Tonight, turning your Bibles to Hebrews 12. We're going to be in Hebrews 11, Hebrews 12, and James 1. They're all really close to one another. Tonight, I want to talk about enduring faith, enduring faith.
Over the last couple of years, it has seemed that the Lord has had us with training wheels on in our journeys of faith that we've gone on as a community. I feel like he's just been helping us along, prodding us along in our journey of faith as a people. And that's been something that he's done with us corporately, but it's also something that he's done with us personally. And I believe that for the kickoff into 2023, that the Lord is inviting us into having enduring faith, and that there's going to be opportunities where we are going to move forth through this year.
And the things that are going to happen are going to require enduring perseverance in our faith. But there's going to be such a gratifying journey that God has for us as we endure. And so I'm excited to just share what I feel like the Lord has highlighted for us with faith. But if you haven't been around every day for a long time, I want to draw your attention to a couple messages on faith that I really believe are important for you to listen to, because this is a message that's kind of a supplement to some of those other messages.
And so this isn't the full picture of the topic of faith, obviously, in a 30, 40 minute message. And so I want to have you write these messages down if you haven't listened to them or maybe you want to re-listen to them. Here they are. You ready for them?
Say, yep. All right. Mustard seed. Bounce back.
So mustard seed is one message, first message. Bounce back is the second message. And then what is faith? Is the third message.
The third message, what is faith? It's something that Scott preached on in September. He delivered a message on faith. And I felt like it's just imperative for us to actually saturate ourselves in that message that Scott shared with us as a community, because it addressed some of our questions where, oftentimes, when we don't see breakthrough, we have to come to grips and face when we don't see the breakthrough.
Sometimes things aren't as black and white as we'd like to think they are. And Scott spoke to that. And as a messenger in this house that really carries that message of faith and has seen hundreds of people healed in his journey with God, I thought it was just gold what he shared in September. So listen to that message as well.
We have so many leaders in the house that carry these messages on faith. And so we got to just remind ourselves what has already been said, because sometimes we just forget, don't we? Have you ever gotten a text from a friend or a family member? And there's kind of an emergency where it's an all hands-on deck moment, where you have to just everybody has to pray for this breakthrough, right?
Maybe it's a diagnosis, maybe there's something that's just unfolding, that's causing tension, and there's relational brokenness, whatever it is. And they ask for prayer. And for those first couple of days, you are very good at operating in faith. Is that right?
Where you're kind of like, oh, I'm searching for the scripture. I got a vision. I'm sending the text message. And you are just killing it as a brother or sister in the Lord.
You're operating in faith, the prayer of faith. And then a couple of days later, you're just kind of forgetting about it. Or you don't feel those emotions of like, I'm pressing in, because there's so many other distractions. And then a couple of weeks later, you've completely fizzled out in your faith, right?
How many of you feel that way? That's my story over and over and over again, right? The fizzling out of faith. And maybe you've been on the receiving end of faith that fizzles out, right?
Where you send the message and there's a lot of gathering around you at the start. And then it just kind of gets tiring. You know, people are a couple months later, you're still in the fire, trying to believe in faith for breakthrough. And you're going, man, I feel a little bit lonely in my journey of faith.
And we've all experienced that faith that fizzles because there's so many other things. There's busyness and there's discouragement. And we love the microwaved breakthrough, don't we? We like when the breakthrough happens now.
We like the wonder, we like the miracle, which means it happened right then. And when it takes enduring faith, my goodness, that's kind of a drag, isn't it? Faith like long-term faith. Ah, man, that feels inconvenient.
And what I want to do is call us into enduring faith, but we got to crack the code on how do you get into enduring faith? How can you actually live into that? Because we've learned over time in some of these messages that I've talked about to re-listen to are highlighting that the nature of faith is like the mustard seed. And the mustard seed, the defining element about the mustard seed is not that it's small, but that it's persistent.
Faith that is persistent, faith that keeps on hitting it again, faith that is like a battering ram is what Jesus was talking about when he talked about faith. Because the mustard seed was actually this weed, it's like this invasive weed in Israel. And it would literally push over boulders that were on mountains. That's why Jesus says, you want to see a mountain move?
You got to have faith like a mustard seed because mustard seeds, they would start sprouting, they'd literally push over boulders on the mountainsides of Israel. And the disciples knew this, right? And so when he says mustard seed, they know relentless. That's what Jesus is saying.
They know that when Jesus says mustard seed, that it's persistence, that it's gritty, that it doesn't give up. It's like in Luke 18, maybe let's turn to Luke 18. I know I had you turn to Hebrews, it's Luke 18 real quick. Luke 18, Jesus is sharing a parable, he's sharing a story.
And in this story, I want you to look at the intro verse before he starts sharing the story. He says this, he told them a parable to the effect that they always, that they ought always to pray. And not lose heart, that they always should pray and not give up and lose heart. Then look at the end of the, the end of this passage in verse eight.
I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth? So Jesus is sharing this parable about this widow that's demanding justice. And she keeps on coming to a judge over and over and over again.
And the judge is an unjust judge. He's not a good judge, he's a bad judge, he's not going to give her justice. But do you know what she does? She keeps on hitting it over and over and over again.
And she starts wearing this judge down with her persistence. She starts making him uncomfortable because he always, or she always just hits it over and over again. She's driving him crazy with her persistence. And Jesus is going, I'm sharing this parable with you so that you understand the nature of prayer and the nature of faith.
And most of the time, what you're not realizing is that faith gets expressed in intercession a lot of the time. It gets expressed, faith gets expressed when you lay hands on the sick, faith gets expressed when you start believing for things and you start declaring things. But a lot of times, faith gets expressed through intercession and prayer. And so Jesus is going, man, you want to know the nature of faith that I'm looking for at the end of the story when I come back?
I'm looking for persistent faith. I'm looking for faith that just keeps on hitting it. Let's turn to that Hebrews 12 passage. So how do we, as a people, walk in enduring faith?
Before we get into Hebrews 12, I have a fun activity for us to do together. How many of you know we're seeing the end of spectator Christianity and that you didn't show up just to watch a good message and watch a worship team do their thing, right? We're looking for participation, 100% participation, all right? Oh, this is going to be good.
All right. So some of you don't know the person next to you and that's okay. That's good. That's going to be even more fun for you, okay?
So this is what we're going to do. What I want us to do, and I promise this is all going to tie into the message. It's not going to seem like it now, but I promise we're going to get there, okay? What we're going to do is I'm going to name an emotion and I want you to communicate that emotion with your face, okay, to a neighbor, all right?
So you're going to turn to your neighbor. If there's an odd number in your in your row, then you can turn into a group of three. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to name this emotion or this characteristic and you're going to face them. And now you probably need to introduce yourself, but you're going to face them and that you're going to show that with your face.
Now listen, it's going to be so awkward if one of you does it and the other one doesn't. So we got to fully, groups are fine. Yeah. Yeah, you can get into groups of three, maybe even four if you want to.
You're a group of five? No way. Break off. Okay.
So are you guys ready? Do we get it? Do we get what we're doing? Okay.
It's okay to face the other person. Introduce yourself. Ready, go. Introduce yourself.
Introduce yourself. Nice to meet you. All right. Everybody say I'm ready.
All right. I'm going to say one, two, three, go. And you're going to make the facial expression just for two seconds. Just make that facial expression.
Okay. All right. Joy. One, two, three, go.
Yeah, very good. Very good. All right. Two, three, go.
There we go. Nice. Very nice. All right.
Next one. All right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Confused, confused.
One, two, three, confused, go. All right. Peace. Peace.
One, two, three, go. Restful. Peace. Wow.
Very nice. Very nice. All right. Surprise.
Surprise. One, two, three, go. Amazing. Amazing.
We got some good actors and actresses. All right. Last one. Last one.
Are you ready? Enduring faith. One, two, three, go. All right.
Good. Good. All right. Hebrews 12.
Very good. All right. Let's gather back. Hebrews 12.
Turn to Hebrews 12. Listen. Listen. Listen.
Bring it back here. Bring it back. Okay. I believe what the Lord wants to teach us tonight is what true kingdom enduring faith looks like on your face.
What does enduring faith look like on your face? At the end of my message tonight, what I want us to do is actually believe for 2023, we're going to actually adopt a breakthrough that we're going to believe for as individuals. So we're going to choose one thing. Maybe it's an injustice that's happening in our city.
Maybe it's for a family member to meet Jesus. Maybe it's a healing of a chronic illness that's happening. Maybe it's provision that's needed in a friend's life or something like that. I don't know what breakthrough that God's going to put on your heart to believe for, but we are all going to choose at the end of the message.
In the end of tonight, we're going to choose one thing to believe for and have enduring faith to go after in 2023. Okay. So you can be thinking about that as we're talking about faith. Hebrews 12.
Let's look at verse one. Lord, you want to teach us what enduring faith looks like on our face. Therefore, since we are surrounded, man, the context of this is that the writer Hebrews just talked about all of the heroes of faith. So that's what just happened.
He just shared their stories in Hebrews 11. Now there's a therefore because of all of these stories of faith. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight that hinders and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
I want us to reflect on this just for a moment that there's a whole cloud of witnesses. In other words, this is not a new journey of faith that you are tackling. This isn't something that's unique to you in 2023 where it's just like, man, I'm different than the ones that have gone before me. No, this is pretty similar to what brothers and sisters in the Lord have been going after for centuries, for millennia.
There is a whole cloud of witnesses, millions upon millions of people that have gone on a similar faith journey to what you're going through and what you're going to go through. That's encouraging to me. That's encouraging that there's somebody that has been here before. So they're cheering us on from the balcony of heaven.
Then he says, let us lay aside every weight, sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance, the race. How many of you know that we have a race of faith and that it requires endurance? It requires us, if you're going to sign up for an Iron Man, you know that it's going to require endurance. It's going to require that you're going to have to, you know that trials are coming when you sign up for an enduring faith or an enduring race.
And so we see that it's a race that is a long-term race set before us. Then look at verse two, looking to Jesus, the author or the pioneer, I like the word pioneer, in the Greek it can mean author but it can mean the one that went before us or who pioneered. Jesus Lewis and Clark did, you know what I'm saying? He pioneered the whole thing.
So Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith. In other words, there's an end to the story here. There's an end to the story where he's going to perfect our faith. We feel like our faith is not perfected right now.
It's partial but he's going to perfect it at the end of the story. And then he says, what the Lord does is he gives us the way to endure in faith. Look at this next phrase. There was joy that was set before Jesus.
Joy was set before Jesus and because joy was set before him that empowered him to endure. Do you know what happens most of the time when we get a bad report? We get that text message. It's a bad report.
Do you know what we do most of the time? We think about all the things that could happen that are negative. We play out the whole scenario of all of the bad worst case scenarios that could happen when we're faced with a faith journey. Most of the time we start going into fear around what are the bad things that could take place.
We don't need to train ourselves. I'd probably say 5x, 10x. We are mostly seeing what could go wrong rather than what could go right. I know for Katie and I with this building journey that we're on, it's so easy.
I mean, we already got the list and our subconscious of all the things that could go wrong. I see the paper article. I just see the whole thing and it doesn't take a lot of difficulty to try to think or cook those things up. But it takes intentionality to go, what's the joy that's set before me?
See, there's a beginning and middle and end to our faith journeys and the beginning starts with joy. How does it start with joy? It starts with joy by getting that report or signing up for that Iron Man faith journey and going, what is the result of my faith? When I see that breakthrough in my imagination, what does it feel like and what does it look like?
Let me give you an example. It's like when that person that has stage four cancer gets healed, what is it going to look like? And we start in our imagination picturing them. I picture the man walking his daughter down the aisle.
I picture him swinging the grandchildren in the backyard. I picture him getting the report that there's no more cancer in his body and there's joy in laughing and tears and there's messages that he's sending out and he's sharing with the doctor. I know this is impossible. Jesus is the one that did this and he's repping Jesus in the doctor's office.
Then you start playing it out in your mind, the joy that's set before you. We know that Jesus, joy, set before him was us. It was the Father. It was the throne as he's the King of Kings, Lord of Lords.
It was all those things. But listen, there can be joy set before you. And that's the only way that your faith is going to endure. If the faith that you're going to have is actually just a reaction to what you're afraid of, you're going to white knuckle the whole thing.
You're going to get discouraged the whole time. You're going to quit. It's not going to go well for you. You have to actually start the whole faith journey with going, Lord, show me.
Show me the result of my faith. I want to have that joy set before me. Then what happens when we actually give ourselves over to the joy? Do you know what happens?
Someone starts knocking. Shame starts knocking. Look at the phrase that comes right after, endure the cross and Jesus despised the shame of the cross. Do you know what happens when you're enduring in faith?
What happens is shame starts going, you should be embarrassed that you believed. You should be embarrassed and have shame and hide that you are actually going to believe for the impossible. And you start becoming reclusive in your faith because you're embarrassed by the foolishness of faith. And Jesus is hanging on the cross and he's going, I'm despising shame.
I'm naked hanging on the tree. And I'm not going to bow my knee to shame, even though I'm in the most shameful position in history. He's going, I'm not, I'm going to despise shame. Shame has no rights over me.
I'm going to despise it. And I'm going to step forward in enduring faith because I know the end of the story. And I've got joy set before me. See, God's calling us to despise the shame of foolishness when you're believing, though you haven't seen.
That's what faith is being sure of what you're hoping for and confident of what you don't see. Jesus is going, I don't see it, but I see it. Do you know what I'm saying? Jesus is going, I've got joy set before me.
I see it in my mind. I don't see it in the physical right now. I don't see it as they're taking my cloak and they're casting lots for my cloak. But I see a day coming when I'm going to clothe billions of people in robes of righteousness.
I've got joy coming. I don't see it right now, but I see it right now. Turn to James 1. Everybody say faith begins with joy.
Faith begins with joy. James 1 verse 2. So we know where we start with enduring faith starts with joy. Now let's look at James 1 verse 2.
Count it all what? Joy. My brother is when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your what produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.
Man, the end of that verse, you're going to be perfect, complete lacking nothing. That's really, that's amazing. That's pretty good. Yeah.
Perfect, mature, complete, lacking, who wants that? I want perfect, mature, complete, lacking nothing. Because when I was in the middle of my enduring faith journey, what happened? Trials started happening.
My faith started getting tested. Do you know what testing looks like? A bad, another bad report. Do you know what testing looks like?
It looks like the temperature rising. It looks like the wind starting to blow. It looks like the storm rolling in, the sand is shifting. All of the things that you're thinking should be happy.
You should be getting some momentum in faith. You should have all of those practical things should start lining up by now. And all of a sudden it's a worse report than before. How many of you have been on that journey?
Why is it getting worse? I'm on this. I'm enduring. I'm persistent.
I'm praying now it's getting worse rather than better. And the Lord's going, hey, you're on to something. You're on to something. You're going to endure even when your faith starts getting tested.
And when you hit in, when you hit that testing and that trial, you're actually going to respond with a smile. You're going to go, oh my goodness. That's making this a little bit more intense. Oh, no, that's another bad report.
And you're going to start going, wow, I'm going to count this one as joy. Because now there's testing and now it's going to be even more of a miracle. And you're going to start leaning into joy going, Lord, thank you that this test is actually going to put within me more endurance, more steadfastness, more grit to believe, even when I don't see it. The Lord's going, I want you to step into a steadfastness that you haven't tasted yet.
And it's actually going to bring a completeness and a maturity. Now you can't lose because every single time that storm hits, you start getting more determined. Every single time that that temperature starts rising, you get more endurance and more grit and more persistence. Every time that wind starts blowing, you become more tenacious in your faith.
And it starts working within you a maturity to not be driven by what you see, but by what you know and the joy that you started with. It's like childlike faith. That's what it is. It's childlike faith.
It's like when you see that three or four year old and they're running full steam ahead, they're just confidently running and they hit a wall. Just didn't see it coming. You know that glass door, that sliding door, they just hit the wall. They fall over and you know what they do.
They always look at mom or dad. They're like, they're about ready to cry. They look at mom and dad and then their dad goes, just like, you're okay. And they go, and they get back up and just keep on trucking.
How many of you know that when that trial and that test starts happening, then all we need to do is lift our chin and look up and look at the father. And do you know what he's doing? He's like, yeah. Come on, he's just giving you a little pack, right?
And he's going, hey, you're my bounce back kid. Get up. You're my bounce back kid. When you get knocked down, you get up again.
You got someone in your corner that sees when you get hit and he's the coach that's going, hey, you got it. Keep on hitting it again. Keep on hitting it again. You're the battery and ram son of God.
You're the battery and ram daughter of God. You just keep on going. You're like the energizer bunny that just keeps on trucking. Even when it doesn't seem like it makes sense.
You got that lithium ion thing on the inside of you. All right. Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 verse 13 says this.
These all died. He's talking about all of the heroes of the faith. Okay. In this passage, the writer of Hebrews is talking about all of the heroes.
Was he saying these, all these heroes of the faith died, not having received the things promised. Okay. But having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles for people who speak, thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But as it is, they desire a better country. That is a heavenly kingdom country. Therefore, God, look at this. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God.
For he has prepared for them a city. Let's look at verse six. And without faith, it's impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God, they have to believe that he exists and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
At the end of Hebrews, it talks about how God commends those who believed even having not yet seen the breakthrough. So we started with joy at the beginning. Getting a vision for what the return on the investment of my enduring faith is going to be. Then in the middle of our enduring faith journey, we actually have to endure.
It's like you're not going to have to endure unless there's actually difficulty that you're confronted with and we are going to count it as joy. So there's joy at the start, joy in the middle of the tension. And now it sounds like joy at the end, even if I don't see the breakthrough. Because what is the Lord?
Man, how many of you have never had moments where you thought you endured in faith and then you didn't see the breakthrough? Raise your hand. You're like, man, I thought I prayed in faith. I was sure I knew I knew I was going to see the breakthrough and then it didn't happen.
You're in good company with the heroes of faith in history. That should be encouraging to you that the heroes, like it's in the Bible. What we just read is in the Bible that they didn't see what they were believing for and the Lord's going, I'm not ashamed of them. I'm actually proud to be associated with them.
You mean, even though I didn't see the breakthrough, you're proud to be associated with me? You mean, as a father, you're going, hey, look, look at her. Believing, having not yet seen and she didn't see the breakthrough and she's unoffended and she still got steadfastness on her. Look at her.
Look at her. Hey, look at my boy. Look at my boy. He's 70, 80 years old, has seen so many failures.
He's unoffended and he's still believing. Look at my boy, the pride in my heart for him. The father's so proud of us when we endure in faith, even when it doesn't make sense. We're in good company with people that are called the heroes of the faith, when we endure even if we don't see the breakthrough.
The Lord is proud to be called. The Lord is proud to be called our God and associate with us when we don't see the breakthrough, but we still endure and we didn't give up. And then there's this end of the story that I mean, this is so encouraging. There's so much joy here.
I get my dad proud of me. I get steadfastness that makes me complete and mature. And then I know the end of the story, because the end of the story is that he's going to perfect faith. I get to be part of a heavenly kingdom that makes all of the wrong things that I was believing for where I didn't see breakthrough.
And he's going to make all of those wrong things right at the end of the story. So I can joyfully go. I know the end of the story, even if I don't see breakthrough now, now the pressure's off. Now the pressure's off because I'm going to endure in faith, even if I don't see it.
I know the end of the story anyways. I've already read the end of the story. He's going to restore all things. And I get to take off all of the pressure of I've got to do it.
I've got to white knuckle it. I've got to see the breakthrough. It's all on me. And you just go, man, all I know is I'm just going to keep on hitting it.
All I know is I'm going to be like a battery now. All I know is I'm going to be like the Luke 18 persistent widow. All I know is going to be a bounce back kid. I'm going to be like the mustard seed.
I'm just going to keep on going. It doesn't have to look flashy. It just looks reliable. It doesn't have to look bold.
It just looks consistent. Some of you guys are going man, but I'm not like the intercessor that like really is firing. That's okay. You just keep on showing up believing.
Do you know what your face looks like when you're enduring faith? It's not the most I think probably 95 maybe 100% of us. When we said enduring faith, do you know what our face was? Like our jaw was a little tighter.
We're like. And you know why we have that? Because that's the face of trying to have faith. Trying to get faith that endures.
But do you know that faith that is true enduring faith? It's faith that is confident of what we're hoping for. And sure of what we don't see. That's the definition of faith, right?
So when we've got the enduring faith or enduring faith face, it's kind of like this, right? When somebody was sleeping, they just nudged the person. It's like, okay, do it again. He missed it.
It's a face of joy. It's a face of he said it. I believe it. Pressure's off.
I'm just going to keep on showing up. And there's a pleasantness about joy. It's like, man, I'm just thinking about what the ROI is on the other side of this. I know that the Lord works good for those who love him.
So I'm going to be in a great shape. Because even if I don't see the breakthrough, he's going to turn it for good anyways. And now there might be painful moments when I don't see the breakthrough. We have to acknowledge that there's going to be pain about that.
That's why I'm highlighting these other messages because it talks about that. But we actually can't be plastic in our faith. How many of you know that sometimes in certain movements in the body of Christ, we just start trying to apply a Jesus bandaid on things and not actually acknowledge the reality of what's happening in front of us? It's like, okay, I got the diagnosis.
That's not the diagnosis. It's like, well, no, it is the diagnosis. That and we try to ignore the reality of what's happening in the physical. And we think that that's faith.
I want you to know that you can acknowledge what's happening in the physical, face it, and then apply faith and that joyful, heart-imaginative thing that God gives you, that picture of restoration, and you apply it to the reality of the situation. You don't need to ignore the situation. You don't need to ignore the testing. You don't need to ignore the storm.
You acknowledge it, and then you apply faith to it. Can we just break off that plastic thing and that fear? Because it's actually fear-based. Do I?
No, no, no, no. I'm going to plug my ears. I'm not going to acknowledge what's happening. It's like, no, you can acknowledge it.
You can face it. Maybe you need to even honestly go, I'm feeling weak in faith. You need to actually be real about it and go, man, Lord, I feel weak. And it creates connection with you and the Father.
That's like David in Psalm 13. It's like Jesus when he walks up and there's Lazarus in a tomb and he actually feels. He allows himself to feel the tension of what's happening. It's like David and he's going, how long, oh Lord, will you abandon me?
The man after God's own heart and he's walking in lack of faith. No, there's just a faith journey. And so he goes, hey, I'm going to be real with what I'm feeling because I'm not just going to be religious about it, but then I'm going to lift my chin up just like Jesus. Do you know what he does?
He looks up to heaven and he says, he says, a thank you to the Father. He reminds himself again what his authority is in Jesus. He reminds himself again of the joy that's set before him. And David does the same thing.
They lift up their chin, look at God, and then they start agreeing with what God wants to do. In faith, that's what our faith journey looks like. And you know one of the fruits of faith that is so powerful, it's connection with the Lord. Your faith journey is a journey of connection.
It's not a journey of white knuckling the thing. It's not the journey of like, I got to just work really hard and endure in faith. It's a, I get to be present and I get to endure in faith. Does that make sense?
What I want us to do is believe in 2023 for one breakthrough. Maybe it's a breakthrough for justice, provision, freedom, healing, salvation for someone. I mean, we have to acknowledge that God has given people free will, and you can pray, you can persist and widow the thing for salvation for a friend, but it really God has given free will to everyone to make their own choice. I mean, God can actually knock someone off of their horse and make them blind and Apostle Paul could have still chosen to not follow Jesus because he has free will that God's given him.
So what I'm trying to encourage you with is you might not see the breakthrough, but it's not, that's not to discourage you. Because you know, it's joy from the beginning to the middle to the end, no matter what. And so I'm inviting you today into an enduring faith journey of joy. So let's all stand.
I want to respond to the Lord. We can spread out a little bit. What I want us to do is just engage with the Holy Spirit and have the Holy Spirit highlight this one thing that we're going to believe for breakthrough in in 2023. I want to encourage you to believe for something and sign up for this faith journey to believe for breakthrough in this person's life or in this area.
And it not directly results in something where you're getting something out of it. Okay, so this isn't, I mean, a lot of us need breakthrough, right? But I want us to actually believe for something outside of us because what's going to happen is you're going to start believing in faith for this specific thing. And you're going to start getting refreshed because you're refreshing others in the place of prayer and intercession.
You're going to get refreshed and you're going to be surprised how refreshed you are because you're actually going to the Lord on behalf of someone else. And so we're going to ask Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, you could just whisper in your own words with the Lord, Holy Spirit, who do you want me to pray for? What do you want me to believe for in 2023? You can just ask Him, Holy Spirit, give me a face or a name.
Who are you highlighting? What are you highlighting? If you're not getting any one or anything, just ask Holy Spirit again, just reengage your heart, ask Him again. It's good.
If you're going, man, I don't even know what to believe for you. Just whatever comes to your mind first. Then what I want us to do is I want us to picture with the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit is going to help you in your imagination, picture what the breakthrough looks like, that joyful moment of breakthrough, that joyful resolution to the chaos, that shalom happening and taking effect when there's chaos. I just want us to picture what would it look like in the streets?
What would it look like in their house? What would it look like in the workplace? What does their face look like? What emotions do they have?
What are the conversations that they're having? I'm just going to give a little bit of space so you can just imagine with Holy Spirit what it looks like, the fruit of your enduring faith. What does it look like three years from now? What does it look like 10 years from now?
As we're on this journey throughout the year, it's going to take time to let this joy marinate, this joyful picture of breakthrough marinate. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I believe that as we're at the beginning of this journey of faith endurance, that the Lord is actually wanting to deposit in us a resilience and an endurance of faith, and that it looks like joy, that it looks like smiling even when the testing comes.
Lord, I thank you that it's joy at the beginning, that it's joy in the testing, and it's joy at the end. It's joy whether there's breakthrough or it's joy if there's no breakthrough. I get joy. Lord, I thank you that you take everything and you work it for the good of those who love you.
Lord, we despise the shame. We despise the shame of enduring in faith. Lord, we follow in the footsteps of the pioneering man of God who takes away the sins of the world. We pioneer into these uncharted waters knowing that there's already been one that's gone before us, already one that's gone through the testing, already a cloud of witnesses that have already gone before us in faith, believing, having not yet seen, and the angels peer in to look into such a thing.
Lord, I thank you that you would count us worthy to endure in faith and actually cause wonder in the angelic host around the throne. There's a message that Ben preached in the last year, and it was about faith in it, and it was this moment where Ben just released this phrase over us, and it's this phrase that at the end of the story, when you see that the breakthrough happened, you're actually going to say I knew it. I knew it. Five years down the road, I knew it.
Three months down the road, I knew it. I knew it. That's going to be that confident faith, that confidence of what we're hoping for. Faith.
Would you just put your hands out in front of you? Lord, I thank you that I can't do it in my own strength and that I can't do it in my own ability, and it's not by my strength, but it's by the strength of the Holy Spirit inside of me. Lord, I thank you that you've given me an enduring, faithful spirit on the inside of me. Lord, I thank you that I don't have to white knuckle this thing, but that I can just kind of intentionally be at rest and persist and endure it in joy.
Thank you for your strength on the inside of me. It's not my strength, but it's your strength working through me. Lord, we thank you that this journey of enduring faith is going to result in restored marriages, in businesses that are going to experience favor, in bodies that are going to experience healing, in hands that are going to get laid on the sick and that they will recover. Lord, I thank you for redemption in impossible situations.
I thank you for justice in a city that's been broken down by injustice. Lord, we thank you that you look at enduring faith and there's pride in your eyes. Lord, we want to be considered in that cloud of witnesses at the end of the story that had enduring faith, believing in even when we had not seen. We love you.
You can just say I love you, do them. That's authentic. That just is authentic to you. Whatever that sounds like, maybe it looks like a big deep breath in and a deep breath out.
Just an acknowledgement. I love you. Thank you Lord. Thank you for the privilege to adopt your heart for something that you're actually burning with.
Give me your heart for this person. Give me your heart for the situation. Give me the emotions that you have about this circumstance. Thank you Lord.
In Jesus name, amen. Amen, amen. God is going to mature us in joyful faith and I'm so excited to see that joyful faith on us that when we have moments as a community where we're praying for healing, it's not going to be okay. I really need to sign up to have faith.
It's going to be like really? We get to pray for healing right now. And there's an excitement because faith is just bustling on the inside of us, right? Hey, I want to welcome Mark up.
He's got one word before we let you go that he wanted that I wanted him to share. Mark, you had a dream last night and so I want to have Mark share the dream that he had. He had a dream that I think is for our church. In the dream, I saw a bunch of people from every day sitting in a circle and the Lord came up and invited people to start to prepare for what was going to come about.
And a person in the group stood up and said, but Lord, I've already committed to so many different things. And the Lord said, what I'm calling you to is more important than the things that you've given your life to. And then I saw that person start to prepare and I started to see trials come before them. And one of the main trials was from other believers where a big trial and saying yes to the Lord, giving your life to the Lord, devoting time to the Lord is other believers are going to start to be like, why are you being so radical?
And I just felt like that there's going to be breakthrough of the Lord giving provision for people to spend quality time with him long hours with him. And I just felt the Lord calling our community at the beginning of this year to say yes to him, of even if you feel like you're too busy, say yes to the Lord, give time to the Lord. And it doesn't matter what family members other believers say, it's time to go deep with him and say yes to him. Yes.
Come on. Wow. Thank you, Mark.