The Faith Factor

Well, my name is René. Again, I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. It's great, great to have you guys with us on such a gorgeous weekend here. Now, I had a few people come up to me before the service and say, "I'm so excited to hear Ray Johnston speak." And I said, "Oh, well, Ray actually couldn't make it. I'm going to be speaking instead." And they said, "Oh, so, you know, Ray, unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, he gave me a call and he had to have rotator cuff surgery. And so, he had that surgery Thursday and is still laid up and in the hospital. So, you might want to pray for Ray, but we'll hear from Ray another time.

And it's my privilege to be with you here this morning on a great baby dedication where I'm so glad that we had baby dedications here today. You know why? I think of the wide-eyed wonder of a child. And it reminds me of what Jesus said when he said, "Unless you come to me like a child, you can never enter the kingdom of heaven." Have you ever wondered what Jesus meant by that? You know, I think part of what he meant was that kids are believers. You know what I'm talking about? Little kids are believers. They believe in the future. They believe in their future. They believe that the possibilities are limitless for them. And they have all kinds of ideas about what might be possible for them in the future.

Let me just ask you, for example, just kind of a quick show of hands. How many of you, when you were little kids, had dreams of what you wanted to be when you grew up? Can I see a show of hands there? How many of you, when you grew up, let's say, wanted to be a teacher? You played teacher at times. Good. How many of you wanted to be a policeman or a fireman? Can I see that show of hands? Yeah, good. How many of you wanted to be a professional sports star? Can I see that show of hands? Oh yeah. How many of you wanted to be a movie star or an actor or an actress on the stage? How many of you wanted to be a rock star? Can I see that show of hands? How many of you wanted to be a pastor? I didn't think so.

But anyway, little kids see all these possibilities, but most importantly, little kids believe Jesus when he says, "All things are possible." Grown-ups, we hear that and we go, "Yeah, right." So how do I get that kind of wonder and faith back? Well, I want you to reach inside your programs that you got and pull out the message notes that have this logo on the top as we start our faith-building series for the fall. In this series, we're going to strengthen your faith, strengthen your sense of God's possibilities for your future, give you a dose of biblical optimism.

And this morning, what I want to do is just kind of lay the foundation for the seven-week study that starts next weekend. If you flip your bulletin notes over, you can see a chart of everything that we're going to cover in this series on the back and all of the important dates. Why is this important? Because some of you came here discouraged, just beaten down, pessimistic about your future, thinking God could never use somebody like you, thinking your future has no hope. You've lost that sense of childlike wonder at the possibilities.

And so on this preview weekend, I want to talk about the faith factor because this is the key concept if you want to move from a life of discouragement and routine and boredom to a life of power and purpose and possibility. In fact, look at the very top of your notes there. It says there are two possible approaches to life. Jot this down. Number one, you can live by sight. You can live by sight. Now, what does that mean? If I see it, then I believe it.

You know, I read that the African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet. This is just this little animal can jump to a height of over 10 feet in one bound and can cover a distance of 30 feet in one bound, just this tiny little creature 10 feet high, 30 feet over. But the impala can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a three-foot-high wall. It will not jump over a three-foot-high wall. Why? An impala will not jump if it can't see where its feet will fall. And some of you live just like that by sight. God wants to use you for greater things than you can imagine, but living by sight causes you to limit yourself.

People who walk by sight hear somebody's dreams and they say, oh, don't be ridiculous. And even more tragic, they say that to themselves. That could never be possible. That's terrible about their own dreams. So you can live by sight. But number two, you can live by faith. You can walk by faith or you can walk by sight. Werner von Braun, the father of the space age who built the Saturn rocket, the Atlas rocket, he once said, there has never been any significant achievement in human history that was not accompanied by faith.

On a secular level, you have to operate by faith. If you're going to get anything done. Right? I mean, that's the definition of a visionary like Walt Disney or Steve Jobs is that they don't live by sight. They move ahead and they move toward things that are unseen by everybody else. Right? That's the way you make any progress, even on a secular level. Well, on a spiritual level, it's even more true to make any advance spiritually. You have to learn to walk by faith and not just by sight.

So this morning I want to ask four tough questions about faith. Number one, what difference does faith really make? Number two, what is faith? Number three, do you and I actually live by faith? You say, oh yeah, I'm a Christian. Yeah, wait, that's not what I asked. Do you live by faith? And then number four, how does God grow my faith? Now I got to tell you, this is the preview weekend. And so what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be blasting through like two dozen verses in the Bible. Why? I want you to get a sense just from the volume of verses on this topic in the Bible, how important this is to God. Right?

Now I'm not going to go into any depth on any of these verses. I will cover every one of these verses in this fall series, either in a weekend message, a small group video lesson, or the faith book that everybody's going to get for free next weekend. So don't miss it. Invite your friends. Everybody who walks through the door is going to get our newest book for free. But this morning what I want you to do is just by volume of all these verses, see how important this is to God.

So let's ask first, what difference does faith really make? Look at your notes. Here's just some of what faith does for you. First, faith is the way to please God. In fact, without faith, it's impossible to please God, says Hebrews 11:6. So would you say that faith is a pretty important topic to study according to the Bible? I'd say it's about the most important topic you could possibly imagine because without it, it's impossible to please God. And faith is a key to lasting relationships. The Bible says love never gives up, never loses. Faith is always hopeful. It's a key to relationships.

Now just a quick show of hands again here. How many of you are married? Can I see a show of hands? How many of you are married here today? How many of you have children? Can I see a show of hands? How many of you have ever had a friend or an acquaintance? Can I see that show of hands? How many of you have ever had parents? Every hand should be up right now. This applies to every single person in this building because faith is the oil to every single one of those relationships, right?

Because if you just think of any relationship, if you just looked at that relationship and approached it by sight, there are times when you would look at what's going on right now in your relationship with your children or what's going on right now in relationship with your spouse. And if you walk by sight, you'd give up. But if you walk by faith that God wants to have greater possibilities, then you can make some progress. And faith gives me confidence.

The Gallup organization recently did a survey and reported the results. It had this headline on the paper, "Pole finds faith brings optimism," and they found what you probably could know just by common sense, faith makes you more optimistic about life. The Apostle Paul said, "In very tough circumstances, therefore we're always confident. And we know that as long as we're at home in the body, we're away from the Lord, but He's confident about His future. Why? We live by faith and not by sight. He had faith in His future, whether He lived or died, faith in His reward, faith in the resurrection. Why? He couldn't see it, but He had faith in it, and that gave Him confidence.

And faith, listen, faith dramatically increases your capacity, and faith dramatically increases your effectiveness. In fact, Jesus said this, this has got to be one of the most amazing verses in the whole New Testament in John 14:12. I'd love for us all to read this out loud together and ask yourself as you read this, do you believe this? Watch this, listen to this, let's all read this together. "Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing even greater things." I didn't say that, Jesus said that if you have faith in Him, you will do greater things than He did. That's an amazing verse, but that's a promise from Jesus Christ. I would say that's a dramatic increase in your capacity, right?

And faith can solve impossible problems, and we get impossible problems sometimes in life. Somebody sent me this friend at the San Jose Police Department. He writes about a police officer taking an exam for his promotion, and the exam read in one of the essay questions, "You are on patrol in San Jose when an explosion occurs in a gas main in a nearby street. You go and investigate there is an overturned van lying nearby. Inside the van there's a strong smell of alcohol. Both occupants, a man and a woman, are injured, and you recognize the woman as the wife of your chief who is out of town on vacation. A passing motorist stops to offer you assistance and you realize that he is a man who's also wanted for armed robbery. Suddenly a man runs out of a nearby house shouting that his wife is expecting a baby and that the shock of the explosion has made the birth imminent. Another man is crying for help having been blown into a reservoir by the explosion and he cannot swim. Describe in a few words what actions you would take.

And the officer thought for a moment, picked up his pen and wrote, "I would take off my uniform and mingle with the crowd." Now, what seemingly impossible situation are you facing? Jesus said, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, nothing will be impossible to you." We're going to look at this verse in detail next weekend, but some of you are facing impossible situations right now and you need this verse. Notice it doesn't say you got to develop big mountain-sized faith. It says a little bit of faith in a big God and you get big results. And finally, faith encourages others.

The Apostle Paul was a man of great faith, but even he said, "In all our distress and persecution we were encouraged because of your faith." Now, before you flip over to page two, just look at that list right there. Anybody here want to increase their capacity and effectiveness? Anybody here want to live a life that gives other people confidence? Anybody here want to be able to handle seemingly impossible situations? Probably every single person in this room. Well, we need to know how to live by faith then and not by sight.

Now, you might be saying, "Well, is it really possible to live like that?" I want you to do something. Just don't look at me for a second and look around this room and think of this whole church. You are sitting right now in living proof that living by faith and not by sight is possible. Let me explain what I mean. You may not know this, but this church, our church, was founded in 1890. This is a picture of our first building ever over on 7th Avenue, 1890. And for the first 40 or 50 years, it did nothing. It was flatlined. There was a new pastor every few months. The church didn't grow. And in the 1930s, this church, Twin Lakes Church, was shut down for six years. I mean, as in closed padlocks on the doors, boards on the windows. It was a haunted house with broken windows and a leaky roof.

But then 11 people, I want to show you. This is a record of their first meeting. 11 people with two there in absentia decided to plywood off the windows and reopen the church. You could call them the Twin Lakes 11. And after they kind of formally organized again and decided to start this thing up again, they pulled the resources. And I want to show you one of the minutes of one of their first meetings. They paid all the bills and it says 19 cents on hand. They had a total of 19 cents in their savings account after they paid the bills to open this place back up. And there were 11 of them. 11 people, 19 cents, a dead church that had been closed for six years. And what came out of that step they took by faith, I mean, it kind of chokes me up.

Because what came out of that? Everything you see here and more, all the ministries all over the world that have been impacted by this church, literally millions and millions of pounds of food with no exaggeration that this church has given to the poor. A school, a junior high school, a preschool and afterschool daycare program, a camp, literally thousands of people reached with the good news of the gospel. Why? 11 people, 19 extra cents. But they lived by faith that God could work in the future, not just by sight. If they lived by sight, they would have seen a broken down building that had a decades-long record of failure. Isn't that awesome? Praise God for some people who were visionaries.

But what about you? You know, maybe you're thinking to yourself, well, I'd love to have that kind of faith. I'd love to move forward because that's a picture of my soul right now. It's a haunted house. Well, God has a future for you. Now, I want to be careful about this because in our society right now, there's some misconceptions about faith. And I want to deal with those real quickly at the top of page two. When I talk about faith, I don't mean that faith is positive thinking. You know, I love positive thinking. Positive thinking is good. But there's some situations you get in, you know, you could be a positive thinker in your pajamas in a snowstorm and you'll still be freezing no matter how positive thinking you are, right?

And faith is not magical thinking. A lot of people get the idea, if I just have enough faith, I can escape every problem. I'll never be diseased. You know, that's nuts, you know, because the Bible is clear, you're going to have trouble. Everybody has trouble. Even the greatest faith heroes have trouble. Now, here's what faith is. Biblical faith is the confident assurance that God has the power to do anything. Now, stop right there because a lot of people believe this much. Sure, God can do whatever he wants. But Christians specifically believe that God can do it through the person of Christ. He just didn't stay up there in heaven. He came down to us in Jesus. That adds another dimension, right?

But if I can be very honest, a lot of Christians stop right there. God could do, man, God's powerful. I believe in Jesus. But biblical faith has one more step that honestly I find lacking in myself a lot of times. I'll just be honest. There's one more step that you see people taking in the Bible where Jesus goes, "Love your faith." And you know what it is? It's believing God is a plan for history that includes me. That I am on the planet for a reason. I'm in my neighborhood for a reason. I'm in my family for a reason. That God can do anything through his power, through the person of Christ that I can access. But the plan includes me. I have a future no matter what my limitations and background.

Now, I want to inspire you here because a great example of this kind of faith that you might have heard about is this man, Nick Vojicic. Nick Vojicic. How many of you have heard of Nick? Can I see a show of hands? Okay, for those of you who haven't, Nick was born without any arms or legs. He's just a head, neck, and a torso and a couple of little toes. That's all. Now, how do you handle being born like that? Well, Nick didn't handle it very well at first. He was suicidal by the time he was nine. He tried to drown himself by flipping over in a bathtub. He was in major depression even as a child. But he found faith, and that's got him through.

Now, I want to show you a little video clip. It's a little bit wonky because I got it off of YouTube, but you got to see this because listen, when somebody has this kind of faith, they can say whatever they want to say because they have total credibility, right? And Nick has been on a couple of times now on the Oprah Winfrey network, and they just let him share about his faith very forthrightly, and it's very inspiring. I want you to watch and listen to this. I gave my life to Jesus Christ when I read John 9 at age 15, where a man was coming through a village, and a man, this blind man from birth, Jesus saw him. People said, "Why was this man born that way?" Jesus said, "It was done so that the works of God may be revealed through him." In 2 Timothy 3:16, it says, "All scripture is God-breathed." And I believe God breathed in me life and faith. This faith came over me. This peace came over me, and I felt like God answered my question. And what was the question and what was the answer? The question was, "Why? Why did you make me this way?" And the answer was, "Do you trust me?" That's the question. And when you say yes to that question, nothing else matters.

But what was it specifically for you that made you say, "Lord, I'm going to trust your word because I know it's true. I'm going to trust you even if I don't know what you have in store for me tomorrow?" Right. Because there was nothing else I could find. There was nothing else that could give me peace. I knew arms and legs wouldn't give me peace anyway. Arms and legs alone. I needed to know the truth of who I am, why I'm here, and where I'm going when I'm not here. And I haven't found that truth anywhere else but in Jesus Christ. And it was in Jesus Christ where Nick found the strength to do what many thought would be the impossible. It's so hard to be strong when people constantly say, "You're not good enough. You, you know, go away. You know, we don't want anything to do with you. Nick, you're a nobody. Nick, you can't do this. Nick, you can't do that. Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick."

In life, if you don't know the truth, then you can't be free because then you'll believe that the lies are the truth. But once we realize that when we read the word of God and you know the truth of who you are, I am not a man without arms and legs. I am a child of God. I am forgiven of my sins. I'm an ambassador to the King of kings and Lord of lords. I'm nothing but a servant of the most high God. This is not about Nick. It's not about Nick's capacity and capability to become this conqueror. I am nothing. I'm nothing. God though lives in me and I now live in his strength. And whatever Jesus conquered, I conquer. I believe if God doesn't give you a miracle, you are a miracle of God for somebody else's salvation. And I thank God that he didn't answer my prayer when I was begging him for arms and legs at age eight. Because guess what? Because I have no arms and no legs, he's using me all around the world. And we've seen so far, approximately, this is conservative, 200,000 souls come to Jesus Christ for the very first time in the last six, seven years.

And what would you rather? Would you rather have arms and legs, Nick, here on earth and no arms? No. Whatever his will is. Because I'd rather have no arms and no legs temporarily here on earth to be able to reach someone else for Jesus Christ and then spend eternity with them there. In the last decade, Nick has shared his story in 24 countries to over 3 million people. And whether he's talking to a stadium packed with people or one single person, his heart behind the message is the same. God loves you. And he hasn't forgotten your pain. He hasn't forgotten your family. And maybe while you're watching this interview, you've compared your suffering to my suffering. And that's not where hope is to know that someone else in your opinion is suffering more than you. That's not where hope is. But hope is in the name of God, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hope is when you compare your suffering to the infinite, immeasurable love and grace of God.

Isaiah 40:31 says, "Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength that shall melt up on wings as eagles." I didn't need my circumstance to change. I don't need arms and legs. I need the wings of the Holy Spirit. And I'm flying because I know Jesus is holding me up. Don't give up on God because God will not give up on you. Is that not amazing? Some of you needed to hear that today. Some of you walked in this room ready to give up. And you need to know that you can live with a mustard seed of faith that just maybe it is worth trying this idea out that God has infinite power accessible through the person of Jesus Christ and he still has a plan for you. Because how else could somebody with no arms and legs be speaking to millions of people about Jesus Christ? Only because he has faith. Faith is what makes the difference in his life. His circumstances haven't changed but a mustard seed of faith has pushed him past his circumstance.

Now everybody probably here is like, "Yes, yes, yes, I want to live like that. I want to go out, I want to move out in faith." Here's the problem. Some of us are born optimists. That's awesome. How do you tend to be optimists? Can I see a show of hands? How many of you tend to be pessimists a little bit if I can honestly ask you? I want to address you right now for just a couple of minutes because you're my people, all right? I tend to be naturally a pessimist. I tend to be waiting for the other shoe to drop and if you're like me you can identify with that great ancient theologian Eeyore the donkey in the Winnie the Pooh stories. I love the way that A.A. Milne writes this scene. He says, "Eeyore stood beside the stream and he looked at himself in the water." "Paphetic," he said, "that's what it is, pathetic." And he turned and slowly walked down the stream for 20 yards, splashed across it, walked slowly back on the other side and then he looked at himself in the water again, "as I thought, no better from this side, but nobody minds, nobody cares, pathetic, that's what it is."

There came a crackling noise in the bracken behind him and out came Winnie the Pooh. "Good morning, Eeyore." "Good morning, Pooh," said Eeyore glumly, "if it is a good morning, which I doubt." Now I relate to that. Let me ask again, honestly speaking, how many of you are sometimes a little bit like Eeyore in the morning? Can I see that? Okay, now we got some honesty going. How many of you, if you're honest, would say, "I wake up grouchy in the morning." How many of you just let her sleep? Can I see that show my hands? All right, just joking, honey. Well, I'm naturally a little bit Eeyore-like and a while ago, I realized I was letting my personality excuse little faith.

I had faith in Jesus, but I wasn't living by faith. I wasn't risking, I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't marching into each day, expecting the best, I wasn't anticipating that God was going to move. And I discovered that while reading the book of Matthew. You know why? Because in the book of Matthew, five times Jesus says, "Oh, you of little faith," and he relates little faith to five things you probably don't want in your life. And I want to show you this very quickly here. What are the results of little faith? This is kind of a self-diagnostic here. Like, do I have not enough faith here? Jesus says, "There's five results of little faith. First is worry." Worry, Jesus said, "Why worry? Why do you have so little faith? Because if you believe God has the power to do anything through the person of Christ and he has a plan for you, why are you worried all the time?"

Next, fear. When the disciples were freaking out because a storm was swamping their fishing boat, Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? Why do you have so little faith? You know, if I believe it can calm the storm, why am I always thinking the storm's going to get worse instead of better?" So worry and fear and third doubt is actually a result of little faith. There's a great story where there's another storm and Peter gets out of the boat to meet Jesus who was walking on the water, but it says, "When Peter saw the wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. 'Save me, Lord,' he shouted." And Jesus immediately reaches out, grabs him and says, "You have so little faith. Why did you doubt me?" You know, have you ever gotten out of your boat, gotten out of your comfort zone, but then you see the wind and the waves and the scary obstacles looming and you started to doubt and you wanted to climb back into the boat again? Have you ever done that? I have a lot. That's a result of little faith and a lack of spiritual understanding is a result of actually little faith.

This is actually my favorite one because it's like a comedy sketch. Jesus says to his disciples, he says, "You know what? You got to beware of something. Very bad, very evil." What? "You got to beware of yeast. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." Now Jesus is talking about the abusive religion practiced by the Pharisees and Sadducees. They're legalism. They're heavy rules that they would burden people with and he said, "You led a little bit of that into your life, a little bit of that bad religion yeast and it spreads through the whole batch of dough like yeast does." Jesus is setting them free for something, but the Bible says that the disciples began to argue among themselves because they thought Jesus was criticizing them for not bringing enough bread for lunch. You think I'm kidding, but this is in the Bible and so what's happening is they're trying to sign blame. They're arguing among themselves. "It was your fault I told you to get the bread. I thought you were getting the bread and now the master's upset with us." This is what's happening and the Bible says Jesus realized what they were talking about and so he says, "You have so little faith, why can't you understand? I am not talking about bread. I say to you again, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

You see, instead of hearing Christ's liberating critique of abusive religion, Christ's teaching about grace, the disciples assumed that, "Oh, he's criticizing me because of my own poor performance. Oh, I feel so guilty. I feel that that's, is it my fault or somebody else's fault, but we're all victims and they get into this negative thinking. When I have little faith, I have a hard time understanding grace." I marvel sometimes at the Christians I know who I know read the New Testament, which is full of one freeing concept after another and yet when they read the New Testament, they just feel more and more and more guilty and more and more and more burdened. "Oh, this verse is pointing the finger at me and I'm just so bad." Just like the disciples because little faith leads to a lack of spiritual depth and understanding and then finally little faith leads to lack of spiritual power.

One time the disciples go, "Jesus privately, why couldn't we heal that kid?" Well, you have little faith. I tell you the truth, if you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say to a mountain, move from here to there and it would move, nothing would be impossible. Now, do you have fear? Do you have doubt? Do you have worry? Do you sometimes have a lack of spiritual power? Do you sometimes have a lack of spiritual understanding? Jesus says, "Well, really those are all symptoms of one thing. It's a lack of faith." And so you put all this together and a key truth emerges and this may rock your world, jot this down, often my faith is the tipping point that determines an outcome in my life.

Remember, Jesus said, "To so many people he healed, including a man born blind, according to your faith it'll be done unto you." Now, I'm not saying that if you only have faith, you know, miracles are inevitable. But I am saying that if you don't have faith, miracles are impossible. That's biblical. Your faith is often the tipping point that determines an outcome in your life and frankly some of you, your lack of faith is leading to hesitation and procrastination and self-limitation. How do I know it? Because I'm like that. And so I want you to ask yourself, where do I have little faith? Write something down. Where would Jesus look at me and say, you know, you don't have a lot of faith there in that area. My relationships, my future, my career, my ministry potential.

Some of you are thinking, okay, René, I get it, I need it, I want it. So how do you get more faith? Page three of your notes, just two ways. Here's what the Bible says about how God builds my faith. Just two ways. Through His word, the Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God and that's why we figured out how to get you into the Word four different ways in the 40 days that start next weekend. First, the weekend messages every week. We're going to be analyzing one of the verses we've just gone over or more than one talking about what faith means to inspire you.

Second, we wrote our own devotional book called "Faith Building." It's a 40-day devotional book that we just finished. It's going to be available for free to everybody who comes next weekend to church. Spend just five minutes every day. That's going to help you grow in faith. And a lot of people have been asking me, what's day one? It's next Sunday, day one of the 40-day faith building experience. Third, there's going to be weekly memory verses about faith. Fourth, listen, we have small groups everywhere all over the county and beyond. 100 small groups. I'm leading one in the Mount Herman area. There are small groups from North County all the way to South County over in San Jose down in Monterey. They're arranged geographically outside. If you want to sign up for them out here from North County down to South County. And if you don't want to sign up today, you can sign up online at TLC.org.

Every small group is going to be watching a video lesson that we filmed in my living room. So you can feel like you're in our living room as part of our small group. Some of you are going, what does R God grows your faith through His Word and one other way through life's challenges. And so we're going to challenge ourselves with a huge goal this fall. We call it the 2020 Vision Project. And it's to finally build our TLC children's building, which we, it's been on the master plan since the 70s and we don't have, but not just that, to build a community building at an orphanage in India. And not just that, but to provide a gargantuan donation of food to Second Harvest. And we want to do it all in one pledge drive that comes in the weekend before Thanksgiving. It is literally the biggest, most challenging goal we've ever set as a church. But if you don't set a goal, then you'll never get anywhere. And so you move by faith and not by sight.

So just to be clear, this all starts next weekend, day one of the 40-day faith adventure. Free books to everybody here. Small group week one starts next week. Sign up today. Here's the thing some of you are going, I don't know about all this. I don't know if I can really take the 40 days starting next Sunday to study this. Look at this number. I'm going to put it on screen. 27,375. Anybody know what that number is? Shout it out. You know what it is? That is the average number of days the average American will live. 27,375. That's about all you get. And so my question is, why not take just 40 of that total to boost the level of the one ingredient that will change the characteristic of every day of your life from then on?

We started talking about the faith of a child. So I'll end with this. Somebody wrote about what their grandson prayed the other day at the dinner table. He'd apparently recently learned the story of Noah in Sunday school. He's four years old. And so they asked him to say grace. And after thanking God for the food, he says, "And Lord, if you need somebody to build an ark, I'll do it. Amen." And that's the kind of faith I want, the faith of a child. Let's pray together.

Lord, build our faith. I am so excited about what we're going to start next weekend, developing, strengthening. I can hardly wait to see the miracles you're going to do in our lives, in our careers, in our relationships, in our families as we learn to walk by faith and not by sight. God, we're expecting the best this fall. And now with our heads still bowed, I want you to pray. Pray something like this. Thank you, God, just in advance for the good things that are coming during the next 40 days, the ways I'm going to be challenged and grow. I'm expecting the best. And in a crowd this size, I'm sure some people are very worried about a giant problem this next week. Exercise faith right now. Take a deep breath and say, "Jesus Christ, I believe in the power of God through you and that you got a plan for me and I want to put my trust in you and expect the best." And in your name I pray. Amen.