe and can do anything, and then we won't trust Him with next week. We're what I'd call practical atheists. We've got the word on the mug and none of it in the tank. And I don't want that to be you.

So we're going to do something simple and slow. We're going to actually figure out what faith is, and then we're going to walk through what it looks like when you live it. None of this is theory. Every page comes straight out of the Scriptures, out of real people who trusted God when it made no sense, and out of a lot of my own failures learning this the hard way.

We'll start with what faith actually is, and why it's the most logical thing you can do, not the least. Then we'll get into trusting God's strength instead of your own, and letting Him take the wheel. Then the hard part, holding on when the storm is louder than the promise, when God makes you wait, when God lets it hurt, even when God disciplines you. And we'll finish where faith begins and ends, at a real empty tomb, and a race you were made to run all the way to the line.

One thing before you turn the page. Read this the way it was meant to be preached, with a heart that says, God, I actually want to hear from You. Because there's no promise anywhere in this book for the half-hearted. But for the one who is all in, God has promised, over and over, you will find Me.

Let's go find Him.

Chapter 1: The Substance of Things Hoped For

Hebrews 11:1; Genesis 1:1

Everybody quotes this verse. Almost nobody stops on it. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Okay. First thing, and it trips people up every time: that is not a dictionary definition. People read it like the Bible just handed them the meaning of the word, neat little bow on top. Nope. It's a description. A picture of what a person of faith is actually like, what faith does inside a somebody. It grabs the stuff you're hoping for and makes it heavy. Real. Gives it weight. Then it takes what you can't see and turns it into evidence. The invisible goes solid on you.

Sit with that for a second. Not one of us has seen God. Face to face, I mean. He wasn't standing at the end of your bed last night. You didn't climb in a time machine, plant your feet at the foot of the cross, watch Him die, watch Him walk out of that tomb three days later. None of us did that. And here you are anyway, believing He's real, believing He did every bit of it. How does that happen? Faith. Faith took a thing your eyes never once touched and made it more solid than the chair you're sitting in.

And right here is where somebody pushes back, so get ready for it, because the world loves this one. Some professor gets you up in front of the class, that smart little pompous tone, and goes, you Christians just believe blindly. No. We don't. Read the verse again. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Evidence. That is not a blind word. I don't see God with my eyes, sure, but I am not out here believing in nothing. Let me hand you the reasons.

Fulfilled prophecy. Start there. Your God called the future before it showed up, over and over, and then it happened exactly the way He said it would. A third of your Bible is prophecy. A third. That's not a religion crossing its fingers and hoping. That's a God putting His predictions on the record hundreds of years out and then keeping every one. So the next time somebody calls your faith blind, you can just smile at them, because you're standing on evidence they never bothered to go read.

Then creation. Look at verse 3. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." Read the tail end of that again. The things you see were not made out of things you can see. Nobody knew that when it was written. Nobody. We do now. What's everything around you made of? This book. Your phone. Your own hand there. Atoms. Every physical thing you can point a finger at is built out of something way too small for your eye to catch. That's not me preaching, that's a science textbook. So let me just ask you straight: is it really such a reach to believe God spoke, and out of the unseen the whole visible world showed up?

Now line it up next to the other option, because that's where the actual blind faith is hiding. The smartest guy in the room will look you in the eye and tell you everything came from nothing. There was nothing. Nothing exploded. And, well, here we all are. So ask him the dumb obvious question. Where'd the thing that exploded come from? And you know what he says back nine times out of ten? Yeah well, where'd your God come from? That's it. That's his whole answer. He didn't answer you, he just lobbed the question back over the net. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is trusting something they can't see all the way down at the bottom. Only question on the table is whether that something is a cloud of gas that came from nowhere for no reason, or a God who was just always there. One of the two is the uncaused cause. The thing that had to be, before anything else could be. And the Bible names Him in its first four words. In the beginning, God.

Here's a piece of this that grabbed me and won't let go. Everything that has ever happened is information. Every event, every second that's ever ticked by, information, and information is a real thing. It's not nothing. Now catch this. There is no known process anywhere in the universe, none, zero, where information writes itself out of thin air. Information comes from a mind. Always. It takes intelligence to make it. So where did all the information of the whole universe come from? John chapter 1, five words. "In the beginning was the Word." The Word. Information. A mind sitting behind all of it. So when you actually sit down and think the thing through to the end, being a Christian turns out to be the most logical move you can make. And believing the entire thing just organized itself out of an explosion of nobody-knows-what, that's the illogical one. Do both take a measure of faith? Yeah. They do. But creation takes less of it. Because creation actually holds together.

And that's not the only spot the Bible beat the scientists to it. Go read Job. It talks about the circle of the earth, and that word in the Hebrew, it means a sphere. The Bible had the earth round a long, long time before anybody with a telescope caught up. So no. This is not blind faith. There's real substance packed under it.

Which raises a fair question, honestly. If the evidence is that solid, why is it shouted down so loud? Why do the schools teach the one side and laugh at the other? And the answer's got nothing to do with a shortage of evidence. Romans chapter 1 tells you the real reason flat out. People suppress the truth. Not because they can't see it. Because they don't want to keep God anywhere in their heads. Because the second you admit there's a God who made all this, you just admitted the terrifying thing. You're accountable to Him. There's a right and a wrong you didn't get a vote on. Your sin has an address now, and a bill, and it's coming due. And plenty of folks would flat out rather have gas floating in space than a God they owe. There was a scientist, Rick Oliver, atheist for years, and he said it better than I could. He said, I was an atheist not because of the evidence, but despite the evidence.

I heard a story one time that says it better than I can. Guy takes a job at a zoo dressing up in a gorilla suit. The real gorilla died and they need to keep the exhibit open, so, you know, keep the money coming. He gets bored in there. Starts swinging on the vines to pull a crowd. Gets a little too into it, loses his grip, and flips right over the wall into the lion's cage next door. Lion starts stalking toward him, slow. Man loses it, starts screaming, let me out, I'm not really a gorilla, I'm a person, somebody help me. And the lion leans in real close and whispers, shut up, or you'll get us both fired. That right there is the state of the argument. Get the honest ones alone in a quiet room and they'll admit the evidence isn't sitting where they need it to sit. But out loud? Everybody keeps the suit on.

So hear me. Faith is not the leap in the dark they keep accusing you of. It sits on evidence. But be honest about the other half of it too, because there's a real part of this where I don't see God. I can't slide Him under a microscope. That's just the nature of the thing. Faith takes in all the evidence He's already laid out, and then it takes the one step the evidence is pointing at. It trusts the God it can't see on the strength of everything He's already shown.

And that step, by the way, is not optional. Watch where the writer of Hebrews goes with it. Verse 6. "Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Look at that word. Impossible. Not hard. Not a little less likely. Impossible. You can be moral, you can be busy, you can be religious right up to your eyeballs, and without faith you cannot please God. And the guy standing right in front of that verse, Enoch, gets one line for his whole life: he pleased God. Did it by faith.

Now look how the verse lands, because it's a promise with a string attached. He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Circle that word. Diligently. There is not one promise in this whole book for the casual seeker. Go find me the verse where God rewards the half-hearted. The ones who don't really care. The ones who want just enough Jesus to sleep okay at night. It's not in there. But the whole-hearted one? That promise is everywhere you look. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." All your heart. Not a slice of it. So let me just ask, are you half-hearted this morning? Because if you are, I'm not gonna lie to you and pat you on the head and say it's all fine. There's no promise anywhere that a half-hearted seeker hears a thing from God. But the person who's all the way in? God has said it again and again and again. You will find Me.

Here's where all of this actually touches the ground instead of just winning you an argument. If you really believe God spoke the universe into being, then trusting Him with the hard stuff in your life gets a whole lot lighter. The God who made the oceans can handle your Monday. The God who hung the stars can be trusted with the thing that's scaring you right now. But watch this, because it might be the saddest thing in the whole church. A lot of Christians are what I'd call practical atheists. We say we believe God made everything, can do anything, and then we turn around and live like He can't be trusted to do the one thing He already said He'd do. We don't actually take Him at His word. I don't want that to be you.

That's what faith is. Not a feeling. Not a jump into the dark. It's the substance that makes your hope solid, the evidence that makes the unseen real, and it's the one thing you cannot please God without. Everything else in this book stacks on top of it. Because once you know what faith actually is, there's really only one question left. What does it look like when you get up and live it? That's where we're headed.

Chapter 2: It's Not What You Do For God

Hebrews 3:7-4:13; Hebrews 6:10-20

There's a word almost every American Christian needs, and it's this: rest. Now hold on, because I don't mean the kind where you sleep all day and do nothing. I'm talking about something that sounds insane. I'm talking about doing ten times the work you're doing now, and it being easy, because you're so charged up on the power of God that it isn't even a big deal. That's the rest God is offering you. And most of us never get near it, for one reason.

We're prideful. If you're a human being like me, here's what you do. You try to earn it. You want to earn God's power in your life. You want to earn His blessing. So you build yourself a checklist. Once I read my Bible for a week straight and don't miss a single devotion, then I can ask God to move. Once I've gotten rid of this sin and kept it dead for a solid month, then God will bless me. And can I tell you the truth about that? It is never going to happen. Ever.

Why? Because Romans says it, and the rest of the Bible backs it up: you are full of sin, and so am I. You will never be good enough. I won't. You won't. None of us will. And until you finally rest in the full sacrifice of what Jesus already did, and stop making it about your performance, you are going to live in constant discouragement and doubt and depression and anger. Because you will spend your whole life trying to earn God's favor, and you will fail at it every single day. I wish somebody had told me that a long time ago.

Here's the thing it took me way too long to learn. Whether this church grows, whether God moves in your life, whether the people around you get saved, none of it depends on how much I pray or how much I study or how holy some pastor is. It depends on one thing, and one thing only. Trusting God instead of trusting our own might and our own power. That's it. It's so simple, and our proud little minds cannot stand it.

Now let me show you why earning was never even on the table, because when you see what actually happened, the whole checklist falls apart.

You and I were born into this world with a sin nature, in rebellion against the God who made us. And I'll be honest with you about what that deserves. It would have been perfectly fair and perfectly just for God to let every one of us pay for our own sin. Hell wasn't even made for us. It was made for the devil and his demons. But we joined the rebellion, and justice would have been served if God had simply let us go. That's what we earned.

Instead, watch what He did. And ask yourself why. Why does God love you? The Bible gives an answer that ought to wreck you: He loves you because He loves you. That's it. That's the whole reason. Not because you're obedient. Not because you listen. He sent His Son to one of the most brutal deaths human beings ever invented, nailed and whipped and mocked and suffocating on a Roman cross, publicly humiliated by the very creation He made, to take the place that was yours. And here is the trade nobody can earn. When you look at that cross and say, that should have been me, and you put your trust in Him, you switch places with Jesus. He lived the one perfect human life that heaven requires, the only one ever lived, and if you believe this, His perfect record gets credited to you. God the Father looks at you and sees the flawless life of His Son. Your sin, your rebellion, all of it, He already saw laid on Jesus at the cross, and it is finished with. You say, but I still mess up. Yes, you do. But once you're in Christ, it's already on the cross.

So now think it through. Do you honestly believe that a God who gave up His own Son to buy you back would then turn around and forget you? Would forsake you? The One who paid everything, who keeps putting up with you while you're still learning to walk? Hebrews says it plainly: God is not unjust to forget your work and your labor of love. He sees you. Man forgets. Your boss forgets, your friends forget, nobody may ever notice a single thing you do for Jesus. God does not forget, and God does not leave.

And here's the ground you can actually stand on. There are two things God cannot do. People love to ask, can God do anything? No. God cannot lie, and God cannot sin. Sit with the first one. Because God cannot lie, when He makes you a promise, breaking it is not on the table. It is not an option He's holding in reserve. His promise to you does not rest on how well you performed this week. It rests on His own unchangeable word. That is exactly why you can rest. Your standing with God was never propped up by your streak, so your standing with God can't collapse when your streak does.

That's the whole reason the book of Hebrews was written the way it was. These were Jewish Christians, people who grew up with the temple and the sacrifices and the rules. They trusted Jesus, and it cost them everything. They got fired, kicked out of the synagogue, some lost their families. So when grace got hard, they started drifting back toward the old religion, back toward earning, because a checklist felt safer than a gift. And the writer keeps grabbing them by the collar: do not go back.

He paints it as a journey. Egypt is a picture of sin, and most of us used to live there, in slavery to ourselves. God brings us out through the Red Sea, a picture of baptism. So far so good. But then look where so many Christians get stuck. The wilderness. You're saved. If you died tonight you'd go to heaven, and that's wonderful. But your life is a circle. Same day, same day, same day. You hear God's voice once in a while but you're not really doing what He says. Your Christianity is quiet, half dead, going in loops. And God did not bring you out of Egypt to wander in circles a two-week walk from everything He wanted to give you. There was a whole land waiting, and the only thing between them and it was whether they'd trust Him for it.

Which brings us to the one sentence this whole book turns on. You are saved not by what you do for God, but because you believe in God, and because you believe in God, you do things for Him. Read it slowly. Your works are not the price of God's favor. They're the evidence you already have it. You don't serve God to earn the blessing. You serve God because you finally stopped trying to earn it and received it.

The writer says the works were finished from the foundation of the world. That's the cross. It is done. Everything you've been straining to earn, Jesus already bought and already paid. So stop building the checklist. Stop waiting until you're clean enough, disciplined enough, good enough, because that day is never coming and it was never the plan. The work is finished. Look at the cross and see that it's already done. Then pick it up and walk.

Chapter 3: Faith Has Feet

Hebrews 11; Hebrews 13

Faith is not just a warm feeling in your chest. Real faith has feet. It gets up and moves. And the whole back half of Hebrews 11 is a parade of people who prove it, so let me walk you through two of them, and then show you the other half of the coin.

Start with Noah. God tells this man to build a boat. Have you ever built a boat? I couldn't build a boat to save my life. And Noah isn't building it by a lake. He's in the middle of the desert, and there has never been a flood. Some believe it had never even rained the way we know rain, that the earth was watered by a mist. So picture it. No storm clouds, no flood, no coastline, just dry ground and a word from God. And God says a flood is coming, build an enormous ark, and bring the animals.

Here's the part that gets me. It took him somewhere around ninety years. Ninety years of hammering away in the desert while everybody who walked by laughed and called him a fool. And the whole time, he wasn't just building. He was preaching. He kept telling people the judgment was real, that they could still come into the ark with him. Nobody listened. He kept building and kept warning, year after year, on nothing but the word of God, until one day the animals were in, his family was in, and the door shut. And when that door shut, the sky finally opened and the water came up out of the ground, and the people who mocked him didn't perish because there was no way of escape. They perished because they rejected the one He gave.

Jesus reached back and used that exact story. In Matthew 24 He said, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. People were eating and drinking and marrying, going about business as usual, right up until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood swept them all away. Same pattern. Everybody says nothing's coming, nothing's going to happen, you're a fool, right up until the door shuts. So the call on you is the same call that was on Noah. Keep building. Keep telling people a day is coming and there's room in the ark, even when they laugh, even when nobody listens. That takes faith with feet, because you're acting on a flood you can't see yet.

Then look at Abraham. God shows up and says, pack up everything you own, leave your family, and go to a land I will show you. That's it. Notice there are no directions. God doesn't say go north three hundred miles and turn left at the river. He just says go. Abraham's job was basically to load up, start walking, and find out where he was going once he got there. Picture that being you. You've got a house, a job, a car, some stability, and God says sell the house, quit the job, load the truck, and start driving, and I'll tell you where you're going later. That is insane by every natural measure. And Abraham did it. He didn't do it perfectly, he stumbled a few times along the way, which is worth knowing, because it means it's okay to stumble and still be a person of faith. But he went.

And he wasn't the only one told to move blind. In Acts chapter 8, Philip is standing in the middle of a great revival, a whole city coming to Christ, and God tells him to leave it and go stand on a desert road in the middle of nowhere. On paper that's crazy. You don't walk away from revival to go preach to sand. But Philip went, because God said so, and God had a man on that road who needed him. That's the pattern every time. Faith moves before it can see the reason.

Do you see the common thread? Not one of these people got the proof first. Noah never saw a raindrop before he swung the first hammer. Abraham never saw the land before he left home. Philip never saw the man on the road before he started walking toward the desert. They acted, and then they saw. That's the order faith runs in. The world says show me and then I'll move. Faith moves, and then it sees. And if you belong to God, He is going to call you to do some things that don't add up on paper, that feel risky, that you can't see the end of. Faith is what gets you off the couch and out the door anyway.

So that's the first half of it. Faith acts before it sees. Here's the second half, and you can't skip it. Faith also shows.

James says it flat out: faith without works is dead. Not weak. Dead. The writer of Hebrews spends twelve chapters teaching you deep doctrine, and then he turns the corner in chapter thirteen and starts firing off how to actually live, because the Bible makes no distinction between doctrine and duty. What you believe and how you live are meant to be the same thing. Hebrews 11 gave us the examples of faith. Hebrews 13 gives us the evidence of it.

And I mean evidence in the plain sense. If your faith is real, it leaves fingerprints on your actual life. The writer starts listing them. Let brotherly love continue. Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, because some people have entertained angels without even knowing it. Honor your marriage. Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. That is not a list of extra credit. That is what faith looks like when it has a pulse. A changed heart produces a changed life, every single time.

Sit on the hospitality one for a second, because it's a perfect picture of faith with feet. Back in Genesis, Abraham welcomes in three travelers who turn out to be angels, and one of them is the Lord Himself. They didn't show up glowing, with wings and a halo. They looked like ordinary men. That's the whole point. It's God's version of undercover boss. He cares so much about how you treat the stranger, the person who can do nothing for you and pay you back nothing, that He'll test it when you least expect it. Real faith is kind to the person it doesn't have to be kind to. It gives when nobody's watching. It shows up.

So here's where this leaves you. A faith that never moves and never shows is not faith. It's an opinion. It's a fact sitting in your head that you happen to agree with, and demons agree with facts too. The faith the Bible is talking about is the kind that builds the boat, packs the truck, walks toward the desert, welcomes the stranger, and keeps going when it costs you. You cannot live a practical Christian life without practical Christian belief, and you cannot claim real belief that never once turns into a practical Christian life. Faith has feet. Put them down and start walking.

Chapter 4: Whose Strength Are You Trusting?

Isaiah 8; Hebrews 3-4

Here's a question that cuts to the root of everything. Is God your friend or your enemy?

I know that sounds harsh. Most people don't like thinking God could be an enemy. But let me be straight with you. The Bible says you come into this world as an enemy of God. That's the reality. Unless you've been forgiven by the blood of Jesus, unless you've actually chosen to follow Him, God is not your friend. He's your enemy. And you need to hear this. I don't know about you, but I have enemies in this world. Human enemies. They're a pain. But I'll tell you what, I don't want God as my enemy. Who could fight against Him? Who has the power to stop Him? I would rather have every demon in hell as my enemy over God being my enemy. Yes. Because here's what matters: do not fear man, who can only destroy your body. But fear God, who can destroy both body and soul.

That's the choice everyone faces. And it all comes down to one thing. One thing only. It depends on whether you trust God instead of trusting your own might or power. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Let me show you what that looks like by going back to King Ahaz.

Ahaz was a bad king. And during his reign, Israel and Syria, another pagan nation, attacked Judah. They were surrounding the city. Ahaz was freaking out. The man was scared. So God sent Isaiah the prophet to him with a message. Isaiah told Ahaz, "Look, you're a bad king. But listen, I will help you if you turn to me. I will listen to your prayers if you turn from your sins and come to me. All you need to do is trust me."

What did Ahaz do? He did the opposite. Instead of trusting God, he ran to the Assyrians. The Assyrians were the world power at that time. Ungodly, strong, impressive. He thought, "These guys can save me. This is the real power." And that choice changed everything.

Now watch what God says to the nation through Isaiah. In chapter 8, God tells Isaiah to write something on a large scroll. Make it public. Make it simple so even a child can understand it. Because Ahaz has ignored God for three chapters now. God keeps trying to get his attention. Even Ahaz's son becomes a message. His name means "Speed to the spoil, hurry to the plunder." Before that child could even speak, God was saying that the enemies Ahaz was afraid of, Israel and Syria, would be destroyed completely.

But here's the comparison God makes. It cuts right to the heart of the problem.

Verse 6 says: "Inasmuch as these people refused the waters of Shiloh that flow softly." Shiloh. What is Shiloh? It was a little river in Israel. A quiet stream. Small. But even though this river was small, it supplied everything Israel needed. Everything. God provided what they needed through this gentle water.

But then God says: "Behold, the Lord brings up over them the waters of the river, strong and mighty, the King of Assyria and all his glory."

Do you see what He's saying? Ahaz wouldn't trust in the small, quiet stream that God gave him. Instead, he looked at what the world had. The Assyrians had the Tigers and the Euphrates. Massive rivers. Powerful, impressive, everything you'd think you wanted. In Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, they had these mighty rivers. Compared to them, Israel's little stream looked like a bathtub. So Ahaz looked at what God gave him and said, "That's not good enough. I want what they have."

Here's the hard truth: sometimes God doesn't give us what we want. You know, just recently I was in need of another vehicle. I make a decent amount now, but I don't make a lot because I'm a janitor. I can't always afford things. I needed a car because I have to drive out here almost every day. So God gave me a minivan. And I'm sitting there thinking, "God, could you give me something cooler?" I mean, my friends make fun of me. They call me "soccer mom." Want to get me stickers that say soccer mom. It's humbling, you know?

But here's the thing. Sometimes God doesn't give us what we want. All the time, though, He gives us what we need. That's the difference. God wasn't being cheap. He was being wise. He was giving me what I actually needed.

But Israel? Israel wasn't happy. They looked at God's provision and said, "That's not enough." They looked at the world's provision and said, "That's what I want." So this is what happened. God said, "All right. You don't want the gentle stream of Shiloh? Then I'm going to give you what you think you want. Those rivers you want so bad? They're going to flood into your land. The Assyrians came and destroyed Israel first. But they didn't stop there. They kept attacking Judah. Ahaz had to run into the temple and offer the king of Assyria all the gold from the temple just to make them stop attacking. Judah was decimated. They barely survived.

And that's not just history. That's a picture. Listen to me. Every time the world seems like it has something better, notice that it's a trap. It will enslave you. It will entrap you. The Bible says that sin, when it is full grown, will breed death. That's why God protects you from the things of this world. Whether it's the partying, the drugs, whatever it is. There's a reason God's saying, "Be careful." Because in the end, that stuff will flood over you.

So what's the answer? God tells Ahaz. He says: "The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow. Let Him be your fear and let Him be your dread. He will be as a sanctuary."

A sanctuary. That's a place of protection. That's where you run when you're scared. If you're following God, you can run to Him at any moment for protection and safety. God will protect you from your enemies. God will protect you from the things you're scared of. God will give you strength.

But if you choose the world's way? If you choose to trust in ungodly things instead of God? Verse 14 says He will be "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense." You're going to end up tripping over Him. You're going to fall apart.

Here's the question Matthew 10 asks: "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body."

You understand what that means? The people around you? They can hurt your body. That's it. They can mock you. They can reject you. They can make you lose your job. Big deal. Their power stops there. But God? God can destroy both soul and body. So ask yourself, who should you really be afraid of? Who deserves your fear?

And when you choose to fear God instead of man, when you choose to trust Him instead of the world's power, here's His promise: He will be your sanctuary. He will be your refuge. He will protect you.

Now, here's where it gets personal. Because this isn't just about Ahaz. This is about you. Right now.

The writer of Hebrews says something I wish somebody told me a long time ago. He says the growth of God's work, the power of God going forth, depends on one thing and one thing only. Not how much you pray. Not how much you study the Bible. Not how much you go to church. Not how much you know about Scripture.

It depends on whether you trust God instead of trusting your own might or power.

That's it. One thing.

Because here's what most of us do. We think we need to earn God's power. We think we need to be good enough first. We think, "Once I get rid of this sin, once I pray more, once I study harder, then God will move in my life. Then God will bless me. Then I'll have power." So we're constantly trying to earn His favor. And we constantly fail. We're human. We're full of sin. We'll never be good enough.

But that's a lie. God says: "This youth group growing, this church growing, this power in your life, it doesn't depend on how holy you are. It depends on one thing and one thing only. It depends on you trusting God."

Do you understand how simple that is? How free that is?

Because what God's telling you is this. You don't need to be worthy. Jesus already did the work. He already paid the price. All you have to do is trust what He did. All you have to do is stop leaning on your own strength and start leaning on His.

Stop looking at the Tigris and Euphrates. Stop looking at what the world says is powerful and impressive. Look at the stream of Shiloh. Look at what God gives you. Trust it. Trust Him.

That's the one thing that matters. That's how you know if God is your friend or your enemy. It comes down to one choice. Will you trust Him, or won't you?

Choose Him. Trust Him with your life. Stop trusting your own strength. Stop thinking you have to earn His favor. Just trust.

Because when you do, He becomes your sanctuary. He becomes your protection. He becomes your strength. And that, my friend, is the only power you'll ever need.

Chapter 5: He Drives the Car

John 14:1-6; Luke 24

Here's the scene. You're one of the disciples. You've been hanging out with Jesus for three years. You became brothers. You became family. And then one day He tells you, look, I'm going to die. I'm going to be crucified in Jerusalem. I'm going to leave you.

Picture yourself in their shoes for a second. How do you feel? Your heart's racing. You're anxious. Your whole world feels like it's coming apart. That's why Jesus opens this chapter by saying, "Let not your heart be troubled." He gets it. He knows exactly how they feel.

And then Peter, in all his boastfulness, stands up in front of everybody. He's got his chest puffed out. And he tells Jesus, "Even if all these other guys fall away, even if every one of them denies you, I never will. I will not deny you." Jesus looks at him and says, "Peter, before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times."

But here's the thing. Jesus didn't just leave them hanging with bad news. He gave them reasons why their hearts shouldn't be troubled. Real reasons. Solid ground to stand on.

First reason: you have the hope of heaven. Jesus says, "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." Listen to that. He's not abandoning them. He's going ahead to set things up. He's leaving with a purpose. This whole thing is planned. He's telling them beforehand so they know it's not an accident.

But here's what's really wild. After Jesus died, what happened to the disciples? They scattered. Like cockroaches, they just scattered everywhere. They thought they'd been following the Messiah who was going to kick out the Roman Empire. They didn't get it. They forgot everything He'd told them. And when the women came to the tomb, when they found it empty, and the angels said, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is risen. Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee?"

The disciples' first response? Their words seemed like idle tales. Like a fairy tale. They didn't believe the women. These were apostles. Commissioned by God. Men who'd been with Jesus for three years. And they couldn't accept the simplest message: He's alive.

But I want to back up, because there's something Jesus said that gets right at the heart of faith. Thomas, one of the other disciples, he's confused too. Jesus had been telling them where He was going, and Thomas finally raises his hand and says, "Lord, we don't even know where you're going. How can we know the way?"

And Jesus says this: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Now listen to what that means. It sounds exclusive. It sounds narrow. And yeah, it is. But here's an illustration that changes everything.

Say you give me directions to get somewhere. You tell me, "Turn right on Speedway, turn left on Camino, turn right into the parking lot." I've got to follow those directions perfectly or I'll get lost. That's hard. That requires me to pay attention the whole way. I've got to get every turn right.

But what if instead you say, "Don't worry about the directions. Get in my car. I'm driving." Now it's not about me following a map. It's not about me getting the turns right. I just get in, and you handle it. I can relax. I can trust. Because you're the one in control, not me.

That's what Jesus is saying. He's not just giving you a list of rules to follow. He's not handing you a map and saying, "Good luck, try to get it right." What He's doing is this: "I'll pick you up. I'm getting in my car. I'm taking complete control. It's not dependent on you following my law. It's not dependent on you following a list of directions and rules. If you put your faith in me and trust me, I will get you to heaven. It's up to me to get you there."

That's Christianity. It's not a system. It's not a list. It's you trusting someone else to drive.

And here's what Peter couldn't see until later. He was trying to earn it. He was trying to be strong enough, faithful enough, perfect enough. "I won't deny you, Jesus. I promise." But he did. He denied Jesus three times, just like Jesus said. Because Peter was trying to do it in his own power.

That's why Jesus sends something else. He says, "I'm not leaving you alone. I'm going to send you another helper. The Holy Spirit." And he calls Him "another of the same kind." Not something weaker than Jesus. The power of God literally inside the Christian.

Here's what that means in real life. You're trying to live right. You know what's wrong. But you're struggling alone, and it's killing you. You feel like you can never measure up. You're fighting the same battles over and over. But the Bible says if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives inside you. He's not just out there somewhere. He's in you. And He's there to actually change you from the inside.

I know what that looks like because I've lived it. There's a moment. You're sitting in church, or you're reading your Bible, or you're lying in bed at night, and something just strikes you. God's word just hits you. And you realize you can't do this on your own anymore. You can't keep pretending. You can't keep playing religion. And in that moment, something shifts. You surrender. Not because someone forced you. Not because you're afraid of hell. But because Jesus suddenly becomes real to you, and you realize you need Him.

That's when you give your life to Jesus. And here's what's important. You don't just make Him your Savior. You make Him your Lord. Savior means He saves you from your sins. He forgives you of everything you did. But that comes with a tag. You also make Him Lord. Meaning you choose not to live for yourself anymore. God is your God now. Instead of doing what you want, you look to God for your guidance and your strength.

The Bible says it's actually simple. Romans 10.9: "If you confess with your mouth, 'The Lord Jesus,' and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Notice how simple that is. It doesn't say you have to keep all the commandments from birth. It doesn't say you have to go to church for six months. You don't have to memorize the Bible. It's just faith. Believing that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. And confessing Him as your Lord.

First John 1.9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not some, but all."

And John 3.16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

What a simple message. What an easy message.

But here's the honest part. Once you give your life to Jesus, you're going to fail. You're going to mess up. You're going to rebel. All of us do. That's normal. That's human. But here's what you do. You take ownership. You go to God and you say, "I lied. I did what was wrong. It was my fault." Not excuses. Not blaming someone else. Just the truth.

And then here's the beautiful part. Jesus is faithful. He cleanses you. The Holy Spirit starts working in you again. And you get back up.

That's faith. Not a feeling. Not a perfect performance. It's getting in the car with Jesus and letting Him drive. Some days you're confused. Some days you doubt. Some days you feel like you're falling apart. But you're not driving. He is. And He knows the way.

The disciples couldn't see it until after the resurrection. They couldn't trust until they got the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. But once they did, they changed everything. They preached the gospel everywhere. They turned the world upside down. Not because they were perfect. Not because they had it all figured out. But because Jesus was driving, and they'd finally surrendered the wheel.

That's what He's asking you to do. Stop trying to follow the directions. Stop trying to get it right by yourself. Get in the car. Let Him drive. The moment you do, everything changes.

Chapter 6: The Rest of Faith

Hebrews 3:7-4:13

Here's what I need to tell you: there's a sin most American Christians are struggling with right now. It's not the flashy kind. It doesn't get preached like lust or pride or anger. But the Bible says it's one of the deadliest. It's the sin of unbelief.

When you hear God's promises, when you hear that He's able to forgive you and loves you just because He loves you, and then you say, yeah, but not me. Yeah, but it's different for me. Do you understand? You're doing the same thing the children of Israel did when they were about to enter the land of promise.

Let me take you back to that story. The people stood right in front of everything God had promised Abraham. After the plagues came down and God parted the Red Sea, they were led by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. God literally gave them water from a rock that followed them around. A rock followed them. I don't know how that works, but it did. For two weeks God led them through the wilderness. For two weeks. And that whole time, they were standing in front of the very land God promised Abraham. The only thing they had to do was go in.

So Moses sent twelve spies into the land. They came back and said, guys, the land is amazing. It's filled with honey and grapes and incredible things. But then ten of those twelve spies looked at the people and said, we can't go in there. The land is filled with giants. And we are like grasshoppers in their sight. We can't go in there because they have fortifications and armies.

Two of those spies, Joshua and Caleb, they looked at the ten and basically said, hey, you guys shut up right now. They looked at the people and said, don't listen to them. God has given us this land. Yeah, there are giants, but it doesn't matter. God will be with us.

But the people didn't believe Joshua and Caleb. The people looked at the two who were trusting God and said, you guys are crazy. They picked up rocks. They were about to kill them, the two people who actually trusted God. And in that moment God came in and He rebuked them. He said, you wicked and rebellious generation. I have not brought you out here to die. But because you doubted, because you would not believe what I said, you cannot enter into the land. You're going to walk around in this wilderness for forty years until every single one of you that doubted My promise dies. Your children, the ones you said I came to kill, when they're grown up I'm going to let them go into the land. But you, you cannot go in.

Do you see what just happened? God's own people. The people He saved from Egypt, the people He split the sea for, the people He led with His own presence, they were kept out of everything He had for them because of one thing: unbelief. They heard His promises and said it anyway: yeah, but not me.

Here's the picture I need you to see. That whole generation got stuck in the wilderness, and that is exactly where so many Christians are living right now. You're saved. God is leading you. You hear His voice. But your life is a circle. Your Christianity is quiet. You hear God every once in a while, but you're not really doing what He says. If you died tomorrow you'd go to heaven, and that's wonderful. But God wants to give you so much more. He wants to give you power. He wants you to see the people around you saved. There is a whole land of it sitting right in front of you, and the only thing keeping you out in the sand is the same thing that kept them there. You won't believe He would actually do it for you.

So what's the problem? The gospel was preached to them just like it's preached to you. They heard the good news. But the word which they heard did not profit them. Why? Because it wasn't mixed with faith. That's the key. The gospel only works if it's mixed with faith. And faith means actually believing it applies to you. Not to somebody else. To you.

This is why God says, "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." Today. Not tomorrow. Not after you've read your Bible for a week straight or gotten rid of your sin for a month. Not after you've earned it. Today. But here's the thing. Even though you know this, are some of you still doubting God's word? Even though you know it's right, are some of you still struggling?

I used to get depressed all the time. A hundred and ten percent of my life was spent in depression and discouragement. And I notice something. It comes back even though I'm reading my Bible and praying. After a while it just becomes words on a page. The hardness creeps back in.

So here's what you need to know: there's no such thing as a lone wolf Christian. If that's you right now, I can already guess something about you. You're struggling. The Bible is clear on this. You need other believers in your life. When I get discouraged, what gets me out? It's not just that I'm listening to the Bible or worshiping God or praying. It's when another brother or sister comes to me and says, snap out of it. Here's what the word of God says. Let me pray for you. Let me hang out with you. That's when I get encouraged.

The writer of Hebrews says it this way: exhort one another daily while it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Daily. You need to be calling each other. You need to be texting each other. Send each other Bible verses. If you want a snap streak, send each other Bible verses all day. That's what this means. And I guarantee you that if you do this and you hold each other up, you will solidify your walk with God. Why? Because when you're by yourself, you start to doubt. You start to be deceived by the deceitfulness of sin. And even though you know the word of God, you start to say, yeah, but it's different for me.

I want to tell you this story because it shows what God is really asking for. We were down on fourth avenue inviting people to our event. And there's this moment. You're walking, right? And you hear that voice in your heart that says, hey, go talk to that person. And you know it's God. You know He's telling you to do something. You know God's telling you to get up off your bum and go talk to that person. I've been there. I remember talking to God and I said, no, I don't want to. That guy's scary. I've said that. What if he rejects me? And God says, I will be with you. Go talk to that person. And I remember saying, no God, I'm not going to do it.

And then this is what happens. You start to walk away. And in your heart there's almost this burning passion that says, turn around. Turn around. Turn around. And almost with each step it gets louder and harder. And I disobeyed that voice before. It is the worst thing in the world. Because God says, fine. I wanted to do something awesome through your life, but you want to live in disobedience. So go on ahead. I still love you. But you just missed out on something awesome.

But there were other times. I got up and I said, all right, I'll do it. God, I'm scared. But I know what your word says. It's up to you to use me, not me. And I went and I talked to that person. And it was awesome. And God moved. And either the person got saved or wanted to come to our event or we got to pray with them. Some of these people looked like they were about to commit suicide. Maybe we saved them from suicide. Only because I said, God, I believe You're able to use me even though I'm weak and frail. And I went out and did it.

Do you see that? That is what God is asking for here. When He says go and you say no, instead you would say, all right, God, I'm going to go because I trust you. I'm scared of public speaking. Did you know that? Even if there was only five people in the room I'd be scared. But I do it because I trust in the power of God and not my own might.

So here's the warning and the promise wrapped up in one thing. The word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces even the division of the soul and the spirit. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And I'm telling you this right now: that word is alive and it's working inside your hearts. But it's doing one of two things, and it's up to you to decide which one.

This word is either piercing your heart and you are saying, I am done being disobedient to God. I will trust His promises. I will finally believe Him. And God is empowering you this morning. Or this word is condemning you because you are still stubborn and disobedient. This word instead of bringing life is bringing you death because you will not trust the promises of God. Two sides to the same sword.

You need to understand something. God wants to do something mighty in your city. God wants to do something mighty in your life and in the lives around you. But it takes one simple thing. You need to trust God instead of trusting your own might and your own power. Not because you're awesome or great or smart or good looking. But because you simply trust in His word. You simply trust in what He has to say. So don't harden your heart today. Stop saying yeah, but not me. The promise is still standing and the rest is still open. Walk in while it is still called today.

Chapter 7: Eyes on Jesus

Hebrews 11:23-40; Hebrews 12:1-2

Here's the verse that changed everything for me. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. But before we get there, I want you to see something about the race you're running. It's not about crossing the finish line. It's about where your eyes are while you run. Because the moment you take your eyes off Him and look at your problems is the second you start to sink.

Let me give you the picture first. The writer says since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Think about what that means. You've got examples of faith all around you. You've got Abraham, Moses, Noah, all these people who saw the unseen and lived for it. And the writer is saying, now look at your own life like you're a runner in a track. What are you wearing? You're not running in combat boots. You're not wearing baggy pants or carrying a backpack full of bricks. Why? Because you don't want anything to slow you down.

See, when you watch runners, real track athletes, they wear the shortest shorts you've ever seen in your life. Shoes so thin they're basically socks. Shirts that fit like they're part of your skin. Everything about their outfit is designed to eliminate friction and weight. There's nothing left to the imagination. Nothing left to slow you down. That's the point.

So here's my question for you. What is it in your life that is currently slowing you down? What's the weight you're carrying that God's been telling you to let go of? The Bible says because we have all these examples of people who lived for God, get rid of all the compromise. Strip it off. Don't carry it to the finish line. Get rid of everything that you know God said don't do, that you know you shouldn't have, that you know you shouldn't be about, but you keep it with you anyway. That thing. That weight. Lay it aside.

But here's the thing that gets me every time. None of that matters if your eyes aren't in the right place.

Let me tell you about Peter. He's walking on the water. Jesus told him to come, and Peter actually did it. He stepped out of that boat. Can you imagine? Walking on water. Doing the impossible. But watch what happened next. The moment, the very second, I would argue, Peter took his eyes off Jesus and looked at the waves and the storm and all the scary things, all of the things that keep you down, he immediately started to sink. Boom. Just like that.

I know somebody out there needed to hear that. Your storm is loud, isn't it? The waves are crashing. The wind's screaming. Your problems look ten feet tall. And the second you look at them instead of looking at Jesus, the second you take your eyes off Him, that's the second you start going under. That's not because you're weak. That's not because you don't have enough faith in God. That's because you're looking at the problem instead of the Promise. You're measuring the storm instead of measuring the One who created the storm.

There's an old saying I heard that stuck with me. Look around and be distressed. Look within and be depressed. But look to Jesus and be at rest. That's the gospel right there. That's everything you need to know. When you look around at the circumstances, the economy, the state of the world, your job situation, your family problems, distress comes. When you look within at your own weakness and your own ability and your own strength, depression comes. But when you look to Jesus? Rest comes. Peace comes. Strength comes. That's it. That's the whole message.

When the writer talks about looking unto Jesus, he uses a Greek word that only appears one time in all of Scripture. One time. It means to stare in awe, in admiration. Not a quick glance. Not a casual look. But to stare. To study. To contemplate His glory. Because the only way you're going to live this Christian life is if you are continually staring into the eyes of Christ and seeing His glory in your life. This isn't something you do once. This is something you do over and over and over again. Every time the fear rises up. Every time the storm gets loud. Every time you feel like you're sinking. You fix your eyes back on Jesus. That's the discipline. You practice it until it's a reflex.

I want to show you something else in that verse. Jesus is called the author and finisher of our faith. That's two different things. He's not just the guy who starts the race and waves at you from the sideline. He's the author. He wrote it. He designed it. He knows the track. He knows every turn, every hill, every straightaway. And He's the finisher. He's going to complete it. He's the one bringing it home. The Bible says in Philippians that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. That's a promise. So don't give up. It's not your job to finish. That's His job. Your job is to keep your eyes on Him and run.

Now let me take you back to something that'll blow your mind. Remember Moses? The guy who had everything. Palace, education, money, power. The guy who might have been the next Pharaoh. Egypt could have been his kingdom. He was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, raised in her house, schooled in Egyptian wisdom, given access to everything. The whole world told him, this is yours, grab it, enjoy it. This is your destiny.

But Moses saw something deeper. He looked at the Israelites in slavery. He saw them beaten and bruised and had nothing. And he made a choice. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. Why would anyone do that? The Bible says he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. He looked to the reward. That's the phrase that changes everything.

That's the key. He realized that everything around him was going to dissolve one day. The palace, the gold, the riches, the power, all of it, gone. But the Israelites had something that wouldn't fade. They had a promise from God. Although they were suffering currently, one day they would be rewarded. One day they would be brought into God's kingdom. And Moses said, that's worth more than all of this. Moses knew that it's not about the immediate advantage. It's about the eternal advantage. He looked to the reward that was coming. He looked to what God promised. And that's what pulled him out of the palace and into the wilderness with God's people.

You're surrounded by people telling you to chase what you can see right now. The house, the car, the diploma, the money, the position, the approval. But listen to what the Bible says. Everything around us is going to dissolve and burn into flames and be destroyed. I'm not saying ignore that stuff. I'm saying don't put all your chips in it. Don't make it your God. Because it's all going to be gone one day. What's going to last is what you do for Christ. What's going to matter in a hundred years is not your bank account. It's not your status. It's not what people thought about you. What will matter is what you did for God's kingdom.

And that's why the writer keeps saying, look unto Jesus. Fix your eyes on Him. Because if you're looking at the temporary, you're sinking. If you're looking at the permanent, you're walking. If you're looking at the problem, you're getting distressed. If you're looking at yourself, you're getting depressed. But if you're looking to Jesus? You're at rest.

Here's what I mean. You're trying to run a race while looking at the obstacles. You're trying to stay above water while staring at the storm. You're trying to hold onto eternal promises while counting temporal treasures. It doesn't work. The moment you take your eyes off Jesus is the moment you start to sink. That's not theory. That's not opinion. That's not my experience. That's what the Word says. That's what Peter learned the hard way, right there on the water.

And I know your storm is loud. I know your pain is real. I know the world around you is sometimes so terrible that it's hard to look anywhere else. The mocking at school. The rejection from family. The pressure to compromise. The fear of the future. The weight of your own failure. I know. But that's exactly when you need to look to Jesus. That's exactly when you need to remember that He endured the cross, despising the shame, because He had joy set before Him. He suffered now for something He would get later. He suffered for you. He looked to the reward. And that reward was you.

The life of faith is a race, and the only way to win it is to keep your eyes on the one who authored it. Lay aside the weights. Strip off the compromise. Don't look at your problems. Don't look at the world. Don't look at your circumstances. Don't look at your weakness. Look to Jesus and be at rest. Because He's the one who will finish what He started in you. That's the promise. That's the race. That's the life you're running.

Chapter 8: When God Makes You Wait

Hebrews 6:10-20; Hebrews 11

Here's a promise nobody wants to hear. The life of faith is going to cost you time. A lot of it. You want to know why most people don't get what God said He'd give them? They quit before they get there. Impatience kills more promises than doubt ever will.

Watch what happens when God gets a hold of a man or woman. He doesn't just hand them the thing right now. There's always waiting involved. The waiting is where faith actually shows up. Anybody can say they trust God when everything's happening on schedule. But when you're standing in the middle of your life and nothing looks like what He promised, that's when faith gets real.

Abraham's got to be the best example of this. The guy got a promise, and then he waited. Not one year. Not five years. Twenty-five years. Think about that. He was already old when God showed up and said, I'm going to give you a son, and a nation from that son, and a land to live in. Picture yourself at that age, watching the years go by. Fifty. Fifty-five. Sixty. Nothing's happening. No kid. No nation. No land. Just time passing.

And here's where it gets hard. Because at some point, impatience will whisper to you that maybe God forgot. Maybe He changed His mind. Maybe you need to help Him out. That's exactly what happened.

Abraham and his wife Sarah, they made a deal. Sarah had a servant girl. She said to Abraham, Look, I can't have kids. You've got to have a son. So here's what we'll do. Go sleep with my servant girl. She'll have the baby, and it'll be our son. It made sense to them. It felt like a solution. So Abraham did it. The servant had a baby boy named Ishmael. And Abraham thought, Great, this is it. I finally got my son. God said I'd have a son and now I do.

But that's not what God meant. God had to tell him again. He said, Abraham, no. Ishmael isn't the son I promised. Next year, Sarah is going to have a kid. And Abraham's response was almost funny. He's like, I already have a son. God. I made one without You. But God was clear. When you get impatient with God because He's not fulfilling your promises the way you want, and you try to do it yourself, it's going to cause problems. Real problems.

That conflict over Ishmael? It's not ancient history. The descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac are still fighting today. Two thousand years later, there's still war in the Middle East because Abraham got impatient. He couldn't wait for God to do what He said. So he took matters into his own hands. And it's still echoing through the world.

But God wasn't done with Abraham. He kept His promise. The next year, Sarah got pregnant. And here's the kicker. Sarah was ninety years old. I'm not talking about just old. I'm talking about physically past the age where that's possible. The Bible doesn't hide this. Sarah even laughed about it when she heard. Standing in the tent, listening to God tell Abraham she was going to have a baby at ninety, she laughed. She knew how bodies work. She knew how years work. But you know what? She believed God anyway. And Isaac was born. It was a miracle. Her body shouldn't have been able to do it, but God did it because He never lies.

That's the thing you've got to understand about waiting. The thing you're waiting for isn't some little thing. It's the thing that breaks the rules. It's the thing that looks impossible. God doesn't wait until you're in your prime to give you a promise. He waits until you're desperate. He waits until there's no other explanation for it except Him.

David learned this the hard way too. He was a kid when a prophet showed up and anointed him king. Just a shepherd boy, the youngest in his family, taking care of sheep. Not even important sheep, his father's sheep. And this prophet poured oil on his head and said, You're going to be king. You're going to rule Israel. And David believed it. He had to. God said it.

But here's what happened next. David got pulled into King Saul's palace. He worked under the very king who was going to lose the kingdom because of his disobedience. Saul figured out eventually that David was going to replace him. So Saul did what scared kings do. He tried to kill David. David became a fugitive. He had a promise from God that he was going to rule Israel, but instead he was running for his life. He lost his home. He lost his wife. He lost everything. He was hunted by special forces, by the military, by a king with resources and power. He was running for his life with nothing.

There were times when David was scared. Times when he was angry. Times when he was doing crazy things during that dark season. Times when he wondered if God had forgotten about him. For years, he ran. Years. But he didn't quit. Here's the thing. He kept going not because he could see the kingdom coming. He kept going because God said it would. That's faith. That's patience. That's what it looks like when you actually believe what God said instead of believing what you see.

And you know what finally happened? He became king. Saul was judged. The kingdom came to David. But here's something that still matters. When David finally got the throne, he didn't get all of it at first. He got half the kingdom. The promise was he'd rule all of Israel. Did that mean God forgot him? Did that mean God changed His mind? No. It just meant the waiting wasn't over yet. But it took more time. More patience. More hanging on. Years later, he got the whole thing. But between the promise and the fulfillment, there was a lot of ground to cover.

So when you're sitting in your hard place right now, when you're waiting for something that seems like it should have come already, think about David. God didn't forget him. God didn't change His mind. God was just stretching his faith like a muscle. The promise came. It just took time.

Here's what the writer of Hebrews says. Do not become sluggish. Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God. That word patience hits different when you're the one waiting. Patience doesn't mean sitting around doing nothing. It means showing up every day and doing the work you know to do, even when you can't see the finish line. It means you don't give up. Giving up is not an option. Not when God's already spoken.

Because here's the security you can lean on. God made a promise to Abraham. And the Bible says this. God determined to show even more abundantly to those who would inherit the promise that His counsel is unchangeable. He confirmed it by an oath. Two immutable, unchangeable things. Why? Because it is impossible for God to lie. When God makes you a promise and swears by Himself, because there is nobody greater for Him to swear by, that oath cannot be broken.

That means when God tells you something, breaking it is not on the table. It's not an option He's holding in reserve. Your promise doesn't rest on whether you feel like it's happening. It doesn't rest on whether anybody else believes in you. It rests on the word of a God who cannot lie.

So what do you do while you're waiting? The writer says, the promises of God are like an anchor. You know what an anchor does. A ship is out in a storm. The wind is tearing at it. The waves are throwing it around. The sea is trying to wreck it. And way down at the bottom, there's an anchor that hits the sea floor. And no matter how bad the storm gets, that anchor holds the ship steady. It keeps the ship from being tossed and turned and taken off course.

That's your hope. While you're waiting, while everything around you looks like chaos, while it feels like nothing's ever going to change, the promises of God are anchored into something solid. They're anchored into His unchangeable character. They're anchored into His inability to lie. And that anchor holds.

So here's what I want you to do. Stop helping God. Stop trying to make the thing happen yourself because you got tired of waiting. Stop making your Ishmael. Just keep going. Keep serving where you are. Keep showing up. Keep being faithful with what's in your hand right now, even if it's not the big thing yet. Keep believing what He said. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Because David's story didn't end with him running. It ended with him on the throne. Abraham's story didn't end with him questioning. It ended with him holding his son at an age when that shouldn't have been possible. Sarah's story didn't end with her laugh of doubt. She believed God anyway, and Isaac was born.

And your story doesn't end with the waiting. The waiting is just the part where your faith gets strong enough to handle what God's actually going to give you. It takes time and it takes patience. But giving up is not an option. Not for you. Not when you've got a God who cannot lie, and promises that are anchored deeper than any storm can shake. No matter how bad the storms get, that anchor holds. You hold on to it. You keep going. And what God said, what He promised, it's coming.

Chapter 9: Faith in the Fire

1 Peter 1; Hebrews 13

Here's what I want you to know before we go any deeper. Where there is Christ, there is hope. That's not just a nice thing to say on a Sunday morning. That's the whole point of what we're talking about when we talk about faith that endures.

I look around at people's lives and I see broken hearts. I see broken homes. I see people struggling with depression like never before. And I know because I'm human and I only see what's on the outside, but the majority of you, the majority of people, are looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places. You turn to medication. You turn to the bottle. You turn to partying, to relationships, to money, to anything that will fill the hole. But here's the honest truth, and you need to hear this: medication can make you better. It can numb the pain. But it cannot, and I'm telling you as a fact, it cannot give you the joy that only Christ can give you. The joy of the Lord is your strength. That's not a slogan. That's the life-line.

You can only find true satisfaction in one place. Not in your career. Not in your money. Not in the person you're dating or the person you're married to. Not in possessions or status or anything else this world is selling. Only in Christ. And that's where faith comes in. Because faith is what anchors you to that hope when everything else is falling apart.

But we need to talk about something that most people don't want to hear. That hope comes with a cost. There's a suffering that comes with faith. And I'm not trying to be dark here. I'm trying to be honest. The Bible is relentlessly honest about this. You cannot experience the glory of Christ without first going through the suffering of Christ. The old preachers used to say it like this: you cannot experience the resurrection power of Christ until you accept the cross of Christ. Jesus made it plain. If anyone wants to follow Me, he must first pick up his cross and follow Me daily. That means dying to what you want. It means living for God.

Look at Abraham. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. He was waiting for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. That's what a pilgrim is. That's what a stranger is. You're not at home here. This earth isn't your home. Your citizenship is in heaven, not Rome. Not America. Not wherever you're standing right now. You're just passing through. You're sojourning on this earth waiting for something better, something real. Something with foundations.

And here's what happens when you live like that. You start looking different to the world. You start acting different. You start talking different. The world notices. 1 Peter 4 says they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of depravity, speaking evil of you. They don't understand you. You're an alien to them.

You know what salt does? It preserves. It keeps things from rotting. But when salt gets in a wound, it burns. That's what you are. You're supposed to be a preserving influence on this sick world. But the moment you stop looking different, the moment you take your directions from Hollywood instead of God's word, you've lost all your effectiveness. You're no longer salt. You're just another grain of sand on a beach that everybody else is standing on. Your life won't make a difference for Christ. You look like everybody else. You sound like everybody else. You've lost your witness.

So when trials come, and they will come, what do you do? You could give up. Or you could do what the early church did. They were being hunted. They were being scattered. They couldn't get jobs. They were losing friends, losing families. Some lost wives. Some lost husbands. And Peter wrote to them not to complain about their situation but to remind them: if you continue on, you will see the glory of Christ. There is a reward for those who stay faithful. Your suffering will lead to glory. But only if your faith holds.

The early church didn't just endure. They rejoiced. Peter told them the trials were actually proving their faith, and that faith is worth more than gold. He said that even in the middle of it, Christ was giving them a joy words can't express, with a hint of the glories of heaven already in it.

Think about that. Real joy. In real persecution. That's not medication. That's not distraction. That's faith. That's a living hope in a living Christ that's stronger than your circumstances. That's partners with Christ in His suffering, which means you're partners with Him in His glory.

Now, most of us in America, we don't know what that looks like. We have religious freedom. We can gather together. We can read the Bible out loud. We take that for granted. But there's a map I want you to know about. It's from a magazine called Voice of the Martyrs. That map is colored in red and yellow. The red marks the places where if you're caught being a Christian, you're killed. Not fired. Not shamed. Killed. Beheaded. Crucified. Burned alive. The yellow marks persecution, imprisonment, underground churches.

That map covers the Middle East. It covers parts of Africa, parts of South America. There are Christians right now, in this moment, meeting underground because if they're found, guerrilla fighters will kick down the door and shoot them or arrest them. Governments are searching for active Christians. The government itself is hunting them. In North Korea, the church is exploding. They're on fire for God. But do you know why? Because they have no choice. You either give God everything or you follow the pattern. Either way, when you're risking your life every day for your faith, you know where you stand with Christ. You can't be half-hearted.

Here's what we need to understand. These aren't distant stories. These aren't people on some other planet. They are part of the same body you're part of. Paul wrote it in 1 Corinthians 12. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. You're not separate. The church isn't an American thing. It's not a building. It's a living organism. It's a body. And when one part of that body is being tortured, the whole body feels it.

Hebrews 13 says this. Remember those who are in prison, as if chained with them. Remember those who are mistreated since you yourselves are also part of the body. You need to be praying for them. Your prayer is the spiritual warfare. It's like the Air Force coming in to help the other branches. While they're hiding in a basement praying in the dark, you're on your knees praying for them. Your prayer is protection. Your prayer is boldness. Your prayer is power they're going to need to face the terrorists, to face the governments, to face their own fear.

And I'm going to be honest with you. When we realize how hard other Christians are trying just to stay alive, it gives us perspective. It makes our complaints sound different. It makes the things we think we can't live without look foolish. If they can face losing their homes, their families, their lives, for Christ, we can take a stand in school. We can be different. We can refuse the bottle. We can stay pure. We can speak up for what's right. We can give up the popularity.

That's what faith in the fire looks like. It's not just in the persecution. It's in the choice. The choice to trust that if you stay faithful, you will see the glory of Christ. The choice to remember that you're not home yet. The choice to be the salt even when it burns. The choice to pray for those suffering, to carry them with you, to be the body even when the body is being attacked.

This is why Peter wrote this letter. Not to make anybody feel good. Not to make suffering sound like a vacation. But to remind them and remind us: you have a living hope. That hope is a real person. His name is Jesus Christ. He's alive. He's sitting at the right hand of the Father. He made it through the suffering. He came out the other side with resurrection power. And that power is available to you. That power is what's going to hold you when everything falls apart. That power is what's going to give you joy in prison. That power is what's going to make you different in a world that hates difference.

Your suffering will lead to glory. But only if you don't let go of the hope. Only if you remember where home really is. Only if you remember that you're a pilgrim, a stranger, just passing through. And only if you stand with the others. All the others. The ones in tents waiting for a city with foundations. The ones in basements praying in the dark. The ones who chose Jesus over everything. That's the body. That's the church. And that's who you are.

Chapter 10: When God Disciplines You

Hebrews 12:3-29

You need to hear this because it's going to change how you see the hard seasons in your life. Here's what the Bible says: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him, for whom the Lord loves He chastens." That word matters. Chastens. Disciplines. And then it gets clearer: "For what son is there whom a father does not chasten?"

Listen. A father disciplines his own children. Not the neighbor's kids. When discipline comes into your life, it's not random suffering. It's not the universe punishing you. It's a father dealing with his son, a father dealing with his daughter. And here's the hard truth some of you need to hear. If you're a Christian and God is disciplining you, it means you belong to Him. It means you're His child. So you need to ask yourself something. Are you going through hard times right now? Is it possible that God is dealing with you because He loves you?

I know that sounds backwards. Discipline doesn't feel like love when you're in the middle of it. But watch what happens next in the passage. The Bible says, "Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." See that word afterward. That's key. In the moment, it destroys you. Later, it strengthens you. That's the difference between a father who loves his child and the world which doesn't care if you grow up at all.

My parents let me get away with whatever I wanted most of the time. I'm going to be honest with you. And that caused problems. Real problems. It caused rebellion in me. It caused an undisciplined nature that took me years to work through. But I remember the times they did discipline me. And it was tough. I was rebellious. I was having a fit, crying, the whole thing. I remember thinking I was in trouble, real trouble. And I remember my dad saying he was going to spank me. The fear was real. I was so scared I didn't want to ask for anything. You know what I mean? You're at the dinner table. You know you're in trouble. There's dessert sitting there. You're like, I'm not asking for that. I'm in trouble. I can't ask for anything right now.

But here's what happened after. I remember screaming and doing what every child does where you're trying to make him think he's getting through to you, right? And then afterward, when it was all done, the Bible says something remarkable happens. It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Those times when my parents did discipline me, they gave me maturity. They taught me which things hurt me. They taught me wisdom about what to avoid.

Now, how do you know if what you're going through is God's loving discipline and not just regular trouble? That's the real question, isn't it? Here's the mark. Hebrews says that if you're without any discipline at all, you're not really a son. So flip that around. If you can sin over and over and nothing ever happens, no conviction, no consequence, nothing, that should scare you. It's a warning sign. God loves His children too much to let them sit in their sin. He doesn't immediately expose everything you're doing. He gives you time to confess it yourself. But don't ever think that His delay means He approves of what you're doing. He doesn't. He's just giving you a chance to turn from it willingly.

I hear God's voice in my life all the time. Let me give you an example. You're driving down the road. The speed limit says 45. Everybody else is going 55, 60, even more. And I hear God's voice saying don't do that. Don't speed. You're my child. But I make an excuse. It's not safe to go the speed limit because everybody else is going faster. So I do it anyway. I put the mute button on. And then, well, you've probably guessed the end. Those fancy blue and red lights show up. And God just reminds you, I love you. And you're sitting there with a huge ticket thinking, yeah, I know. You love me. And that's exactly what it is. God doesn't always bust you right away. But He does because He loves you.

Think about David. The Bible says David sinned. He did something seriously wrong. And when God brought it to his attention, what did David do? He said, "I have sinned against You and You alone, God." He cared about his relationship with God. He repented because he was sorry for breaking God's heart. Not sorry he got caught. Sorry he disobeyed the one he loved.

But then there's Esau. He's a different story. Esau gave up his birthright. The Bible says for one bowl of soup, just a bowl of soup, he traded what God had given him. He gave away God's promise. And later, when his father was about to bless him and Esau couldn't get the blessing he wanted, the Bible says he wept and he cried. He cried with tears. But listen. The passage says, "He found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears." And you need to understand what that means. It doesn't mean Esau couldn't repent. It means he didn't. He wasn't sorry for disobeying God. He was sorry for the consequences. He was crying because he wanted the blessing, not because he broke God's heart. There's a vast difference. That's not repentance. That's just being sorry you got caught. And if you were to let Esau out tomorrow, he'd go right back and do the same thing again. Don't be that person. Don't be somebody who cries about the consequences while your heart stays hard toward God.

The root of bitterness is real. The Bible warns about it. It says, "See that no one falls short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness, springing up, cause trouble." Bitterness is what happens when you go through discipline but you won't accept it as love. You receive it as punishment. You decide God is mean. You decide He's unfair. And that bitterness grows like a root underground, and it poisons everything in your life.

God's people, the nation of Israel, they learned this the hard way. God gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. He blessed them beyond what they could ask for. They came from slavery and He gave them everything. But once they got comfortable, once they got prosperous, they forgot. They forgot their God. They became idolatrous. And God gave them years to turn. He sent prophets. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. These men were telling the people, you're not living right. You need to come back. But the people rejected them. They threw Jeremiah in prison. They killed Isaiah. They didn't want to hear it. And so discipline came. It was severe. It was not pretty. The Assyrians came and besieged their cities. The people were so afraid that some of them committed suicide rather than face captivity. Fathers and sons were killed. It was devastation.

Why would a loving God do that? And the answer is because Israel was supposed to be an example to the world. God knew that if He let His people continue in their rebellion without responding, they would pollute the world with their sin. So the discipline, as brutal as it was, it was meant to save them from themselves. It was chemotherapy to cancer. You catch it early, you cut it out. But it had already spread. So the surgery was severe.

But here's the beautiful part of the story. When the Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem, when they were at the gates ready to destroy everything, the king Hezekiah, he actually repented. He cried out to God. He said, Lord, look at their threats. Lord, help us. Lord, I realize we are wicked. That's why they're here. We're being judged because we're guilty. And do you know what God did? He sent one angel. One angel destroyed 85,000 Assyrian soldiers in a single night. Because Hezekiah repented, God relented on His judgment.

The lesson is clear. If you're going through discipline, repent. Go to God now. Don't wait for the angel to show up. Repent now while there's time. The Bible says we're not promised tomorrow. You could walk out that door and that's the last thing you see before you're gone. So if you hear God's voice, if you know you're in His hand and He's dealing with you, don't harden your heart. Turn to Him today. Make it right today.

Here's the thing about God's fire. The Bible says God is a consuming fire. And fire is interesting because fire acts differently depending on what it's burning. If you throw wood on a fire, it burns it up. But if you put gold in the fire, it refines it. It makes it stronger. It removes the impurities. So God's fire is the same way. If you are a child of God, His fire will form you and mold you and make you stronger. It will sanctify you. It will change you from someone broken into someone whole. But if you're not His child, if you reject what He's done, that consuming fire will destroy you completely. The fire reacts differently to the material it's burning.

That's faith. Faith is receiving the discipline of a loving Father and trusting that what feels impossible now is actually making you into a mature man or woman of God. It's hating the process, sure, but knowing that afterward, the fruit of righteousness comes. It's not growing bitter. It's not deciding God is unfair. It's looking at the pain and saying, God, I trust You. I know this is love.

Chapter 11: Faith Rests on an Empty Tomb

Luke 24; 1 Corinthians 15

Here's what I want you to understand. This is the ground it all stands on. Everything we believe rests on one historical fact: the tomb is empty. Not maybe empty. Not symbolically empty. Actually empty. The body of Jesus Christ was not in that grave, and that changes everything.

Start with the women. Luke 24 tells you they came to the tomb very early in the morning. When I say very early, I mean between three and six in the morning. These weren't weak people showing up when it was convenient. They couldn't sleep. Think about what had just happened. Jesus was arrested. He was crucified. The Roman authorities were looking for his disciples. These women were risking their lives, and they knew it. There was a Roman guard stationed there. Not some casual security. Soldiers. Armed. Their job was to make sure nobody stole the body. The stone sealing the tomb? One to two tons. Thousands of pounds. And here's what amazes me. It says these women had no idea what they would even do when they got there. They didn't analyze it. They didn't sit around saying, "Well, that stone is two tons, and there's a Roman guard, so maybe we shouldn't go." No. They loved Jesus. And love doesn't calculate the obstacles. It just goes.

But here's the thing. They went to anoint a dead body. They brought spices. They expected to find a corpse. They were not expecting resurrection. If someone asks you later whether these women were hallucinating or making this up, remember that. They weren't hoping to see the risen Jesus. They were preparing to anoint the dead.

Then they found the stone rolled away. And the Bible says they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Two angelic figures in shining garments stood there and said something that cuts to the heart of everything. "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

That's not a metaphor. That's not a spiritual interpretation. That's a statement of fact. He is not here. The tomb is vacant. Nothing less than this, nothing, is the pillar of Christianity. This is the solid foundation of which we all believe. Everything. If this one thing isn't true, then everything we do, everything we preach, everything we build on it is empty and worthless. But if that grave was actually empty, if I believe it was, then this changes everything. It means there's hope. It means there's life. It means there can be forgiveness of sin, and you can be set free from whatever bondage you're in.

Now watch what happened next. The disciples didn't believe the women. These were men who had been with Jesus for three years. They were apostles. Commissioned by God. And their response to the best news in history? They thought it was idle tales. A fairy tale. Unbelief has such an empty power. Here's the news of a risen Savior, the most comforting news that could possibly come, and unbelief left them in depression and despair.

But here's what gets me. The disciples had forgotten. Jesus told them. Multiple times. He said the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and crucified and on the third day rise again. He said it in detail. He said he would be captured, betrayed, crucified, that the Jewish leaders would reject him. And you know what the disciples were doing when Jesus was trying to tell them this one huge thing? They were arguing about who was going to be the greatest. While their Master was saying, "I'm going to die and rise on the third day," they were concerned with rank and position. How many times do we have to hear the same message before we get it? Jesus told them. The religious leaders even remembered. The Pharisees listened to Jesus more carefully than his own disciples did. They remembered that he taught in three days he would raise from the dead. That's why they wanted guards at the tomb in the first place.

But the disciples forgot. And when the women told them the tomb was empty, they couldn't believe it. They had heard Jesus say it with their own ears, and they forgot. That's the human condition right there.

Yet the resurrection isn't just a claim. It's historical. Paul spells this out in 1 Corinthians 15, and his argument is blunt. If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is empty too. We would be liars for ever saying God raised Him. You would still be in your sins, and the believers who already died would simply be gone. If our hope in Christ is only good for this life, Paul says, then we are the most pitiful people on earth.

Think about what Paul is saying. The entire faith collapses without the resurrection. Not because we want it to, but because Jesus didn't come to make us feel better about death. He came to conquer it. To actually defeat it. To walk out of the tomb alive on the third day, proven by eyewitnesses. Jesus appeared to them. He appeared to the disciples. He appeared to five hundred people at once. This is how we know this was an actual historical fact, not a legend that grew over time. Eyewitnesses. People who could be questioned. People who had something to lose by lying about it.

Here's the part that hits me personally. I know what depression is. Real depression. I struggled with being called bipolar. I almost committed suicide because I was so out of hope. Out of purpose. I had nothing. And there was one thing that helped me. Not drugs. Not partying. Not money. Not self-esteem. I'm not saying those things don't have their place, but they didn't touch what was broken in me.

It was faith in the risen Savior.

Listen to me. I'm not a doctor. But I can tell you this. When I finally believed that Jesus is alive, when it moved from my head to my heart that he actually rose from the dead, that he's not just a dead teacher in history but the living God who conquered death and can give me purpose and meaning, everything changed. Not instantly. Not magically. I still faced hardships. I still had trials. But I had hope. I had peace. I had a reason to keep living.

Here's something Billy Graham said that I can't get out of my head. Every human has a God-shaped hole inside their heart. Every single one of you. I know this because I tried to fill it. I tried with video games. I tried with a girlfriend. I tried with a job. I tried with education. I tried these things, and yes, for a while they made me happy. But at the end I was longing. I was searching. I sat at my bed and I called out, and I knew there was much more to this. And I know you guys do the same thing.

How do I know? Because Romans chapter 1 says God installed in every human this knowledge that he is real. This knowledge that he is God. You can't escape it.

You can fill that hole with a lot of things temporarily. You can stuff it full. But nothing satisfies except the risen Jesus. That's not opinion. That's lived experience.

The resurrection means something else too. If heaven is real, nothing now matters the way we thought it did. Everything you're worried about, everything you think you need to have happen, sits in a different light when you know for certain that Jesus rose from the dead and is coming back. The disciples realized this when they finally believed. Their fear turned to joy. Their despair turned to hope. Not because circumstances changed, but because they understood what happened in that tomb.

So here's the real question. Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again on the third day? Do you believe it as historical fact, the way you believe any other historical event? Or is it just something you say you believe because you grew up in church?

Because this isn't a matter of feeling. It's not about whether you feel spiritual. It's about whether you accept the testimony of eyewitnesses. Whether you trust that God, who made everything, who spoke the universe into being, can certainly raise a man from the dead after three days. Whether you're willing to look at the historical record and say, "Yes. This actually happened."

That's what faith is when it comes to the resurrection. Not blind faith. Faith based on evidence. Faith that says, "I see the empty tomb, I see the eyewitnesses, I see the transformation of terrified disciples into bold proclaimers willing to die for this truth, and I believe."

And when you believe that, when you truly grasp that Jesus rose from the dead, it changes how you live. It changes what you're afraid of. It changes what you think matters. Because if Jesus rose from the dead, then the God you're serving is not limited by death. He's not limited by anything. And you can trust him with the thing you're scared of right now. You can trust him with the future. You can trust him with your life.

That empty tomb. That's where faith rests. Not on feelings. Not on wishful thinking. On the historical, documented, testified resurrection of Jesus Christ. And on what that means for anyone who believes it.

Chapter 12: Guard Your Faith

1 Timothy 4; 2 Timothy 2

Your faith gets seduced away. Not all at once. Slowly. Through what you watch, hear, and swallow without thinking. The Scripture says in 1 Timothy 4:1, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons."

The word there is seducing. Not just deceiving. Seducing. Like a slow pull away from God that feels almost harmless at first. This is what Paul is warning Timothy about, and it's what he's warning us about too.

Here's the thing about deception: it doesn't come at you with horns and a pitchfork. Satan appears as an angel of light. He looks good. He sounds good. His ministers look like good guys. They're full of charisma, full of energy, and they lead people astray the same way Satan himself led a third of the angels out of heaven. It's smooth. It's professional. It's persuasive.

And it's everywhere.

The deception can be found on your phone, it can be found on your TV, it can be found in your movies, it can be found in your music, it can be found at your school, it can be found with your friends and even your family. If you're not careful, this deception is going to take you over. When you turn on Netflix, it seems like no matter what you watch, there's some demonic teaching buried inside of it. There's a teaching that all roads lead to God, that God's not really real, that marriage isn't a thing and that you should have sex without marriage. All of this stuff is in our shows and in our music and on our TVs.

And here's what happens. You spend a whole day watching instead of reading your Bible. You spend a whole day listening to music instead of praying to God. You spend a whole day watching a TV show that isn't edifying, isn't what God would want you to watch, instead of worshiping. You spend a day sleeping in instead of coming to service. And as you start to not have an appetite for Bible study, you don't feel like worshiping anymore, you don't feel like praying anymore.

There's an old saying: the Bible will keep you from sin, but sin will keep you from the Bible.

That's the cycle. As you let these deceptive things come into your heart, you tend to not want Scripture anymore. You tend to not want God's word anymore. That's when you're in real danger. Because feeding your faith on Scripture is how you protect it. It's how you strengthen it against the seduction.

Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:6-7 to be "nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed." He's not talking about cramming facts into your head. He's talking about meditating on God's word until it changes you. Really changes you, down to the core of who you are. The Bible says in Psalm 1 that the man who meditates on the law of God day and night is like a tree planted by water that yields its fruit in season. That's what happens when you actually feed your faith.

Now here's the hard part. Shaping your faith right is tougher in times of prosperity than in times of persecution. During the Roman Empire, 6 million Christians were killed. Burned alive. Thrown to the lions. Sawed in half. But during those times of persecution, the church didn't shrink. It grew. Why? Because when you're facing a gun, you have to make a choice. You have to decide if Jesus is real to you or if He's not. You get serious.

But when we're in prosperity? When we can go home and just do whatever we want? When our Christianity is tested and no one's forcing us to take God seriously? That's when we leave. That's when the seduction works. You can live for God half-heartedly and it's okay. You can come to church Sunday morning and live for Him, raise your hands and sing, and Sunday night do something completely against God. There's no penalty for it. Not one you can see at the moment.

And this is where the young people get hit the hardest. Teenagers once they finish youth ministry, once they advance out of the high school age, for the most part they leave the church. Why? They've been seduced. Satan targets you guys because you're the next leaders, the next generation. The old people already made their choice, but you guys are still making a choice. And his number one goal is to get you guys and seduce you into the culture. To make you think that counter-cultural faith doesn't matter. That standing alone doesn't matter. That what the Bible says is less important than what your friends think.

But let me tell you what faith is supposed to do in times like this. In 2 Timothy 2:8-9, Paul gives Timothy a battle cry. He says, "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evil doer, even to the point of chains. But the word of God is not chained."

Think about that. The word of God is not chained. You can be chained. Your circumstances can be chained. Your freedom can be taken. But God's word? It keeps going. It keeps working. It keeps changing lives.

Because when you really grasp that Jesus suffered, was rejected, was left behind by His friends, was deserted, whipped, beaten, and then He rose again, you start to see something. Suffering leads to glory. Seeming defeat leads to victory. If Jesus went through the cross and came out on the other side, what can stop you? What deception is strong enough to pull you away from that?

Here's what Paul says to do: you have to be an example. You have to be a worker who rightly handles the word of truth. In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul tells Timothy, "The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." This isn't just about you believing right. It's about you living it in a way that makes other people want it too.

In 1 Timothy 4:12 Paul tells him, don't let anyone look down on you because you're young. Instead, be an example to the believers, in the way you talk, the way you live, in love, in faith, in purity. When you guys actually take God seriously, you have a fire that adults can't seem to get anymore. When you're on fire for God, giving Him 110 percent because you're not burdened by so many other things of the world yet, that's powerful. That's contagious. That makes people want what you have.

But there's a requirement. You have to meditate on Scripture. Not just read it. Meditate on it. Let it sink in. Let it change the way you think. Moses spent 40 days on the mountain communing with God until his face literally glowed when he came down. That's what happens when you spend time with God. You glow. You change. People see it.

And you have to understand the stakes. Being a Christian in this age of deception is like being a soldier. It's constant warfare. The moment you decide to follow Jesus, Satan puts a bullseye on your back. He's going to try everything to discourage you, depress you, make you want to quit. If he can take out a Christian leader, he takes out more than one person. So you have to be ready. You have to know what you believe and why you believe it.

Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:10-11, "For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God. These things command and teach." There's a promise in 2 Timothy 3:12 that "all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." Not might suffer. Will suffer. But you have to endure it. You have to know that as you endure with boldness and courage, people will come to know Jesus as they watch you go through the fire.

Your faith doesn't get protected by accident. It doesn't stay strong because you wish it would. You guard it the same way a soldier guards his post. With attention. With discipline. With Scripture.

In 1 Timothy 4:13-16, Paul tells him to give himself to reading, to teaching, to sound doctrine. Meditate on these things, he says. Give yourself wholly to them, and keep a close watch on your own life and on what you teach, because in doing that you will save both yourself and the people who hear you.

That's the call. Guard your faith by feeding it on the word. Stand counter-cultural even when nobody else will. Be an example to believers that Jesus is worth everything. And remember: the word of God is not chained. It will accomplish what it's meant to accomplish. If you give it room to work in your life, to change you, to shape you, you'll never be the same.

Chapter 13: Faith That Finishes the Race

Hebrews 11-12; 2 Timothy 2; Philippians 1:6

The Christian life is a race, but not the kind you're picturing. The goal isn't to beat everybody else to the line. The goal is to finish, and to do as much for Jesus as you possibly can on the way there. Picture Him standing at the end of it, waiting for you. The whole point is to run hard enough that you cross that line having spent everything you had on Him.

And here's the first thing to know about a race. You know that all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. Everyone who competes for it is disciplined. Temperate in all things. Focused. They train, they deny themselves, they push. And they do all of that for what? A perishable crown. A trophy that sits on a shelf and collects dust and fades. Now think about that, and then think about what you're running for. You're not running for a trophy that fades. You're running for a crown God gives you for all of eternity. So if an athlete will pour out his whole life for a piece of metal that rusts, how much harder should you and I run for a reward that never ends?

Let me give you a picture of what running hard actually looks like. Think about a farmer. He's up before the sun breaks. He's still working long after the sun goes down. He breaks up the dirt, he feeds the animals, he works that field until his back aches, all so there'll be a good crop at harvest. And here's what Scripture says about him. The hardworking farmer is the first to partake of the crops. The one who worked hardest eats first.

That's the picture for you. If you choose to work hard for God, if you stay up late studying your Bible, if you drag yourself out of bed early before school to spend time with Jesus, if you give up the passing pleasures of sin for a season, you are going to be first to partake in the harvest of eternity. God will reward faithfulness. There's a crown waiting. There's glory waiting. It is not wasted, not one bit of it.

But now hear the hard part, because there's a flip side. When you compete in a tournament, there are rules. And if you get caught breaking them, it doesn't matter how well you were doing. It doesn't matter if the whole crowd is wearing your jersey and screaming your name. Caught cheating, caught breaking the rules, you're disqualified. Done. No crown. No prize.

That's the warning for the Christian too. There are things that might not keep you out of heaven, but they will disqualify you from doing the work of God in any powerful way. They'll mark you. They'll scar your life. They are just not worth it in the end. That's why Paul says the Christian soldier doesn't get himself tangled up in the affairs of this world. A soldier on duty doesn't get distracted by civilian life. He stays focused, because he wants to please the one who enlisted him. You've been enlisted. So run like it, and don't get tangled up in things that will take you out of the race.

There's a story that has stuck with me for years. A man once said to D.L. Moody, one of the great evangelists, "The world has yet to see what God can do with a man who is completely sold out and dedicated to Him." And Moody heard that and said, "I want to be that man." I want to be that man too. I want to be so completely handed over to Jesus that I get to partake in the first fruits of the harvest. And you should want it too. Not half your heart. Not most of your heart. All of it. The half-hearted don't finish this race. The all-in do.

Now, some of us signed up thinking the Christian life was going to be comfortable. That if we were doing it right, everything would go easy. That is not what the Bible says. It says the opposite. It says suffering comes before glory, every time. That's the paradox at the center of the whole thing. It sounds backwards, and it's true. Look at Jesus, the ultimate example. He went through rejection. He went through betrayal by His own friends. He went through the cross, one of the cruelest ways to die that human beings ever invented. And three days later He walked out of the grave. Suffering, then glory. That's the pattern, and it's your pattern too. If you'll endure the hard part, if you'll run hard and finish, you are going to see the glory of God. You're going to stand in front of Him one day and hear the words every believer is running toward: well done, good and faithful servant.

So you can't stop running because you're tired. You can't stop because it got hard. You can't stop because people mock you or the whole culture is telling you to quit. Here's what holds you when your legs are burning. You are not the one who has to finish this. Jesus is. Philippians 1:6 says it plain, that He who began a good work in you will complete it. He started it. He carries it. He's the beginning and the end. It is His job to bring you across that line, and He does not fail. So your job isn't to somehow finish on your own strength. Your job is to keep running and not quit, and let the One who started the work bring it home.

The stands are always full of people who never run. Spectators. Critics. People who watch and comment and go home. Faith doesn't sit in the stands. Faith laces up, gets on the track, and runs with everything it has, all the way to the line.

So get rid of the weight. Give it everything. Run with endurance. And finish the race.

Invitation: How to Actually Believe

Romans 10:9

There's a hole in every human heart, and it's shaped like God.

You already know it's there, because you've spent your life trying to fill it. Billy Graham used to call it the God-shaped hole, and only God fits it. But we try everything else first, don't we. You fill it with a nice car, a relationship, a paycheck, a screen. It's like that little kids' toy where you have to put the shapes through the matching slots. You take the circle and you try to force it through the triangle hole, and if you push hard enough you can jam it partway, but it never really goes, and something breaks. That's what all of it is. You keep cramming the wrong shape into the one space only God was ever going to fill.

So maybe you've read this whole book about faith. You've heard what it is and what it looks like to live it. And it's possible you've never once actually put your faith in Jesus for yourself. If that's you, this is the most important page in the book, so slow down here.

Here's the good news, and it's the same good news the whole book has been circling. It is not a checklist. You do not have to clean yourself up first, string together a good week, and then come. You will never be good enough that way, and it was never the plan. The way in is simple, and it's immediate.

Romans 10:9 says it in one sentence. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That's it. Confess Him. Believe He rose. And in that moment you make the trade this whole book has been pointing at. You look at the cross and you say, that should have been me, and you take His place, and He takes yours. His perfect record becomes yours. Your sin, all of it, was already dealt with on that cross.

If you're ready, you don't need fancy words. You can pray something like this, and mean it.

God, I know that should have been me on that cross. I believe Jesus took my place, that He died and rose again the third day. I can't earn You and I'm done trying. I'm putting my faith in Jesus. Be my Lord and my Savior. Fill this hole that only You can fill. In Jesus' name, amen.

If you prayed that and meant it, then hear me. You are not saved because you stood up or said the right words. You're saved because you finally stopped trusting yourself and put your whole weight on Jesus. Now do the one thing the whole book keeps saying. Don't try to walk it alone. Find other believers, get in the Word, and keep going. The One who started this in you today is the One who promised to finish it.

Welcome home.