How Faith Acts

Well, "Faith Forward" is the series we started last weekend. My name's Rene, one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. I want to welcome you, whether you're joining us in person or virtually at home. I want to encourage you to grab the message notes that look like this. You can download these at tlc.org/notes. We also have a book for you, a "Faith Forward" book. If you didn't get one the last couple of weekends, you can get one here today out in the lobby or online at tlc.org/faith. That is also where you can get into a small group, or as Mark would have it, a slime group. And that is also where you can sign up for our free daily video devos texted to you in this immersive fall series on faith.

Now, in one of my devos this past week, I talked about how much I love living here near the Monterey Bay. How many of you just love all the wildlife that we've got here near the Monterey Bay? Let me hear you if you just love it. You appreciate the whales and the otters and the salmon and the tuna and all the super fun stuff. Well, you may not know this, but the Monterey Bay was not always known for its astonishing variety of wildlife. In fact, in the 1900s, our otter population and our gray whale population and our sardine population, believe it or not, even though I was just out there paddle boarding the other day and I must have seen thousands of them beneath my feet and our abalone population, they were all virtually extinct, along with a lot of other species, down to zero. Our bay was not the story of variety of abundance of marine life. Our bay was the story of an ecological disaster.

And then one woman, Julia Platt, mayor of Pacific Grove, who also happened to have a doctorate in zoology, took one step. She established a tiny marine refuge at one little cove, one little beach up in Pacific Grove, hoping that it would act as, as she put it, a nursery where tiny larva would grow unimpeded by humans and that those larva would feed small animals who would then go on to feed larger animals who then, she hoped, would have a ripple effect and start to reestablish the ecosystem of the Monterey Bay. And from the initial efforts of that one woman on one little beach in Pacific Grove, and she inspired others, of course, who inspired others, not only was all that marine life brought back, but ironically, she saved the fishing industry too.

Her one small step, even though she did not live to see this, began a ripple effect that changed the entire ecosystem of our whole Monterey Bay and made it a worldwide destination for marine biologists. What a great parable for what it's like to live faith forward. How one step taken in faith and hope and vision can change the future for generations. In this series, we're taking a deep dive into one of the most iconic and poetic and colorful and beautiful chapters of the Bible, Hebrews 11.

Here's a quick recap. It was written to early Christians who started strong, right? Jesus is coming back. He's going to establish the kingdom and it's going to be fantastic, but they were now losing hope. They were tired of waiting for God to make things better. They were longing for some visible results. I mean, they'd left the glorious, gleaming, golden and white marble temple in Jerusalem for a bunch of tiny little house churches that were so awesome and beautiful and everybody was sharing at first, but now everybody's getting on each other's nerves and they're not seeing any visible results. And this is how they're feeling. This is the context for the book. And this is so relevant to us today, isn't it? Because there are so many Christians today that started strong, even at the beginning of this pandemic, started strong, volunteering and attending church virtually and doing all kinds of great stuff. But now they're losing hope and they're tired of waiting for God to make things better and they're longing for visible results.

And maybe you feel that way about our nation or about some social problems or about your own family or about your ministry or about the giants. Come on, it's the last game of the season. Let's make it happen. I may be getting off track, but here's the point. The author is speaking to people who feel like this and he's telling them, "Don't give up hope." And in Hebrews 11, he goes on to give example after example of, for example, old man Abraham or baby Moses or Joshua and his musician warriors or Rahab the prostitute who saved the nation or young musician King David or Daniel the vegetarian conscientious objector prophet or Jesus the crucified and dead Messiah. The point? To show how the kingdom of God develops.

He's using all these examples to say, what do they all have in common? It always starts small. It always takes long, longer than you think. And it always seems impossible, but that's how God works. That's how God works in his church. That's how God works in ripple effects that affect society. That's how God works in your life. That's how God works in your marriage. That's how God works in your family. So don't give up.

And the author starts with a couple of examples from almost prehistoric times in chapter 11. And then he spends most of the verses of Hebrews 11, more verses than he gives to any other story. He gives to the story of Abraham and Sarah. It's a wonderful story because he talks about how there was one childless couple. And God says to them, I want you to look up at the stars. And you could just imagine in the desert at night, they must have seen so many stars that night. And God tells them, I know you feel like you have nothing. And I know that you're childless right now, but guess what? From you, you too, Abraham and Sarah will come descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. And you're going to be a blessing for generation after a generation after generation to billions of people, even though you got nothing right now.

But all you have to do first is take one small step into the unknown. But one step begins an incredible journey for them. He says, I want you to go from—and look at what he's asking them to give up. Go from your country. Leave your country and your people and your father's household, your family to the land I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation. Don't forget that. He's promising them. You're going to become a great nation. Your one small step of faith when you leave home, that's going to become an astonishing ripple effect. And I will bless you and I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing.

And in Hebrews 11, verses 8 through 17, the author of Hebrews goes on to retell this story and he frames it as a life lived by faith. In fact, four times it says, by faith, Abraham and Sarah. And these four things are the exact same steps that we all have to take if we want to live by faith and not by fear. You know, kind of one of my pet peeves about the way that I was raised as a Christian growing up in church is that I learned a lot about how we are saved by faith. And that's very important. In fact, say saved by faith out loud with me. Say saved by faith. Say it again. Saved by faith. That's crucial. That's essential. I'm grateful that I was taught that we were saved by faith and not by works.

But you know what? I did not learn. And maybe it was taught and I just didn't hear it. But I really did not learn how to live by faith. Say that with me. Live by faith. I knew I was saved by faith, but then I just kind of lived the rest of my life in fear and doubt and trepidation and hesitation. How do you live by faith every single day? Not just start by faith. Well, it's these four steps that Abraham and Sarah took that the author to the Hebrews outlines for us. So let's look at them.

Number one, by faith, they stepped out. By faith, they took the first step. Hebrews 11, verse 8. By faith, Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. Now the place Abraham was being asked to leave was a place called Sumer, where Iran and Iraq are today, as you see on this map. Its capital city was a place called Ur, and Ur was the sister city of Amr. Just kidding about that. He is—I just want to see if you're paying attention. He was being asked to go into the wilderness, a place we now know as Israel, that was just kind of vaguely referred to then as the Promised Land.

Now listen closely. I really want to give you some context so you can truly understand what God is asking Abraham to do here. Sumer and its capital Ur were absolutely amazing. This massive ziggurat still survives from Abraham's day 4,000 years ago. Abraham would have seen this in his day. Only back in Abraham's day, it had eight more stories. An astonishing building. In fact, the city was the world center of innovation when Abraham was alive. Thomas Cahill writes, "This period in Sumer saw an explosion of technological creativity on a scale that would not be matched until the 19th and 20th centuries of our era." He goes on, "It witnessed the invention of wheeled transport, sailing ships, metallurgy, fire pottery, written language, engraving, mass production of bricks, the arch, the vault, the dome, the first legal system, the first lawyers, for which we will hold them responsible forever, the first breweries; there may be a connection to the lawyers there, the 12-month calendar, the 24-hour, 60-minute division of time, geometry, and it all appeared as it were within weeks of each other."

And they were not just brilliant and innovative. They were also kind of experts about having fun. There's a massive mosaic they found with scenes of everyday life from Ur in Abraham's day. They're having fun. They're listening to music. They're hanging out. They discovered a woman's tomb at Ur with this amazing golden headdress in it from Abraham's day. This is like something Lady Gaga would wear to a party in Manhattan, right? So it was a fun place. It was a nice place. And they also found a clay tablet from around Abraham's time, which describes, watch this, the savages who lived outside their city. It says, "Buffeted by wind and rain, he knows not prayers, eats uncooked meat, has no house in his life, is not brought to burial when he dies." This is basically describing kind of almost a caveman, right? This is at least what the people in Sumer, in Ur, thought of the people who lived out there, beyond the borders of their beautiful advanced cities. You don't want to go out there. Those are like crazy wild people with no religion and no houses. And they're practically not even human beings out there.

So are you kind of getting a picture of what Abraham is being asked to do from his perspective? Go from all this luxury and comfort and technology to hang out with those cavemen out there beyond the borders. It helps you appreciate this verse, doesn't it? "Abraham, I know you're comfortable, but I want you to change the world." And it says, "He did not even know where he was going." God asks him to take a first step of faith. He doesn't know where he is going, how long it'll take to get there, or how he'll even know when he gets there. But God says, "I want you to take that step." And you know what? He says something similar to you and me all through our lives. I want you to take a step. Take a risk. Get out of your comfort zone and live by faith.

So how do you do that? How do you take the next right step for you and not live in hesitation and doubt and fear and trepidation? Well, you have to think first step, not whole journey. Listen, a lot of times we think something like this. "Well, I want to do your will, but I'm thinking about doing this one thing, but I want you to show me everything that's going to happen, all the problems that I am likely to encounter, and then I'll consider maybe taking that step of faith." Right? But that never happens. Ever. Let me show you kind of an embarrassing picture, if you'll indulge me. Here I am exactly 28 years ago this month. This was taken on my first day as pastor here at Twin Lakes Church, and standing next to me is the beloved and venerated Pastor Kraft, who had been pastor here for nearly 50 years. Tell me you would not have been trembling with fear if you had been a church member then handing over the keys to this 32-year-old guy, right? I was so intimidated that when the position was offered to me then, I didn't know whether or not to take this position. I tied myself in knots trying to see the future before I was willing to take that first step.

And I thought to myself, "I don't know if I want to take this church because there's so many potential problems." And you know what changed my mind? My wife. Because she said to me, "First, Renee, our kids are so little that if you're a miserable failure they'll never remember." And that actually helped me. And she said, "Second, Renee, don't look at all the potential trouble. Look at God and just take the next step." And I'm so glad I did. I mean, Laurie literally said, "Listen, if this next step leads to maybe you're the unintentional interim pastor for two years, so what? God's going to grow you through that two years. God's going to go to the church through that two years and we'll see what he has next for us." Now it turned into 28 years so far, but what I'm trying to say is this is how life works.

Listen, you never get all your questions answered before you take that first step of faith. So by faith, you step out. And then second, by faith, they stayed on. By faith, they stayed on. Look at Hebrews 11, 9. By faith, he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents. Now can you see how this is applicable directly to the context of the original readers of Hebrews who had left the glory of the temple system for these little house churches where they just like didn't have a lot to show for it? And he's saying, "Don't you see how everybody who stepped down in faith experienced this? Abraham left the technology and security of Sumer for tents, not permanent buildings, as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise." The author is saying to these early Christians, "Hang in there. I know you don't have a beautiful building, but even Abraham just lived in tents." Why? He's looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God.

Now this step of faith can be way harder than the first one. Again, just from my own personal experience after I finally arrived at Twin Lakes, then once I took that first step of faith, did God honor that by making everything go smoothly? No. Those first two years were some of the hardest ministry years I've ever experienced. We had so many challenges as a church on so many levels, and the personal criticism just mounted. In fact, I have two file folders stuffed full of critical letters that I received mostly during the first two years of my ministry here. And I keep them because, frankly, many of them are a little amusing. And let me show you what I mean, this is one of my absolute favorites. I'm not making this up. Dear Pastor Schlepfer, it has been a long time since our church has had a competent shepherd to guide us. And now that you're here, it appears he wants us to continue to suffer for a season. Yours in Christ, a sister. Now since then, my wife has apologized. No, just kidding. But this is how it always is, right? It's exciting sometimes to take that first step, but it's tough to stay on when the ground under your tent is full of rocks.

Maybe in your marriage, maybe in your ministry, you had high expectations and then reality hits. So how do you stay on? Did you notice that little phrase? The author of the Hebrews says Abraham was looking forward. Looking forward in hope to what? Skip to verse 13. I'm going to come back to the intervening verses in a minute, but it says all these people were still living by faith when they died. You know, like Julia Platt, she started that little beach preserve. She didn't see the ripple effects that her efforts are now. We're now enjoying those amazing. She didn't know if it was going to work, but it sure did. She got to look forward and says they did not receive the things promised. Not in their lifetime. Abraham and Sarah were promised what? A great nation. You know what they got? One kid. And even he, if you read the Bible, was kind of a disappointment, right? They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

It says people who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they'd been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had an opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. What He's saying is even if all you can think of is heaven, sometimes that's all you know for sure about your future. But that's enough. Meaning there is reason for hope and not just dread. Here's what He's trying to say. It is so easy at any given moment to look at your life and see it as a still photograph. Right? Like this is the snapshot of my life right now and this is just the way it's always going to be. But of course your life is not a still picture. It is a motion picture. And each day is just one frame of the sequence. It is going somewhere. And so by faith Abraham stays on. And what happens? Does everything finally go smoothly? No. Things go from bad to worse to really super worse to impossible. Decades later that promised baby is still not there. Abraham's now 99. Sarah is 89. How did they handle it? Not too well.

And that's number three. They struggled through. They really, really struggled. This is important because you might have this idealized view of Abraham and Sarah like saints every day they're having their quiet time. God, no matter how long it takes, we just trust you for this promise. Totally wrong. They struggled. Yeah, a lot of people forget this part, but they even moved out of the promised land for a while. Do you remember that? They came to the promised land. God tells them to settle down and stay there and they go, yeah, we're moving to Egypt. And they live there for a while before they kind of straggle back. Abraham is skeptical. Sarah is skeptical. Abraham even tells God one night, I'm giving up. And God tenderly says, Abraham, look at the stars again. Let me remind you of my promise. And after that, Abraham was good. No, he made more mistakes, like really bad mistakes. Most famously, they say, God, you are apparently still not sending that son. So we're going to do it our way. And we're going to have a son through Sarah's maid Hagar. And Abraham gets her pregnant. And this causes so much more conflict, ripple effects again for centuries.

And let me just take a moment to address that and point out something the Christians today really need to hear. It's what you could call the Hagar fallacy, which is always a temptation for us. And it goes like this. God wants X, whatever it is. X is not happening. So I will force it in an ungodly way. I mean, God wants to change the world, right? So I will fight and scheme my way into power. God wants people to obey him, right? So I will dominate and manipulate and subjugate them into obedience. God wants me to have joy in my life, right? So I will send my way into joy. To God's will. Yes, that's important. But we need to do it in God's way. Or it leads to all kinds of unintended consequences, as happened with Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. Abraham and Sarah were cruel to her. They were abusive to her. They were coercive. They were doing what they thought was God's will, but not in God's way. And you see the unintended consequence of not waiting on God's slow and small and seemingly impossible ways.

And Christians need to learn this lesson too. God wants the kingdom of God to spread, not through coercion, but through conversion. But you do see God's grace in this story instead of saying, you know what? Forget it. You two are a mess. I'm going to find somebody else. God stays patient to his promise. And finally, along comes baby Isaac. You know, I did a wedding yesterday and at the reception, a young woman came up to me and said, you probably don't recognize me, but I used to sit in the front row at church on Saturday nights and I would just have my head on my hand and just weep. I was just skin and bones. I said, I do remember you. And she said, at the time I was a homeless addict. And she said, I'm happy to say that now I'm healthy. I've been sober for two years. I'm married. I'm employed. And we have a brand new baby. I said, that's so wonderful. What would you say to somebody who is now in the situation you were in just a couple of years ago? And she said, here's what I would tell them, don't give up because God never gives up on you. And that's part of the message of Abraham and Sarah's stories.

Even after all their failures and skepticism and mistakes and horrible behavior, God says, I am not giving up on you. I am faithful to my promise to you in my sovereign grace. I am still going to work through you. And even after all your mistakes and all your hesitations and all your skepticism, God does not give up on you. God says to you and to me, would you look at the stars and not your failures? Look at the stars. I still have amazing plans for you. Do not give up because God will not give up on you. And finally, Abraham and Sarah get to this point in Hebrews 11 and 11. It says, and by faith Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful, who had made the promise. Would you say these three words with me? Considered him faithful. Say it again. Considered him faithful. Did they consider themselves faithful? No, because by this point they knew they were not faithful, but they considered God faithful.

And this is so important to understand because we can misunderstand the life of faith. We think live by faith just means I've got to be kind of like the little engine that could, you know, and say, I think I can't, I think I can't, I can overcome this. Or maybe like Maria in the Sound of Music who's saying, I have confidence in what? Me. Or maybe like George Foreman. I don't know if you remember 20 years after he loses his heavyweight title, he fights for the championship again and he was 50, 50 years old. And in the 10th round, he KO's his opponent and wins the belt. How did he do it? He said, you just got to have faith. You can do it. Now it's awesome to be that confident. That kind of confidence will get you far. But when the Bible talks about faith, it goes way deeper than I think I can. I have confidence in me because sometimes you know you can't. Faith means I trust in God's ability, not my ability. God's ability, not my ability. God's plans, not my plans. She considered him faithful.

And look at Hebrews 11, 12. And so from this one man, like one beach on the Monterey Bay, and he is good as dead. Like all that marine life apparently extinct here came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. And I love this verse. When one person changed the world, think Julia Platt. Think William Wilberforce who abolished the slave trade. Think Rosa Parks who would not move on the bus. One person can have a lot of ripple effects. And he as good as dead. You may feel as good as dead. You may feel like your life is over. Well, guess what? God specializes in resurrections. Your life is not over. Faith steps out, but then faith stays on. And faith struggles. Yes, it struggles. But it ends up knowing that he is still faithful even when I am not faithful. And then there's one final step. By faith they simply trusted.

Their faith grows to the point where they simply trusted God. Hebrews 11 17 says by faith Abraham when God tested him offered Isaac as a sacrifice. Now stop right there for just a second because there are probably more questions asked about this story than almost any other story in the whole Bible. But this is so important. So let me try to explain it. In that day, child sacrifice was very common. The tribes all around Abraham practiced it. And so Abraham would not have been surprised at all to hear that a deity wants him to sacrifice a child. It's horrible. But that was life then. But the important part of this story, of course, is that God stops him. God says no. That's the point. This is an object lesson by which God stops all human sacrifice and says watch as I provide the sacrifice myself through a ram. God's introducing the whole idea of substitutionary atonement, that sacrifice is provided by, not by humans for God, but by God for humans. By God for humans. And the ultimate example of this, of course, is Jesus Christ on the cross. The sacrifice for your sins and my sins.

Even today, so many people think that religion is if only I sacrifice enough to God that I will win his favor. But God says no, stop. I provide the sacrifice. You simply trust. Abraham starts with stepping out. He stays on. He struggles through. And he gets the point of simple trust. Now, here's the thing. These four steps, they don't just happen once in our lifetimes. And then we've got it down. We all go through these steps over and over and over again in our lives. And I want to show you how real this is. In this series each week, we are meeting people from around our area and hearing about their own steps of faith. And this week, I want to invite back to the stage our guest worship leader, Ian Pitter. Would you welcome as he comes back up to hear about his own steps of faith that he took in his own life.

Hi, Ian. Again, so great to have you here. And I wanted to talk to you about this because your story really fits this so perfectly. You became a Christian as a teenager and went on, as we've heard, to amazing success as a musician in London. If you didn't hear it, maybe you came a little late when Mark introduced Ian, but played with Beyonce and Celine Dion and Amy Winehouse and so many kind of A-listers. I could go on and on. There's two dozen names on your resume. But you were called to leave that, what I assume was a comfortable life there in London and touring the world and going to full-time vocational ministry. So you took a step of faith, but it did not go smoothly, did it? What happened?

It certainly didn't. In 2008, we had an amazing opportunity to come to the East Coast, the East Coast of America and serve in a wonderful church out there. Had the offer, signed the offer, everything was good. Was getting ready to sell up, pack up and come out to the States. And then all of a sudden, everything came to a screeching halt because we couldn't get a visa. And we were ready, we were ready to kind of said goodbye to everybody. We had this huge going away party. How embarrassing is that? And then...

And you sold a bunch of stuff too. Sold a bunch of stuff, closed down my studios and everything. It was, yeah, it was some kind of a reality check for sure. We were like, wow. Okay, I guess it's not happening then. So there you are, you know, you're leaving Sumeria for the wilderness of America and you're taking this great step of faith, right? It's like God would love to have somebody like me in his service and nothing goes right. Interesting. So, and the big obstacle was you couldn't get a visa incredibly. Here you've done all these world tours with all these musicians and you can't get a visa to be a pastor.

Yeah. You had to be asking some serious questions of God at that point. How did you go on after that? Yeah, we definitely navigating. As you said, I told the world previously, never been rejected a visa. So that was never even an option for us. Like, it was like, oh, we'll get the visa. It'll be totally fine. So you know, even just in conversation, we're like, what is happening right now? I thought this was it. Yeah. You know, I desire I thought this was it. But yeah, we navigated that really by just continuing to kind of trust him. Of course, we were very down at the time, disappointed, but had to kind of lift our heads up and keep going.

Right. And then you do come to a church in Colorado at the time. But that was kind of a challenge too. What was the biggest challenge for you as you as you came from London to rural Colorado? So that's three years later. Okay. So we're sitting in this for three years, three years later. Years of the dreams being put on pause, a big step of faith. And then the baby is not being born. Yeah, yeah. So then we get this call to go to Colorado. Coming from vibrant London. This was a culture shock for us. We were like, okay. What was the biggest culture shock for you? By 830, everything closes. But yeah, also, you know, just the environment itself, it was very slow. Coming from a fast paced environment, it was very, very slow. So kind of adjusting to that was huge. And then finally, you came to the peninsula, Peninsula Covenant Church, wonderful church in Redwood City. Gary Gaddini, the senior pastor there for many years has spoken here at Twin Lakes. But that also had its own set of challenges, didn't it?

Yes, I did. I came into that environment with a perspective that I thought, okay, this is going to be awesome. And then there was just some unforeseen circumstances. Some financial struggles. And in my first year, second year was a pandemic, which you know about. And then third year now, we're trying to navigate what's next through this whole coming out of the pandemic. So it's definitely been challenging for sure.

So I want you to address people who are sitting here right now, either people who are feeling a little trepidatious about taking that next step of faith for them, because there's so many unanswered questions ahead of them. They're even thinking maybe of volunteering at one of the booths out here in the lobby for Connect Expo. But they're a little bit afraid. What if things go wrong? Or maybe there's some people here who have taken a big step of faith, and they're kind of mad at God. They're like, God, I did what I thought you wanted me to do. And now nothing's going right. How would you speak to those people?

From personal experience, trust. That's the big thing that my wife and I, Tracy and I, we just leaned into trusting God. You know, nobody said the road would be easy. And it was going to be plain sailing. And so we kind of reconciled that in our mind. And we're like, if we're called to this, we have to trust that regardless of what we see around us, this is actually where we're supposed to be in this season and this time. And we got to keep it moving regardless.

Is it worth it for you? Has your decision to go into full-time ministry been a blessing? Oh, absolutely. It's been so much joy. It's so life-giving. So life-giving for myself and my family. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so grateful. I deem this as an honor to be able to serve. Well, it's great for us. It's life-giving for us too, to have you minister to us. And Ian's going to lead us in communion in just a moment. So Ian, I'll let you get ready on your guitar. And I want to invite you to get your communion material ready. And let's thank Ian for sharing. And maybe if you're at home, make sure you prepare some bread or some juice if you're here. Get your communion elements ready. And let's prepare our hearts for communion.

And one thing I want you to consider as we move into communion here, it's this. It's the bottom line of the whole Abraham and Sarah story. Take the next step of faith for you. What is God calling you to do as your simple next step? Don't think whole journey. Just what's the next right thing for you to do? Consider that prayerfully now as we prepare our hearts for communion. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, I know that we're all people here in this room who need to take the next step. Maybe it's getting into a small group. They've never done it before. They're a little fearful. Maybe it's getting into a recovery group or getting onto a volunteer team today here at Connect Expo or maybe stepping across the line and saying, "I want to be a Christ follower." And it's wonderful to be celebrating people taking their next step of faith and baptism this weekend. But whatever it is, there's people on the edge of something if only they dare to take the next step and live faith forward.

So Lord, give us the strength to take that next step by faith, to live by faith. And Lord, there may be some people here in this moment who need to take that big step of faith where they say, "Jesus, I'm taking a step into trusting you as my Savior. I've never done that before, but today is the day. I step across that line right now. I trust in you as my Lord." Like Abraham and Sarah, when they stepped out, I don't know much about where this journey is going to take me, but I want to accept your invitation to go with you on this journey. Lord, we ask that you'd help all of us take the next step in our faith journey so that we become people who simply trust. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.