Latest / Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris / 04 27 2024 Faith Against All Odds

Transcript

04 27 2024 Faith Against All Odds · Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris

• 0:01
  Most of us eat every day, some of us too much, because yesterday's
• 0:05
  food is not enough to supply energy for today's needs. Why then, do
• 0:10
  some of us expect yesterday's portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to
• 0:15
  keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going to change
• 0:19
  all of that. Let's experience God's words today and receive the power we need
• 0:25
  to live healthy, vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,
• 0:31
  author speaker, Elle David Harris. Good morning, good morning, Good
• 0:34
  morning. It is Sabbath, April twenty seven, twenty twenty four. Hello,
• 0:40
  my name is Elle David Harris. I am your host, and this
• 0:42
  is your Daily Portion where we give you God's word every single day, and
• 0:47
  today is no exception. We are continuing in our Lesson study series, the
• 0:51
  Great Controversy. This is Lesson number five, that's week number five. Our
• 0:55
  caption for this Sabbath morning is faith against all odds, Faith against all odds.
• 1:03
  We'll get into that in just a moment, but first I'd like to
• 1:06
  say welcome to you and ask you to police go over to your Daily Portion
• 1:08
  dot com, please join our online community, and then also let us know
• 1:14
  where you are in the world at your daily portion dot com. This is
• 1:19
  a way that we continue to build faith and fellowship. Let's go ahead and
• 1:23
  pray and then we will get underway. Father and Heaven, thank you for
• 1:26
  giving us this faith that we cannot fail if we are connected to you.
• 1:32
  Father, I ask you now to help us to be holy, because you're
• 1:36
  holy. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amen again. Faith
• 1:42
  against all odds. Now, you, obviously, if you're a person of
• 1:47
  faith, have an inkling about what this could be like. Faith against all
• 1:51
  odds, faith against maybe losing your job if you don't comply with something that's
• 1:56
  not holy. You're like, come on, Dave, who does that?
• 1:59
  Like nobody loses the job that way. Well, let me just say really
• 2:01
  quickly, right, twenty eight years ago or so, I was a manager,
• 2:07
  Right, I was a manager, a young manager and a new believer.
• 2:12
  And I remember that my boss wanted me to give a report that was
• 2:17
  going to the state and to change details. And I just say that really
• 2:23
  quickly, to change details. And I had to go and I actually wrote,
• 2:30
  I put it in writing. I put it in writing, and I
• 2:32
  said, I cannot do that because that would be lying. I'm not willing
• 2:39
  to do that. And if that means that I can no longer work here,
• 2:44
  like if that is the culture of this place, then I guess I
• 2:47
  have to go. And I needed the job, y'all. Like it wasn't
• 2:51
  that I that I had like a big nest egg sitting around or was independently
• 2:54
  wealthy and I didn't need the work. Of course I needed the work.
• 2:58
  I was new to the psyche. And thank god, thank god, I
• 3:01
  didn't lose my job. But even if I had, I needed to have
• 3:06
  faith against all odds. And you have your stories. There are some that
• 3:08
  are even more dire than simply losing a job over truth or lies. But
• 3:15
  would ever challenge that God allows us to experience. We must stand firm no
• 3:23
  matter what I think we understand now, So the Bible reads here in the
• 3:28
  Book of Psalms, the Book of Psalms, chapter one hundred and nineteen.
• 3:31
  In fact, in fact, it asks in that same chapter like how shall
• 3:37
  how shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed? Thereunto according to
• 3:43
  thy word? And then in verse eleven, the Bible says, your word,
• 3:47
  have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.
• 3:53
  So the only reason I knew the right path to take, the only reason
• 3:58
  I could have any inkling of faith that would stand up in the face of
• 4:03
  trial, is because of God's word. He has put his word in the
• 4:08
  hearts of the people who are yielding our will to him. He promised that
• 4:13
  he would write his laws in our hearts and on our minds. Yes,
• 4:16
  so that we could live according to his principles. And of course we have
• 4:20
  a certain context. We're still looking at the Reformation, more than five hundred
• 4:26
  years ago, the Protestant Reformation, and the Lesson writer points out that the
• 4:31
  Protestant Reformers had something the twenty first century desperately needs. What was that Paster
• 4:39
  Finley a purpose for their lives. In his book The Empty Self, renowned
• 4:45
  American psychologist Philip Cushman discusses people who live purpose less lives. Their beliefs are
• 4:54
  shallow, little for of real significance matters to them, and they they have
• 5:00
  nothing worth dying for. So they have little worth living for, little worth
• 5:06
  living for. But men, women, and children of the Protestant Reformation were
• 5:13
  dramatically different. They had an abiding purpose worth living for. What they believed
• 5:19
  mattered, and they were not willing to compromise their integrity. Their core beliefs
• 5:26
  were an inseparable part of them. To deny these beliefs was to deny their
• 5:32
  very identity, and the face of death itself, they had inner peace.
• 5:41
  I think the Bible says of people like these, people like these that they
• 5:46
  they overcame the devil by the blood of the land. Yes, and by
• 5:51
  the word of their testimony. They loved not their lives, even to the
• 5:56
  point of death. And so God is saying that no matter what is going
• 6:00
  on in your life, he will be with you, brothers and sisters.
• 6:02
  It doesn't have to seem dire, it doesn't have to be a fearful thing.
• 6:08
  But we know that in whatever challenge or trial or tribulation we experience,
• 6:11
  whatever temptation we experience, that God is with us. How do we know
• 6:15
  because He promised. Jesus said, I'll always be with you until the end
• 6:18
  of the world. He said he will never leave us. Neither will he
• 6:23
  forsake us. Even if we're having challenges in our actual households, our parents,
• 6:29
  God forbid. Huh. If you're a young person and you're having a
• 6:32
  challenge your parent wants you to do something that is unholy, and they are
• 6:36
  giving you dire consequences. Stand in faith knowing that God is with you.
• 6:45
  If you have a spouse in the same circumstance, stand in faith knowing that
• 6:50
  the Lord is with you. If God forbids you live somewhere where the civil
• 6:55
  law is in conflict with the law of God, stand with your loin's gird
• 7:00
  about with truth. Stand on the truth of God's word. And Jesus promised
• 7:04
  that he would be with you. I think Daniel would a test to saying
• 7:09
  the three young men Hannah and Ayah, Michel, Azariah, ha Joseph would
• 7:13
  a test to the same, and so many others, even highlighted in the
• 7:16
  Book of Hebrews chapter eleven, would a test to the same. And so
• 7:21
  here are a series of thought questions. Right, why is it important to
• 7:27
  find joy in God's word? Why is it important to find joy in God's
• 7:33
  word? Because really, the Psalm is said in verse one hundred and sixty
• 7:36
  two of the Book of Psalms, chapter one nineteen, I rejoice in your
• 7:42
  word or your instructions like one who finds much plunder, meaning a treasure ha
• 7:49
  conquering people for treasure, like I rejoice in your instructions. What yes,
• 7:56
  So we need to cherish God's word deeply. We can ask him to teach
• 8:00
  us to do that and let it be a source of our joy and strength
• 8:05
  as valuable as treasure. Here's another question, how does the Holy Spirit influence
• 8:11
  our understanding of truth? The Bible reads in verse thirteen of John chapter sixteen.
• 8:18
  But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide
• 8:22
  you into all truths. So we're not making up truth. We're not having
• 8:26
  to research and become people with PhDs in truth and defend a dissertation on truth.
• 8:33
  God is saying, no, the Holy Spirit is going to teach you
• 8:37
  the truth about you, which is that you're miserable, poor, blind,
• 8:39
  naked, and don't even know it, by the way, hah. And
• 8:43
  the truth about him that he is holy. He is holy one hundred percent
• 8:46
  of the time, and he loves you despite the fact that you're miserable,
• 8:50
  poor, blind, naked and don't even know it. And he is transforming
• 8:54
  the lives of people just like us so that we can be guided through and
• 8:58
  by the Holy Spirit into the paths of righteousness. And of course there's so
• 9:03
  many other things I could ask, but this is another one. Why can't
• 9:07
  we earn salvation through our own efforts? I think I answered that already by
• 9:13
  saying we're miserable, poor, blind, naked, and don't even know it
• 9:16
  spiritually speaking, and so we're not trying to earn brownie points. We are
• 9:22
  saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves. It is the
• 9:26
  gift of God, not of works, lest any one of us should boast.
• 9:31
  So we're not able to boast and say, God owes us salvation,
• 9:33
  He owes us eternity with him because we did good. No no no no
• 9:37
  no, no no no. We have the kind of faith against all odds,
• 9:41
  because of the power of God unto salvation and our thanks for joining us
• 9:46
  listening to friends. Always remember we cannot live by bread alone, but by
• 9:50
  every word that comes from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
• 9:54
  portion with el David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,