Well, today we are beginning a new series, a really, really short series, only two or three weeks long. It's called It Depends. It depends. And we're calling this series It Depends based off of a scripture, Romans chapter 4, verse 16. And this is in the English Standard Version. It says, it just simply says, it depends on faith. It depends on faith. So much in our life depends 100% on our faith. That kind of makes sense because if we're people of faith, and I hope you would describe yourself as a person of faith. The reality is everybody has faith in something. Every person alive is a person of faith, right? All of you came in, you sat down in chairs. I didn't watch one of you like look at the chair, kind of be like, I don't know if you're gonna hold me up. I didn't see one person get down on the ground and make sure that all the screws on your chair were good. We actually, in retrospect, should have sabotaged one chair this morning. That would have been an amazing illustration. Could have gone terribly, we could have been sued, but just for this purpose, I could have been like, you shouldn't have had faith in that chair, right? No, none of us do that. Like when you go through a light and it's green, you have faith that that other light's red. You don't know. You don't know that that could have malfunctioned, but you're like, it's fine, I'm good. We all live by faith. But those of us that call ourselves Jesus followers, we live by a very different kind of faith. A much, a much higher faith. And if we're gonna be people of faith, then our faith is really important. Scripture teaches us that so much depends on our faith. Our right standing with God. That's something we spent a lot of time talking about in our previous series. The fact that we have a right relationship with God, that that depends on faith. That happens with us when we put our faith in Jesus. Scripture tells us that the mercy and the forgiveness and the grace and the justification-that's a word we talked about a lot just a few weeks ago, we receive that by putting our faith in Jesus. So much of the hope and the joy and the passion that we're supposed to have, we're supposed to live with, we receive it by faith. If I opened up scripture and began reading to you the New Testament, the number of times that the phrase by faith or through faith or because of faith or because we believe, the number of times that that phrase shows up, it would almost be too much to count. It's all over the place because our faith matters. So much of what we experience depends on our faith. And if that's the case, we better have a faith that we can depend on. If much of your life depends on your faith, you've got to have a faith that you can depend on. And sometimes, we can be honest, that's tough. Some of us here right now, some of us watching from home right now might say, My faith is stronger than it's ever been before. My faith has never been as strong as it is right now. And if that's you, that's awesome. I've been there, I've had those moments. Some of us, though, might be saying, you know, my faith's struggling a little bit. My faith's a little strained. I've gone through some things, my faith's been tested, it's been challenged. I don't know if I can say that my faith is stronger than it's ever been before. I'm in a hard season. If that's the case, I get it. I've been there, I've been there as a pastor. And many of us find ourselves sort of in between, like, man, I don't think I'm on the mountaintop right now, but I'm not in the valley, I'm somewhere in between. And in those situations, sometimes it's the hardest because our faith has a tendency to stagnate, it just becomes routine. But we can't let our faith become routine. We can't let our faith stagnate because so much depends on it. We have to have a faith we can depend on in church. Our passion, our commitment to one another is to help each other grow in our faith. To help us develop deep roots. Roots that are so deep, that are so strong, that no matter what life throws at you, no matter what circumstances you encounter, no matter what happens around you, you have a faith that endures. And by the way, that is the language in scripture of a mature faith. It's not always a faith that's excited. Sometimes we see someone who's really excited about God, and that's good. It's good to be excited about God. I hope you're excited about God. I'm excited about God. But excitement is not the number one indicator of a mature faith. Endurance is. It's a faith that lasts, it's a faith that you can depend on. In these next few weeks, what we want to do is grow and develop more and more in each of us a faith that we can depend on. Because it depends on faith. We're gonna study Romans chapter four, the entirety of Romans chapter four in just a few weeks. And if you're new, uh reading an ancient document might not sound like a lot of fun, but it is. It is. Scripture's powerful, it's practical, it's profound, it's amazing. And we've been going through this book called Romans. It's a letter in the New Testament written by a man named Paul. He wrote it to a bunch of Jesus followers, many of whom were Jewish people who had converted to following Jesus. They're living in Rome. And Romans is interesting, it's probably the most comprehensive explanation of who Jesus is, what he accomplished, what it means for us when we put our trust in him and how we live in response to Jesus. If you understand Romans, you understand a lot about the Jesus life. And so we're going through Romans bit by bit, taking some breaks every once in a while to kind of come up for air. And for the next few weeks, we're going through Romans chapter 4, which tells us about what faith really is. And Paul is gonna use an example of a man named Abraham to uh to illustrate what real faith looks like. And so with that in mind, I want to go ahead and just start reading Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. That's what we're gonna go through today. It says, Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. And what did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have something to boast about. But that was not God's way. For the scriptures tell us Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. When people work, their wages are not a gift but something they've earned. But people are counted as righteous, which means you're right in the eyes of God. Not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin. So Paul talks about this man Abraham. He also mentions David, who we'll mention in a little bit. But if you if you know the scriptures, if you know the Old Testament, and the people he would have been writing this to would have known it, just saying the name Abraham, it's like a hyperlink that would have flooded their minds with stories. All Paul would have had to say is, you know, like Abraham, have faith like Abraham, and they would have thought about all the stories, all the examples of Abraham's faith. He's definitely assuming that you know the story of Abraham, and I know that many of us do, and many of us don't. But he's using this as an example of what it really means to live by faith. So it's really important that we sort of understand who Abraham is, who he was, how he lived his life, what does it really mean to have faith like Abraham? And so today what we're gonna do is kind of kind of a crash course on what the faith of Abraham is like, because that's a faith that we're meant to have. This is really what faith looks like. Abraham's a pioneer, he's someone who sets an example for us. And so, what we're gonna do today is look at four really powerful truths about faith that we learn from Abraham. And we'll look at different parts of his story as we go through it because again, Paul's assuming that you just know Abraham. I want to encourage you this morning. Remember these four truths. If you have our mobile app, by the way, I'm always reading off the mobile app on stage. All of these statements are gonna be there. You can always look back on this message and remember these, but I really want to encourage you, like, write these down. Write them down later today if you don't do it right now. Post them somewhere where you can see them on a regular basis. Be reminded of these things often because these truths, they are powerful enough to get you through. Because again, we need a faith that we can depend on. A faith like Abraham. So let's start by looking at this truth. Number one, faith goes first. Faith goes first. Abraham's name wasn't always Abraham. God has a really interesting way of changing names in the Bible. In fact, interesting side note, it actually says that one day when we're in heaven, we all get new names. God gives each of us a new name. And you might be like, I love my name, I don't want a new name. I think God'll He'll do better. Don't worry. Some of us are like, Thank goodness, I hate my name. I've I've never, I wish I could change it. And you actually can, but then you feel weird, it's gonna offend your parents or whatever. You know, you don't want to do that, or you've chosen to go by a nickname. No, no, God gives us all new names. God has a tendency to give people new names in Scripture, very powerful names, because your name matters. Abraham was originally called Abram, and Abram was a name that meant exalted father. Exalted father. There was just one problem, though. Abraham didn't have any kids, or Abram rather, didn't have kids. So he's called Exalted Father. And he he's well into his adult years. Like he's well past the age when people would have been having children and his society and his culture, that was a really big deal because if you didn't have kids, you had no one to pass your inheritance on to. And Abram has lived his entire life being called exalted father. Everyone knew what that meant. And when people said, Oh, exalted father, tell me about your children, he'd say, I don't have any. Would have been a sense of a source of shame in his life. But God shows up one day and speaks to him, Genesis chapter 12. The Lord said to Abram, Leave your native country, your relatives, your father's family. Go to a land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you'll be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on the earth will be blessed through you, and all the families on the earth have, because Abram becomes the father of the nation of Israel. Israel is where we get Jesus. So he really has blessed everyone through Abram's family. So he calls Abram to leave and he gives him a promise. He says, Well, two promises. I'm gonna give you a land that's your own, a promised land. He says, I'm gonna give you a family. You're gonna have a family that turns into a great nation. And so Abram does what God says. He leaves. He takes a step of faith, and he takes his whole family with him, his wife, all of his servants, all that they own. They're very wealthy. And they begin to travel, they become nomads. And years go by, and nothing's really changed. In fact, we we get to this. Oh, I got out of the app. This is why you don't want to use the app live. There we go. It's so easy to use. I'm right back there. Here we go. Genesis 15 says, sometime later, and this sometime later, by the way, it's years later, it says, sometime later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you. And your reward will be great. But Abram applied, Oh, sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since you've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You've given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir. And the Lord said to him, No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir. And then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, Look up in the sky, count the stars if you can. That's how many descendants you will have. And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. He believed God, and God said, You are righteous because of your faith. It depends on faith. So God reiterates the promise. He says, Hey, Abram, I'm gonna give you a kid. And then years go by and nothing's happened. And so Abram does what many people in Scripture do. He says, You know what? This isn't working. Maybe we need to find another way. Maybe we need to help God out. Anyone here ever try to help God out? Like you're like, I don't know if God really knows what he's doing. So I'm gonna kind of nudge him. I'm gonna do something to sort of help him fulfill his promises. We all have a tendency to do that. It never goes well, by the way. God does not need any help being God. But Abram says, you know, I gotta have a son. Sarah, my wife, this isn't, it's not happening. We're really old. And so he ends up having a son, but not with Sarah. It's kind of a messy story. He has a son named Ishmael. And uh, and by the way, if you're new to the whole scripture thing, one of the greatest things about the Bible is it doesn't, it doesn't like wash over all the messy parts. It doesn't do a PR spin and tell us all the good things, but make all the people out to be saints who have no issues. In fact, it often highlights the worst aspects of their life. And we say this pretty often at his hands. It's because the Bible is not the story of amazing people doing great things for God. The Bible is the story of an amazing God who uses broken people to do great things. And that should give us so much hope because we can be broken people. But even when we're broken people, it doesn't mean God can't use us. He uses broken people all the time. Abram was one of those. So Abram has a son, Ishmael. He goes kind of sideways on God's plan, but now at least his name makes sense. Right? Now at least when people say, Oh, Abram, exalted father, tell me about your kids, he can say, Oh, let me tell you about my son Ishmael. He's amazing. Finally, in his life, he has a name that actually makes sense. But but God shows up again and says, No, Abram, this was not my plan. I'm gonna give you a son with your wife, Sarah. Just like I've I've promised. I'm gonna follow through. And so we get this interaction in Genesis 17. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, I am El Shaddai, God Almighty. That's what El Shaddai means. Serve me faithfully, live a blameless life. I'll make a covenant with you by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants. And at this Abram fell face down on the ground, and God said to him, This is my covenant with you. I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. What's more, I'm changing your name. I'll no longer call you Abram. Instead, you'll be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them. And so you got to know at this point, Abraham is super frustrated. Because the name Abraham means father of a multitude. And he has one kid. He spent his whole life having a name that means exalted father with no children. Finally, he has a son. His name actually makes sense, and God's like, no, I'm gonna change it. And now your name means father of a multitude. So he walks up to someone and says, Hi, I'm Abraham, and they say, Oh, how many kids do you have? And he's like, One. And they look at him going, You got the wrong name. Isn't it amazing, though, that God changed his name first? Before he gave him another child. He didn't bless him with a son. He ends up having a son with Sarah named Isaac. Isaac isn't born, and then God says, Hey, now that you have multiple children, change your name to Abraham. And Abraham's like, That sounds nice. I like it because I got two kids, and you know, this is good. No, no, no. He's like, I want you to change your name now. On the front end of the fulfillment of my promise. And Abram does. He responds in faith. He says, Fine, I'll be called Abraham. Because faith goes first. See, we tend to be people that naturally want to see the blessing, the fulfillment of the promise before we put our faith in God. I mean, how many times we've thought to ourselves, God, I would believe if you would just do this. Lord, if you would do this miracle, if I could see something happen, then I would believe. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes God is gracious enough to give us that, but very often it's the opposite. Very often it's we believe first and then we see. In fact, there's a man who followed Jesus very passionately, who lived a very long time ago. He's known now as Saint Augustine. We're talking well over a thousand years ago, and he once wrote that faith is to believe what you do not see. The reward for faith is to see what you believe. The reward for faith is to see what you believe. Abraham teaches us that faith goes first. First, you go all in with Jesus. You put your faith in him, and then often you experience the fulfillment of everything he promises. But faith, it goes first. And so I want you to get practical for a second. What do you need to see happen in your life? What are you praying for? And if you're not praying for something, I want to encourage you, pray for something. Pray for something big. We have a big God. So pray big prayers. But what do you need to see change in your life? What blessing are you waiting for? What do you really need to happen? My question is, do you believe it will? Do you believe it will? In fact, do you believe it so much that you're willing to do something right now in your life to change something, because you believe that this is obviously going to happen. You know, Abram changed his name to Abraham. Because he's like, clearly, God's gonna follow through. I'm gonna have multiple kids. I knew a man once, met him, great, great guy, really smart, really intelligent, really successful, written many books, and he talked about when he was a young adult, you know, past the age of school and all of that, had a great job, really good income, had a really nice house, but the one thing he didn't have was a wife. He wanted a wife really badly. He didn't have a spouse. So he began to pray for that. God, give me a spouse. Give me a wife. Many of us are praying for that right now. You want a spouse. Maybe you're watching from home and you want that. I will challenge you, be more specific in your prayers, okay? Like, pray specifically. What kind of spouse do you want? You know, but like pray, pray for that. That was supposed to be funny, it didn't land. I'll take that out the next time I preach this. Um of you maybe didn't know you could laugh. Be specific, right? So he's praying, he's like, God, give me a spouse. And the Lord told him, I will. But I need you to take a step of faith first. And so he he cleared out half of his closet. He said, You know what? I'm gonna clear half my closet out because if I have if I have a wife, she's gonna need that space. And those of us who are married that are men, we know that he should have cleared out so much more than half of his closet. Like, come on, man. But he he didn't know. He didn't know he was single, you know, at least three-quarters of the closet. You gotta clear that out. But before he ever met his wife, he cleared out the space in his closet for her to be there. That's a step of faith. That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. It is to God, it matters to him. Faith goes first. That's the first truth. Remember that. Number true, number two, which is true. Faith, faith looks forward. Faith looks forward. Hebrews chapter 11 is a really interesting chapter in the Bible. It's often referred to as the hall of faith. Kind of like the hall of fame, and it lists out these people who are people of great faith. And I think it's interesting that there is no hall of discipline in the Bible. There's no hall of intelligence, there's no hall of talent. I'm not saying that discipline isn't important. I'm not saying that it's really good to be intelligent to think things through. I'm not saying that God doesn't give us talent. It's just that there's only one characteristic that has an entire sort of hall of credentials given to it in Scripture, and it's faith. Faith really matters to God. In Hebrews chapter 11, it talks about the faith of Abraham, and it says that it was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave his home and to go to another land that God would give him as an inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith. For he was like a foreigner living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child, though she was barren and too old. She believed that God would keep his promise. And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead, a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there's no way to count them. And all these people died, still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. Faith looks forward. Faith propels us forward. And that, by the way, is the way that we're meant to go, right? We're meant to go forward. That's just like basic human biology. God put our eyes in the front of our head so that we could go forward. Like we are we are way better at going forward than backward, right? Going backward is dangerous. I have I've got kids, and I would never recommend any of them go backwards at all. They're barely good at going forward without hitting things and knocking them over. We're good at going forward. But we often live our lives looking backward. It's normal. I'm not saying it's it's not valuable to look back from time to time. Hindsight is 2020. I spend time reflecting on things that have happened and what did I learn from that? What could I have done differently? How can I grow from that experience? But I'm not supposed to look backwards nearly as much as I look forward. It's kind of a cliched example, but there's a reason that you have a rearview mirror in your car, because sometimes you gotta look back, but there's also a reason that it's much smaller than your windshield. Because most of the time you're supposed to look forward. But life has a funny way of making us look look back, keeping us bound to the past. I've told this story before, it's one of my favorite stories in the world. I'll tell it till I die. I love my wife, she's amazing, she's on, she's awesome. And one of the things I love about her is she she's got a good Sense of humor. And so uh when I was in college, I was hanging out with my little brother who was in high school. I was I was visiting from the holidays. Megan was with me. And we had just gotten married, maybe been married for a few months. And my brother had gotten a DVD of a movie that he heard was really funny. And it was a movie that my mom would not would not approve of. And he's watching it. And I was just downstairs in the living room with him. Megan was too, and he's watching it. And uh my mom comes in the room. It was really late at night. He thought she was in bed. And so she sits down and he kind of looks at me across the living room with just this facial expression that just says, Help, help me. Like, help me. I'm he knows what's about to come in the movie, and my mom is she's gonna lose it, right? And so uh he's like, What? And I just went, Oh, I think I'm gonna go to bed. And so I just went upstairs. Megan came with me, and then he comes up like 10 minutes later, like, thanks a lot, dude. Thanks a lot. I was like, dude, it's your movie. That's not my movie. I wasn't well, I was just downstairs. You're watching the movie. You know, mom, like you know her, you knew what she was gonna do. It's not my fault. And he's like, Oh, I'm in so much trouble, she's so mad. And he's like, I don't think I can go back down there, I don't know what to do. And Megan, my amazing wife, she's like, Aaron, let me go girl to girl. You know, I'll go talk to her and I'll just see how it is. And so she goes downstairs, my little brother's hanging out with me, and Megan comes up like five, ten minutes later, and he's just going, like, what's what's going on? And and she goes, Aaron, and this was a lie, by the way. She lied to him, but it was good. It was a it was a prank. She says, uh, she's just rewinding it and watching that part over and over and over again, and she's just shaking her head in disgust. And he was like, Oh my gosh, are you serious? I'm dead. He's like, I'm dead, my life's over. She wasn't. She'd moved on, she was watching something else. But, you know, I remember in that moment thinking, wow, that's a really funny prank, number one, love my wife. Number two, how often do we do that very same thing in our minds? How often do we replay our worst moments over and over and over again? How often do we live our lives looking back at our failures and mistakes, and we just hit the rewind button and we we watch it, we think about it, we let it define us. You are not defined by your past. You are not defined by your failures, you're not defined by what happened 25 years ago, 30 years ago, yesterday, an hour ago. You are defined by Jesus Christ, what he's done for you, and what he's gonna keep doing in your life. Faith compels you to look forward. Faith compels you to move forward. And many of us we're doing that, we're moving forward. Some of us, though, I meet people all the time and I'll talk with them, and they have faith in Jesus, but they're discouraged, they're frustrated, and so for some reason they've just sort of stopped. It's like they're running a race, but they just said, you know what, I need a minute, and they sat down and they haven't gotten back up yet. Some of us today, you need to get back up. You need to get back up, you need to have some hope, and you need to start moving forward again because God has something for you. He has something for you, but you've got to move forward in your life to receive it. It's time to get up, it's time to move forward. Faith compels you forward. Notice, by the way, that Abraham was looking so forward that it wasn't even his own lifetime that he was concerned with. The promises God had given them, he understood that it was for generations down the road. How amazing would it be if you lived your life making decisions today, not because of how it's going to affect you, because of how it would affect your grandchildren. Some of us in the room, you're really young. You're like grandchildren. I mean, that's that's crazy. It's not. It happens. Our youngest child is two, and Megan was just talking to me the other day about, I haven't seen this yet, but she said she saw a McDonald's commercial that brought her to tears. And maybe you've seen this commercial, it has to do with like a little child ordering a happy meal for the very last time, and the mom realizes it's the last time or something, and that made my wife just fall on the floor in tears. And that's why it's so hard to be a man and be married, because you walk in, your wife's crying, you're like, what is it? She's like, there's a McDonald's commercial, and you're like, What? What happened? Like, we don't even go to McDonald's that often. What's wrong? But we're at this point in life where we're realizing, and God, I pray this in your name, let me let me not have any more children. Um, but like, I love them all. I'm just done. Like, we're realizing that the baby days are over. And Megan told me the other day, we're in bed at night. She's like, Do you ever just wish we had babies again? And I was like, No. Not like, babe, not at all. Not even, there's not even like a small part of me that's like, oh, like when I see people who have babies, like Madison just had a baby, and I'm like, that's so awesome, you're gonna be so tired. It's your turn. You know, there's a part of me that's like, yes. That's probably something wrong with me, but that's God's to work out. So I don't want another baby at all. And she's like, I just I want that. And I said, babe, you ever realize that you know our oldest is 10? And it's not outside the realm of possibility at all. That we're only like 12, 13 years away from being grandparents. And she was like, No, no, that's that's not. I'm a baby, we got married. I was 21, you were 20. That's just a that's like a decade away. We'll still have kids in the house, probably, and be grandparents. So I think we've got a lot of babies. We have four children, we're gonna have like nine grandkids. We're gonna be changing diapers for the rest of our lives. Can we just have like seven years, ten years with none of that, please? But so you've got to think generationally. You've got to think generationally. What could you do in your life right now that would bless your grandchildren? Even if you're only 20. See, if you live that way with that kind of mentality, that that's faith. And it will propel you forward. And what's interesting is that if you make decisions today that will bless your grandchildren, chances are it's gonna bless you in your life too, because those are wise decisions. But it takes faith to live looking that far forward. Faith goes first, and faith looks forward. Number three, this is a really important one to know. Faith can falter. Faith can falter. It can. It can. Sometimes our faith falters a little bit. I mentioned the story in Abraham's life where he and Sarah get impatient, so he has a child, a son Ishmael, with another woman. And it's ugly and it's messy. But that's not the only time that his faith faltered. One time he and his wife were traveling and they were entering a new country, and you have to understand when you're reading the Old Testament, you're you're talking like 2,000, 3,000 years ago, most of the time. And so we often use a phrase like, or we know the word barbaric, like something's barbaric. And you have to understand that barbaric is actually newer than the Old Testament. The barbarians, that's like that's like the Roman Empire time. So it's not that the things in the Old Testament are barbaric, they're like pre-barbaric. Okay, they're way back. And so Abraham and Sarah, they live in these pre-barbaric times. I don't really have another word for it, and they get to a new place, a new country. And Abraham says to Sarah, hey, when we get here, tell them you're my sister, not my wife. Because if they know that you're my wife, they'll kill me and they'll steal you, that she was very beautiful. And he's like, that's what's gonna happen. They're gonna they're gonna kill me, they're gonna take you. So just say you're my sister. And so she goes along with that because many great women go along with their husbands' stupid ideas. That's just the way the world works. And so she's like, fine, and they get to this new place and she's like, I'm his sister. And they're like, Cool. Hey Abraham, will you give us your blessing to marry your sister? And he's like, Yeah. And so his wife gets married to someone else, and then and then like it gets discovered, and the dude who married his wife goes to Abraham is like, What did you do? You let me marry your wife, like I just got married to her now. This is weird, man. And he's like, I know, I just felt I was worried you're gonna kill me. He's like, Well, now I want to kill you. And so they leave and they're like, get out. And what's crazy is that he does it again. There's a second time he gets to another place, and he's like, Hey, I know it went poorly the last time, but I think that sister idea, I think it has some legs, so let's just try it one more time, and the same thing happens. And Abraham's the pioneer of our faith. But his own faith faltered. There were times where his faith wasn't enough to overcome the fear that he was facing. That happens in life. We struggle. Our faith falters, it gets tested. That's okay. In fact, sometimes that's necessary for growth. James chapter 1, verses 2 through 4 says, Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. Maybe your faith has faltered a little bit. Maybe you've tripped up. The challenge is not to let a trip-up become a give up. That's a very different thing. It's one thing to trip up, it's a whole other thing to give up. Just because you've messed up, just because your faith has faltered, doesn't mean God's done with you. In fact, it might be that God is working through that mistake. Not that it was his plan or he wanted you to make that mistake, but God can use it. He can use everything. Those of you who are sports fans, have you ever noticed how often some of the greatest highlights in sports come on the tail end of broken plays? It's like something goes terribly wrong and then out of nowhere something amazing happens. That's life sometimes. Sometimes we falter, we fall short, we trip up, we mess up, but but oftentimes it's in those moments that God teaches us something powerful, that we're able to realize something, to grow in a way we never could have otherwise. God uses our mistakes for our good because he's a good God. That's what he does. If you give him your mess, if you give him your mess, he can use it, he can take it, he can make something great out of it. You're gonna trip up. Faith can falter, but don't give up. That's a very different thing. And that leads us to our fourth and final truth. This is something that Abraham's story teaches us really powerfully. Your faith can falter, but faith won't fail. Faith will not fail you if you put your faith in Jesus. We said this a few weeks ago, and our faith is only as powerful as what we put our faith in. So you might have a lot of faith in something small, in something temporary, and it's not going to do you any good. It's better to have a little bit of faith in something big than a lot of faith in something small. That's why Jesus says in Matthew chapter 17, verse 20, I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, and those are tiny, you could say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. Jesus says, Hey, look, I'm so powerful, he's really being honest. I'm so powerful. God is so powerful that even a tiny bit of faith in me, a tiny bit of faith in me, can accomplish anything. If you put your faith in Jesus, your faith will not fail you. Because God does not fail. Now, sometimes from our perspective, he's a little late in fulfilling his promises. I mean, Abraham was promised a great nation, and a great nation grew out of his family, but when he died, he had two sons. It's not exactly a nation. If you show up with yourself and two kids, you're like, our nation has arrived. People are like, I don't know if that counts as a nation. But it became one. Sometimes God's timeline is a little different than ours. You know, he's eternal. We feel like our lives are really short. The truth is, our spirit will live forever. But from our perspective today, it's like, God, I kind of need you to get on my timeline. Right? Anyone feel that way this morning? You're like, I need God to like speed it up a little bit. Anybody willing to admit that that you'd like that to happen? A few of us are like, yeah, God, I'm like, come on, man. But God doesn't fail. He will never fail you. And this is important, even if you fail him. Even if you fail him, he will never fail you. The story of Abraham actually teaches us that. We read earlier, it said that Abraham, this is Genesis 15, that Abraham believed God. He believed God. Abram believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. I want to show you real quick, uh, and wait just a second, guys, before we put this up. I want to show you a painting that my sister-in-law painted. She is an unbelievable artist. My wife's entire family, they're all unbelievable artists, my wife included, and I am, I have no gifting for that. None at all. And so many of you guys have been to the event that we do every once in a while called Canvas, where we raise money for people and we do kind of an art night. I will not sit at their table. I won't do it. It's torturous, it's awful. It's like, I just don't belong here. I'm gonna go sit with our kids, I'm gonna paint with them, and you guys create your masterpieces. They're unbelievable artists. And Britney painted this painting, and when you see it in a second, you're gonna, you're probably your first thought's gonna be like this: like, oh, okay, that's interesting. I doubt many of you are like, I want that to be the first painting people see when they walk in my home. But when you know the meaning behind it, you might change your mind. All right, so guys, go ahead and put that painting up. Uh there, you go. It's uh it's a ram, you know, split in half, and then some fire and some smoke in between it. Again, if just imagine you put that like right in your entryway, and people walk into your house and they're like, oh, cool, you know, I think it'll be fun. I would do it. But there's a powerful story that's behind this painting, and and it's so funny because if you know the story, not only will this painting become something that artistically is amazing, but it's beautiful. And it's actually that same story where God says that Abram is counted as righteous. So I want to go back to it at Genesis 15. This is verses 6 through 21. It says, Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. And then the Lord told him, I'm the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession. But Abram replied, O sovereign God, sovereign Lord, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it? And the Lord told him, Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And so Abram presented all these to him and he killed them. And then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side. He did not, however, cut the birds in half. Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away. How many of us are looking less forward to lunch than we were just a few short moments ago? Okay, good. Um, this sounds crazy to us. Remember, we're talking pre-barbaric times, but Abram would have known exactly what God was asking him to do, because this was actually a very well-known ritual at the time. It says, as the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. And then the Lord said to Abram, You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth. And as for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction. And after the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram that day and said, I've given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River, the land now occupied by the Kenites, the Kenesites, the Cadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Raphaites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gergesites, and the Jebusites. All of the ites were there, every one of them. And so this is a strange story, right? It's one of those stories that you read in the Bible and you just want to read it and be like, what in the world is going on? But but that that smoke and that fire that Abram saw pass between the carcasses that were split in half, that was the Spirit of God. Here's why this is so powerful, here's why this actually should mean something to you. See, the ritual that God asked Abram to perform, he said, Hey, go get these animals, cut them in half. Like I said, Abram knew exactly what was happening because in that time, if a mighty king conquered a nation and subdued another king, they would go through this ritual. And they would take these animals and they would split them in half. And the weaker king who was conquered would be made to walk between the carcasses. And you can just imagine how disgusting and gross and bloody and messy and brutal this would be. That king would walk between those carcasses, and in doing so it would get bloody and messy. And it was a it was a symbol where the weaker conquered king was saying, if I defy you, if I step out of line, if I betray you, let what has been done to these be done to me. So the mighty king would make the weaker king walk between them and say, If I fail you, then let what has been done to these be done to me. So when when God makes this covenant with Abraham, and he says, Okay, I want you to go get these animals and cut them in half, and Abram's like, I know what's gonna happen. I know this ritual. And he's thinking, okay, the Lord's gonna have me walk between them. Because that's what happened. The the powerful king makes the weaker one walk between. It's almost like a threat. Don't mess up, don't fail. Or this is what you can expect. But then God does something that Abram doesn't expect at all. It's it's not Abram that's made to walk between them, it's God. God goes between those animals, and it's God saying to Abram, Abram, if you fail, if you don't live up to your covenant with me, if you and your descendants step out of line, then what has been done to these will be done to me. It's a picture of Jesus. Because the truth is we've all failed, we've all messed up, we've all fallen short. But our God loves us so much that he didn't look at us and say, okay, now you pay the price for your mistakes. You messed up, it's time for you to suffer. You failed, you've sinned, it's time for you to experience pain and death because you stepped out of line. No, our God is the opposite. He's so loving, he's so good. He says to us, even though you failed me, I won't fail you. In fact, I'll take it for you. That's the promise that he's making to Abram. He's saying, if you step out of line, Abram, I'll pay the price. And he does. Because Abram's people did step out of line. They walked away from their faith. Even when Jesus came, they they murdered him, and that was Jesus fulfilling the promise that God made to Abram that if you step out of line, what let what happens to these things be done to me? And Jesus died that death, and it was brutal and it was painful and it was bloody. But it was the fulfillment of a promise because God keeps his promises. God doesn't fail. Even if you fail him, he's never gonna fail you. Do you believe that this morning? Even if you fail him, he's never gonna fail you, he's never gonna be done with you. He's never gonna be over it. There's never gonna be a day where he said, That was the last straw, I'm finished with you. And by the way, that that applies to your children, that applies to the people that you love. God is patient, he's good, he's kind. So put your faith in him. Like put all of your faith in God. 100% of it. Don't hold anything back. Worship team, you guys can make your way out. We can wrap up and celebrate with some baptisms. But the biggest challenge that we have as people, as people of faith, is to keep a little bit of that faith and put it in things other than God. To keep a little bit of faith and to put it in government, to keep a little bit of faith and put it in ourselves and our own ideas and our own talent, our own ability. So just take a little bit of faith. I always like to picture westerns. I like Western movies. And uh, and there's almost always like a few scenes in Western movies. There's like the scene where there's gonna be a shootout, you know, and there's the close-ups of the eyeballs, and and like who's gonna draw first. That same thing plays out with poker in westerns, where someone's gonna go all in, and it's like the close-ups are on the eyeballs and it's tense, and there's music playing, and it's like, whoa, they're going all in. You ever see a scene in a movie like that where someone's like going all in? I want to ask you a question. Have you gone all in with Jesus? Like, I mean, every chip is on him. Is your faith at the point where you've you've said, I'm not, I'm not putting any of it in anything else? I'm going all in with you. I'm not holding anything back, God. I'm not keeping a little bit of it for myself. I'm not saying, hey, I'm 90% on you, and then I'm 10% on this political party or or or this investment that I've made or this idea that I have. Have you gone all in with Jesus? That's what these people who are about to get baptized, that's what they're doing. They're going all in. And I'm telling you that if you go all in with Jesus, like 100%, he will never fail you. Yes, you will falter. Yes, you will struggle, yes, you will encounter hardship. But every time you do, he's there. And he loves you, he cares about you, he's powerful. There's nothing he can't do, and no matter where you are, no matter how far you fall, he's there to pick you back up because he does not fail. He can't fail, he doesn't know how to do it, he's never failed. Death couldn't stop him for crying out loud. He does not fail, and he will not fail you. So have faith. Faith that you can depend on. Faith goes first, faith looks forward, faith can falter, but faith does not fail. Not when you put it in Jesus. So I want to encourage you, challenge you, all of us here, all of us watching from home. Maybe you haven't put any of it on Jesus. You're not sure yet. I'm telling you, go all in. Go all in. It works. I'm constantly faced with my own failures. On a regular basis, I come face to face with my own shortcomings as a father, as a husband, as a human being. Constantly, I'm like, why did I do that? That was the dumbest. Why did I should have gone that way instead of this way? Why did I make that decision? But you know what? I've learned right choice, wrong choice, good or bad, God's there none the same. Nonetheless, always, he's there. He never fails me. He's always there. There's never a moment where he's like, Yeah, you should have made the different decision, and and I'm not gonna help you anymore. Never happens. He doesn't fail. So if you haven't put your faith in Jesus, put it on, put it in Jesus. He's not gonna fail you. And if you're here today, if you're watching and you're like, I've put most of it on Jesus, I'm telling you. It's not enough. Put it all, all on Jesus. You need a faith you can depend on, and He's the only one, He's the only one who's really dependable at the end of the day. Let's pray, Father. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lord, for loving us the way you do. Thank you, Lord, for being faithful, even when we're not. You don't fail us, you refuse to, you don't give up on us. God, I can be honest, sometimes we we feel tempted to give up on you, sometimes we feel we'll just feel tempted to give up in general, Lord. But you never give up on us. So, Jesus, I just pray that that all of us listening right now, all of us watching, all of us here, that we would, in our hearts right now, just affirm to you that we are going all in with you. We're not gonna hold anything back. We're gonna let you in every part of our lives, we're gonna let you have your way, we're gonna let you reign, we're gonna let you do what you do. We're putting all of our faith on you, Lord. We need a faith that we can depend on. Because so much depends on our faith. So remind us of that, Lord. Keep us looking forward. God, let us let us trust you so much that we put our faith ahead of the blessing. God, give us the strength not to give up when we trip up. Because there's a big difference between failing and faltering. Lord, we love you, we trust you tonight, we pray. Amen.