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Trusting God | Hebrews 11:4-7 · Bayside Davis Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bayside Davis Podcast.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are now listening to our current teaching series in the Book of Hebrews.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: This weekend is one that marks our calendar as a church across Bayside.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every year to start out the year, we have a spiritual growth weekend.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: A weekend that every year we give out a little card that is on your seat.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is what we've been praying about, our verse of the year.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And our verse of the year this year comes from John chapter 14, verse 12, as we embark on a really important year at Bayside, and this verse says, Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And on the back of the card, this is a weekend that we start the year intentionally committing to seeking God by faith.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And every year we give three spiritual practices taught in Scripture that we encourage all of our churches across Bayside to just put your heart it, put a heart of commitment to and watch what God does in your life.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, a daily time with God if you're looking at this card.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, and well, nobody does a weekly tithe to God.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you do, that's amazing, but a monthly tithe to God.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then number three, weekly fellowship with God's people, being regularly involved in fellowship.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, spending time with God every day.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It will change your life through prayer, through scripture.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Giving to God's work, investing in eternity.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Bible is great.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the word tithe means 10%.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is great.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you get 90, God gets 10.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great deal.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then being regularly involved in fellowship, meaning you're a part of a local church, you realize this is such an important rhythm spiritually in your life that you're committing to week by week.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It will change your life.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I came to Jesus, didn't go to church, you know, my early part of following Jesus in high school.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I started to go to church, it radically changed my life.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You need this, I need this, we all need this.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, we also have some other things that are happening.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about 21 days of prayer and fasting as we lead up to one of the biggest years in the history of Bayside.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bayside's been in existence for 30 years.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have 10 churches.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're planning more churches in the near future.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about that starting in February, where we launch a compassion and vision campaign where together across all of our churches, we look forward to what is the next 30 years of Bayside.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: God has done amazing things, but we are anticipating that God is going to do much more and that the best is yet to come.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then we launch our winter internship, amazing, over, I think 30 people, and then rooted is coming up.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we have all of these things as opportunities.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Listen close.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Opportunities for you to grow in your faith and seek God by faith this year.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would summarize as we kick off 2026 that 2026 is a year where we are encouraging all of us to trust God and to dedicate this year by growing in your faith.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many opportunities as we mark this year for you to grow in your faith.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we happen to be in Hebrews chapter 11.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 11 being the hall of faith, the Old Testament examples of God's people that we get to emulate their faith.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: We get to read their stories and hear their narratives and read about these notable examples of people who trusted God even in the midst of the most difficult situations.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, Bernice kicked this off, verses one through three last week.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning we're gonna look at three stories, three narratives, notable examples of faith from the early parts of the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible for you who are new to Jesus, new to the church, a people post-the creation story who trusted God and we get to emulate their life.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice three different characters and how we can follow their story, their narrative of faith.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is in verse 4, the faith of Abel.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: The faith of Abel.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Abel had a worshipping faith.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: A worshipping faith.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Notice verse 4.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, he was commended as righteous.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: When God spoke well of his offering, and by faith, the third time it says that, Abel still speaks even though he is dead.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Cain and Abel's offering story is told in Genesis chapter 4.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You got Genesis 1 and 2, the creation story.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter 2, the story of the fall when humans decided they wanted to do what was contrary to God, they wanted to disobey God, walk away from God's authority and blessing and flourishing that God created them to exist in.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have Genesis chapter 4, we begin to see the undoing of the good design of God in humanity.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you begin with Cain and Abel's story, and it's really a story of worship in two different ways.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to notice in verse 4, you can mark this in your Bible.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the term better.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from a Greek term polos, and it means it's a higher quality, it's superior in nature.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was better than kind of like MJ versus all other basketball players in history.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's just of a higher, superior quality.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like whatever AI you use, Claude, Grok, ChatGBT, the reason you chose that is because you think they're better than other AIs.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: What is the point of God weighing out these two offerings?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't all offerings to God good?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want you to understand the narrative of this story.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you go back to Genesis chapter 4, first book in the Bible, and you look at verse 3, there's a couple important phrases that help us to begin to understand what God is saying here.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 3 of Genesis chapter 4, it tells us that Cain brought some of the fruits to God.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is really important.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's no indication that Cain's offering was the first or the best of what he had.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: He just brought some to God.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is much like human history.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cain did not worship by faith.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't have a genuine heart that trusted and worshiped God.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: He was religious without faith.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like when Jesus came on the scene in the first century in Israel.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: The people that Jesus spoke out again strongly were not the people living wild, sinful lives.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus hung out with those people, and those people were drawn to Jesus.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting to me.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus gave them hope of redemption and forgiveness and changed life.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: They loved to be around Jesus.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: The people that Jesus opposed most was the religious system of the day who had an outward appearance of religiosity without a heart of faith and devotion to God.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: This was Cain.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cain was like the Pharisees and the Sadducees in Jesus' day.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to do something religious, but just for the outward view, not because he inwardly loved God.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: But also, notice in verse 4, Genesis chapter 4, verse 4.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Abel, verse 4, brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's really important language.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: His offering was the first and the best of what he had.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Cain, just some of the fruits, outward appearance, no faith in God.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Abel, God, I'm bringing you the best of what I have.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Abel's heart is the reality of a heart that is devoted and dependent on God.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he was worshiping God by faith by giving God the very best of what he had.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had a genuine heart that trusted and worshiped God.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we want to be like.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: We want to give God our best.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We want to trust God with all parts of our life.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is even part of our card that we give out every year, that we would just trust God with all of our life, with our daily time that we would seek Him, with our monthly tie that we would give out of generosity to Him, that we would be regularly involved in worship, that we would wake up on Sunday morning with enough time to eat breakfast and get to church and realize that this is a priority for our lives.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: That we wouldn't be like, oh, I gotta sleep in.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, last year, uh one of the star basketball players, Sydney, who started four years on the team, she's still famous.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now she's a coach.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: She went from a D1 four-year starter to coaching, and I got to do the chapel for her team down in Southern California.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's doing amazing things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it was remarkable to me that all four years of her playing basketball, she would be on a trip, she'd get home really late on Saturday, and she never missed church ever.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because she realized that for her, this was a priority for her life.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And she was one of the most influential examples of following Jesus on the university campus.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I told her, and I told her whole team, and I was like, man, there's a big hole like that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these athletes need to fill because you had such a spiritual example that you set on campus.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we make priority because we're devoted to God and we realize these things are important in our life.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: The great pastor John, or we would know him as Apostle John, who wrote 1 John chapter 3, verse 12, he said, Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: His heart was not right with God and murdered his brother.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And why did he murder him?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we see back to Hebrews chapter 11, when he says, And by faith Abel speaks even though he is dead.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, Wesley, I've never read this story.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Fill me in.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they both offer an offering.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: God accepts the real, genuine offering from Abel and rejects the fake, false pretense offering from Cain.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so Abel, he was motivated, stirred up to evil and unchecked anger and hatred and jealousy, and he plotted and premeditated to murder his brother.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Family drama starts out in the very beginning of human history when people decided to walk away from God.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And one brother murders his other brother.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Cain murders Abel.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: One writer said, the more you think about Cain's sin, the more heinous it becomes.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: The murder wasn't motivated by a sudden passion, it was carefully premeditated.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Cain didn't kill a stranger in defense, he murdered his own brother out of envy and hatred.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, Cain did after being at the altar to worship God, and in spite of God's warning and promise.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, once the horrible deed was done, Cain took it all very lightly and tried to lie his way out of it.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Cain killed his brother, but Abel's testimony of worshiping God by faith is still an example for us today.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: The narratives, the stories in the Bible are so proud powerful because these were living, breathing people that we read about and we look at Genesis chapter 4, and we still learn and are inspired by these stories today.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Stories are the language of human history.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: We all relate to narrative, we all relate to stories, and the Bible is full of stories of what not to do and full of stories of what to do.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Cain is what not to do, Abel is what to do, that we get to emulate his story by faith.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is the power of the word of God.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't just people in history, these are people in history that trusted God.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are people in history that the word, the living word of God, this book that's not just a normal book, this is not a dead book, this book is alive and it speaks to us today.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know this is really important.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Abel foreshadows Jesus.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like Abel, Jesus was persecuted by the religious system.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they, the religious system, worship out of outward show and not inward worship.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can I encourage you in 2026?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you come to church, when you open up your Bible, when you pray, don't do it for an outward show.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it to be able to say, Oh yeah, I did this to my friends or whatever.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do it because you have a heart that trusts the living God.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like Abel, Jesus was persecuted by the religious system.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like Abel, Jesus was killed unjustly on the cross.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Abel not only is an example for us, but Abel is foreshadowing the reality of Jesus.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible, all of the Bible points us to Jesus.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: The faith of Abel, a worshiping faith.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Notice in verses five and six the faith of Enoch, a walking faith.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: He could not be found because God had taken him away.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And without faith, it is impossible to please God.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, what is that?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cain and Abel's story, Genesis 4, Enoch's story, Genesis chapter 5.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let me read it to you, Genesis 5, 22 through 24.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be awesome?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked faithfully with God, and then he was no more, because God took him away.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was taken from this life.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It means to convey from one place to another.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was taken up from earth to heaven in a miraculous way.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason being, in this particular, this isn't a normative reality.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: This only happened a few times in scripture, but it was foreshadowing something we're going to get to in a second.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that God took him up and that he did not experience death, verse 5, is because Enoch walked faithfully with God.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Enoch walked faithfully with God and pleased God.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a beautiful example for us.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love what C.S.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis wrote.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: He said to have faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that Christ says.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: There would be no sense of saying you trusted a person if you did not take his advice.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, Lord, I believe in you.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now what do I do?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I start reading the scriptures and studying the scriptures and learning the scriptures on Monday, on Tuesday, and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday and then on Sunday morning.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I begin one by one.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it all at once, and this is long obedience in the same direction over a lifetime.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it all at once.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But one by one I start to put these things I'm learning into obedience.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I trip up and I fall and I fail and I get back up and I keep pursuing a life of obedient faith to Jesus.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you do that over an entire lifetime.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you do it imperfectly like all of us, but you do it with a heart of devotion and faith, and you grow in your faith with God.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: According to James, the book of James, faith is not just something we believe in, it is also something we live and do.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Enoch walked with God by faith, meaning he lived out the way of God, he lived out the truths of God, he lived out the design of God for his life.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea here is that Enoch was taken from heaven or taken from earth to heaven miraculously.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is an Old Testament picture of what?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Resurrection.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch foreshadows Jesus.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Enoch, Jesus was taken from heaven to earth.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: He resurrected and ascended into heaven.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of this is pointing to Jesus.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: That Jesus, like Abel, would die unjustly.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: But like Enoch, he would rise.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: God would vindicate and validate him in his resurrection.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: He would rise again from the grave miraculously.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And notice what verse 6 says, and without faith, it is impossible to please God.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the anatomy of faith mentioned here.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Three things that you should write down.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, faith brings us into a relationship with God.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the starting point, it's the entry point.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: You are made right with God by faith.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You are reconciled to God by faith.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful thing about faith is that faith shows you and me that God desires to be in a relationship with us.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you get to make the choice whether you trust him or not.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: You might be sitting here today and you're new to church.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: You might be sitting here today and you don't know Christ and this is all new to you.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: You might be new to Jesus.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is the reality.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: God is inviting you to trust him.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: God is inviting you to enter into relationship with him.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: He desires a relationship with you, and faith bridges that chasm.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: You are trusting in God, and through trusting in God, you are made right with God, and you have a relationship with Jesus for all of eternity.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to believe in him.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have to put your trust in his son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross and rose again to forgive you and make you right with God in all your imperfection and all your stains and all your wanderings and all your failures and all your shame and all your guilt.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to forgive you through his son, Jesus Christ.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's good news, somebody.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is good news on this Sunday morning because all of us come here and we're like, we are broken, God.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: We are imperfect, we've failed, we've tripped up, we've messed up this week.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we come here with the reminder that your sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, faith believes that God exists.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: A foundational belief in God leads to a life of faith.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have to believe that God is real and The beautiful thing, if you're studying what's happening in Western culture, there's a return to God in Western culture.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you might say, why is there a return to God?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel of secularism was found to be not what people expected.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: It promised what it could not offer.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Secularism can never give our soul true meaning and peace.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the kids?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're having fun.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Tristan, he helps lead the first through fifth.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's usually in there.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing a great job, by the way.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he gets to be in service today, filled up.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to know like you can go the route of secularism.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can go the anti-God route, and you can do it for as long as you want, but 10, 20 years down the road, you're gonna figure out it is an empty pursuit, it's a false religion.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Secularism is an anti-God.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's saying, I'm better than God.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need God.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: You do need God.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you're here.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why a massive collection of people in Western culture are returning to God because they realize the gospel of secularism can never give me what my soul truly longs for.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Faith believes that God exists.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, faith believes that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: A life of faith in pursuing God and God's ways will not go unnoticed and unrewarded by God.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: God's promises will be fulfilled because they're certain.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: In God's timing, all his promises for your life will be rewarded, will come to fruition.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the part of it is that God's timing is different than our timing, right?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're like, well, well, God, why haven't you showed up?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you fulfilling your promises?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because part of our job is to trust him.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And part of our job is to know that he knows all things and he is all wise in our life.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we walk by faith with God.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then verse 7, by faith, Noah, when warned about things yet not seen in holy fear, built an ark to save his family.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Notice number three, the faith of Noah, a working faith.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: The faith of Enoch, a walking faith, and the faith of Noah, a working faith.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is Genesis 6 through 9.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he's basically going through the first three stories of the Old Testament.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: To help you understand this story, here's the context.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 6, 1 through 8 tells us that the earth was comprehensively and entirely wicked.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like pervasively wicked and evil.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 6, 9 through 10 tells us that in the midst of that wickedness, Noah was righteous, blameless, and walked faithfully with God.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: So in the midst of comprehensive, entire wickedness, there was one guy who was walking with God.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Genesis chapter 6, verse 14 through chapter 9, God was going to righteously judge the human wickedness on earth through a salvation boat called an ark to save humans and animals to repopulate the earth post the flood judgment.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Noah, he feared God in a time that no one on earth feared God.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: He walked with God in a time that no one walked with God.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he shared the message of God's salvation for a long time with his hammer and wood and nails and resin and whatever else he used to make this salvation boat.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: As he was making the boat, he was preaching to people that there is a way to be saved.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: But they had to trust the message that God was speaking in his generation.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine being Noah?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that there was earth that never saw a flood?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was earth that likely at this point had never rained before.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And here's Noah and his salvation boat building a boat and the ridicule of the culture and his friends and his family, but dude, you're crazy.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like many of us, as we walk with Jesus and our life is transformed, and the people around us, they're like, you're crazy.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing walking with God?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: All the while he trusted God building this salvation boat, despite the majority making fun of him.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a lesson for us.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: That the voice of the masses sometimes are in direct contradiction to the voice of God.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: When you're building your salvation boat, when you're trusting in God, sometimes you have the voice of the masses, the majority, contradicting the voice of God in your life.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can I encourage you?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Trust the voice of God.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here Noah is building this massive boat that was the size of one and a half football fields that had the cubic mass of one million four hundred thousand cubic feet.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it had never rained before.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it had never flooded.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the masses were making fun of him, and yet he trusted God.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And no one believed him.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And no one thought they should turn to God and be saved by this salvation, no salvation boat.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the rejection of God's salvation led to their condemnation.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: George Guthrie wrote, His building of the ark both bore witness to the unseen God and his word and constituted a stark prophetic rebuke to the godless generation.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: They had a long time to trust God, but they rejected him.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: In your generation, in your cultural moment, in your time, be like Noah.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trusting God.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Doing what God has called you to do.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is a worshiping faith.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is a walking faith.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is a working faith.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you too will be an heir of righteousness.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Noah, write this down.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was right with God through faith.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are made right with God through faith in Jesus.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was righteous in his generation.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: We are changed by God as we walk by faith, trusting Jesus.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is your moment to receive the righteousness of Christ.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is your moment to be transformed by God.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is an important time in our church every year to say, God, I'm going to commit to trusting Jesus, to being changed by Jesus, and to devote my life to a year of faith by practicing what God has called me to practice.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to worship by faith.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to walk by faith, and I'm going to work for the Lord by faith.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want you to grab this card once more, and I want you to at some point this week pray through this, the verse and these commitments, and then just sign your name.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to see this, you're not going to hand it to anybody, but it's just your own personal commitment to say, Lord, I'm going to trust you this year.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually going to be invested in my faith because you have been so invested in me.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to do something in your life.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to do something in this generation.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you are a part of that.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you are a light building a salvation boat.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not literally, but you're a light in the midst of your generation.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what people say about you or to you, trust God.