Faith | Geoff Sensenig | May 24, 2026

-

Transcript

Topical Talk And Ground Rules

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This will not be an exegesis or expositional teaching. This will be topical. And to start with, um, anyway, to finish that out, uh, I hope to still make it worth your time, but I may say it again, this is not supposed to be exhaustive on this topic. So don't don't take this as a full definition, but take it as, you know, maybe you all know at least some things about this particular topic. And I would just like you to to maybe add some of my experiences and my thoughts onto your current pool of knowledge. All right. Ready to go? Everybody with me? All right.

Earthquake Fear And Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Um so a couple of stories to to introduce it, and I think maybe the the topic will become clear pretty quickly. Oh, I was supposed to introduce myself a little further. We've been we've been living in Thailand now for well, for the last seven years, that's been our home base, even though we haven't been there the whole time. Before that, we lived in China since 2005, so it's been I think last month it was 21 years since we moved to Asia. Cody grew up there, and uh he may choose to correct some of my stories, but that's fine. I'm I'm telling them the way they're in my mind, uh, and our our memories get redacted sometimes. Did you ever realize that? Maybe you're too young to have hit that yet, but all right. Stories. Um in 2008, one afternoon we were in our apartment, seventh floor in the city of 10 million or so in China, Chengdu, and I was working on homework because I was trying to complete a degree for the sake of getting a work visa in China, which it never helped me anyway, but that's what I was doing. I remember it. And suddenly our apartment on the seventh floor started to shake, and I remember thinking, you know, what is this? What's going on? Um, and stuff was rattling, the doors were banging, and I ran out, and uh my children were upset a bit. Um, but anyway, we we got ourselves together finally and and ran down the stairs. Things were still shaking. We didn't have an elevator, but you shouldn't use that anyway, right? Uh and we got downstairs and there were people everywhere. It wasn't just our building that was shaking. Um, that was if you look in in your history textbooks, um, we've seen it in school books. The uh Sichuan earthquake of 2008, it was what was it? Richter scale? 77.8 or yeah, eight, depending who measured. Um not right where we were, but it was it was a scary thing. And a lot of people camped out out on the street for a long time. We had they said more than 10,000 aftershocks. The last we felt was about a year later. Um, it just continued to taper off. But you know, during that time we stayed in a lot of cracked buildings. Um, we stayed out on a on a soccer field, but then the next day, a lot of people camped out for a long time. We went inside. Uh maybe you can look at that different ways. You know, what's what's our responsibility? Um, should I stop there? Let's stop there for now. Maybe I'll continue it a little later.

Floodwaters And A Believer’s Heart

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Jumping forward, last last year around Thanksgiving, it rained hard for well, we got how much rain do you get in a year here? Don't know? Okay. We got 48 inches in six days, and uh the water rose quickly, and a lot of our city was flooded. They said it was the biggest, it was a strange combination of weather events, and it was the biggest uh flood-producing weather system in 300 years. So that was another big big event in our lives. Uh, we camped out upstairs because we had two times that the flood water rose in our house. Once it hit 27 inches, once it hit 32 inches, but it went down fast. A lot of the town, the whole first floor was was flooded, and some places into the second floor, cars were piled on top of each other. Uh, there were friends that were stuck for a week in the upstairs of their house because not not because they were afraid of water coming back, but because the water was too deep to get out. And the the rescue boats couldn't come through because the water was flowing so fast. What do you do with that as a believer? Where does your heart go? Things like that. Um, sorry, trying to decide how many part stories I should tell here. Um, okay, let's let's do a couple more part stories.

When Provision Gets Personal

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Uh one dark night in 2004, probably, or maybe beginning of 2005, I'm not sure. But our family had decided to do like Hudson Taylor and George Mueller and not talk to people about our financial needs, just to, you know, just to see God work. Not that we were too proud. I feel like God, I don't feel like it's wrong to talk in church about what you need as a as a Christian worker, as a missionary. Uh, but we felt like this was what God was wanting us to do. And but anyway, like Hudson Taylor, we decided, okay, we're not going to do this before we go to the field, you know, make sure we're in practice when we get there. Uh so we weren't we weren't talking about our needs, but my job didn't pay that well. And due to our traveling and and some other expenses, we were out of money, and I wasn't getting a paycheck for another two weeks. We had two people with diabetes in our family at that time, and I have diabetes, and two of our daughters do, but at that time, just our oldest daughter and myself had diabetes, and we couldn't afford insulin. Um couldn't, we didn't have money for insulin, and we needed money the next day. Um what do you do? We stopped beside the road and and Becky and I just cried out to God. Our children were in the backseat. I don't know if Cody probably doesn't remember that. He was pretty small at that time, maybe. Three, four, five. Um cried out to God. What's God gonna do? Does is God obligated? Or is it our job to take it on ourselves in a in a time like that? Um yeah, let's do let's do uh let's do two more, yeah. Um I'll uh I'll get to the ending. Um so I'm not sure of the date of this

The Visa Run Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 9:08

one. But in another incident, we we really needed to get out of the country for uh a visa. We had a visa that had another 90 days, I think, on it. If we got out and back in by the expiration date of the visa, but we had to be back in before that date, or that was done. Right? One day late is too late. So I was feeling desperate. We we watched our bank account going down, we were praying about it, and I think it was during that time um I took a trip somewhere and I would call home and say, Hey, did anybody check the bank account? Did it did it rain yet? We were we were paralleling with that story of um sorry, I can't remember if it's Elijah or Elisha, uh going up to the top of the mountain, sending a servant up to the top of the mountain, saying, Is hey, you see any clouds? I I'd call home, do you see any clouds? Nope, no clouds, dad. I just checked. Um so finally it was down to the day, down to the evening. And uh I um said, Well, you know, God's gotta do something. God's obligated, right? Uh I was determined. I was not gonna be the the one to to back down on this one. So I I went down to the bank. Surely, you know, the the travel agent's gonna close in in an hour or two. Surely there's gotta be money in now. I was believing. There was I forget what it was, like 20 bucks in our bank account. Not enough to travel to Hong Kong. Um, and at that point, I went out. No, okay, not yet. I went across the street to the travel agent, and I said, Okay, tomorrow morning, I need tickets tomorrow morning to Hong Kong. How much? And without even asking me if I really wanted them, she printed them out. So now somebody's gotta pay for them. I didn't have the money because but either it was me or or her. And so I said, Okay, God's gotta put the money in the account now. So I went, I went, I said, hang on, I gotta go get money. So I went down to the bank. No money. Now what? At that point, I was like, I was just up to here, and I went out. I remember being out on the steps of the bank with tears in my eyes, and basically, I didn't literally shake my fist at God, but I said, God, I said this. I said, God, you failed. We trusted you. We have got to be back in by tomorrow night, and we can't even get there. And I was already planning, you know, who I was gonna go to to try and borrow money, humble myself, um, because we had had people talk badly about how we were doing things. Um, and you know, maybe that's what God wanted me to do. I don't know. But anyway, I called home and and talked to Becky, and she said, Well, hang on, she said that the kids are scraping together money from their banks and the couch cushions and whatever. And I think we've got about half enough. And it's like, yes, half is is better than what we had. And so I quickly went home, and there was enough for one way. Um so I ran back to the to the travel agent and gave her the money. Some of this money was literally moldy. Talk about moldy money, it was literally moldy because of our high humidity, and and our children had been stashing it for quite a long time, some of it. Um, but it paid for our tickets to get there. But then we got there and we hung out and waited for money to fly home. Two days went by. We were still in the hotel, and it we've got the cheapest hotel we could find. Um, and we were still praying for rain, right? Well, it rained the whole time we were there, but no money came in. So, you know, what's figurative and what's literal? Um I think God knew. God knew what we were doing, what he was doing. Is that a good place to stop? Let's do one more yet.

The Night The Formula Ran Out

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Um another dark night. I think this was twenty twelve-ish. Um so we had been in China for five to twelve is seven years, eight years. Um this was a few years after the earthquake. We had changed teams. We were working with the Tibetan team now. Um but anyway, we had also taken on a foster boy who had a cleft palate, and that's probably why he was deserted to an orphanage. Um and uh Cody had a brother for a short time. But anyway, this guy he was a big eater. His his adoptive parents later said he was never happier than when he had food in both hands. Um, and that was that was true then already, although he was drinking from a bottle. Um but a couple things about the way he went to sleep. He would always he wouldn't fall asleep in in my arms or Becky's arms or anybody else. We had to put him in his his pack and play, and he would crawl in circles, and eventually he would just kind of collapse and be sleeping. We'd cover him up. Um, so that was one thing to remember about him. The other thing, he wouldn't fall asleep unless he had a full stomach. Like you couldn't give him a teaser and expect him to sleep on it. He needed a a full bottle. Well, anyway, one night our money had been dwindling for quite a long time. Sorry, these are all about money. There's other there's other things we could talk about, but any ideas where we're going with this? What's my topic? Not yet? Okay. Um this night, we it was special because it was the last of the formula in the can. We didn't have money for another can of formula. Um and it wasn't like we spent the money on us and didn't have money for formula for the baby. It was just it was just the way things ended up. We didn't expect it to be that way, but there wasn't money. And so when we went to bed, Becky put enough formula in the bottle, the last of it basically, for one bottle in the morning. He always woke up, screamed till he got his first bottle, and then he's good for a while, right? Um, but he generally woke up, I forget what it was, like 6 30, 8 o'clock, whatever, later in the morning, not super early. Um and Becky came to bed and she said, So what are we gonna do? I said, I don't know. I don't have any backup plan. I guess what we've always done. Just put it in God's hands and and uh wait and see. And so we went to sleep, not knowing whether there's gonna be whatever formula in the morning by some miracle. But uh how was that? I think it was like 1.30 in the morning. We woke up to screams from the bedroom nearby. And we laid there for a little bit, just listening to the screaming. And Becky said, You know what that means. I said, Yeah, I know what that means. It means no bottle for the morning, means he wakes up screaming. And how are we gonna buy more? Right? Um, what do you do as a parent? Do you do you trust God only on your behalf? Do you trust God on your child's behalf? Um and uh okay, I'll I'll finish this one. Um so I just laid there in bed, Becky got up, and I heard her out there banging around in the tin can. That was the formula can. So I came out and she had got enough for like two ounces of of milk in the bottle, which we both knew wasn't nearly enough. Um she fed Wee his little bit of formula, and while she was holding him and feeding him this little bit, we were looking at this picture that had been drawn by our daughter to to give to a family who had lost a baby shortly before, uh, but it hadn't been given to them yet. But it was Jesus holding this baby. So they're looking at that and you know, crying out to Jesus for help for this baby. And uh Becky finished. Well, I think she changed him or something to try and disrupt the crying. He screamed back on her shoulder, gave him the the very last drops from the bottle, and he fell asleep on her shoulder, and put him in bed, and he stayed sleeping. This was this was several minor miracles, and um and we kind of fell back into bed thinking, oh yay, we have one more bottle for the morning. What are we gonna do after that? So I grabbed my phone just before I went to sleep, look up. We hadn't had a deposit from our Canadian bank account in months. At that time, they didn't they didn't give to us that much, but that was the church where we were still still um members. Uh but there had been a deposit of twelve hundred dollars since I went to bed because I checked when I went to bed. Um God provided.

So What Is Faith Really

SPEAKER_00 21:42

So yeah, so there's it's uh this is a topical talk on a uh you could maybe say it's a Common missionary subject. Anybody know? Faith? Is that what you guessed? Probably. Um, yeah, faith. But what is faith? You know, how many times have you stopped to think about what is faith? Um we know it matters a lot, right? Does faith matter? Of course it does. As believers, what's what's the verse that comes to your mind when I say, does faith matter? Without faith, what? We won't see God. Without faith, also, it is impossible to please God, right? So we're doomed if we don't know what faith is, if we don't somehow resolve it in our in our understanding, we're kind of doomed because we don't know what we're chasing. Right? Kinda. And yet, you know, often I find myself kind of settling with uh a partial, well, it's always gonna be a partial understanding of faith. Even after, you know, I even after we talk about it and think about it here. I do not have a full understanding of faith, but like I said, I hope you know that we can discuss it here. You can take it and take some of these things and add it onto your body of knowledge about faith, and maybe maybe be enriched a little bit that way. Um so without faith, it's impossible to please God. That's Hebrews 11:6. But so so what is it? Um, well, the Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. There you go. Everybody know what faith is now? That that feels a little bit, I think it's a good definition, but when I say, okay, I want to I want to live by faith, that feels a little bit hard to grab on to. How do we how do we grab onto faith as the substance of things hoped for? The substance. Substance. Right? We like substance. Um, the evidence of things not seen. Uh in ESV, it it says the faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Is that any better? The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That expands it a little bit, but it's still hard to hang on to. Um, okay, now we know what it is. So how do I get it? And so we have some more scripture. Um, so those were Hebrews 11, 11, 1. How do I get it? Third thing. Um, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Everybody clear now? I am not, don't get me wrong, I am not mocking God's word for doing an unclear informational blurb here. Okay. I think God left some things like this for us to give us some things to wrestle with, wrestle through. Okay. So then faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. In ESV, which I normally use, um, so faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ, which is a little different. The word of God sounds like the Bible, right? Um, the word of Christ, we think maybe, okay, maybe it's what what Jesus said. And I think either way, either way, it's a win. So how do I get it? So what's what's faith? Now that we've we've expanded it, um and it still feels kind of nebulous, right? Uh so let's let's just look at I did a I did a search on my phone, just bringing up faith, first in the Old Testament,

Faith Is Not Blind Faith

SPEAKER_00 27:01

then a little bit in the New. The New Testament gets overwhelming because there's so many references to it. So you have to pick and choose a little more. But in the Old Testament, almost all of the usage is is, you know, the people of Israel broke faith, or there was a breach of faith in in what they did or or how they obeyed or disobeyed. Um broke faith, breach of faith. Talk about, I think Moses said at one point, if you in good faith do this, then uh God will bless you. Or I forget exactly what context that was used. But it's all talking about a reasonable expectation from somebody, right? Um when you talk about in good faith in a in a company, you're expecting them to produce a product for you as maybe as a secondary seller or or as a consumer that that does what they say it's gonna do. So you're you're acting on your faith in them, right? But it's not faith out of nowhere. You don't just hear about a somebody that makes shirts, often Timbuktu, and say, Oh, they make shirts, I want one. Right? You want to find out about them, you want to hear from people who bought them, you want some kind of voucher for the the quality of what you're getting. And that's where the faith comes from. When we when we look at a chair, we don't usually think about this, but we subconsciously evaluate is this chair gonna hold me? Right? But we don't just ever close our eyes and just randomly sit down in faith that there's gonna be a chair there, or somebody told you there's a chair there, and and well, depending on the person, but we we are always evaluating every decision we make on the basis of other information, and that's faith. So we don't um yeah, first of all, just looking at words again, faith less is talking about the the benefici um the beneficiary or the person who receives something or or would the client um if they don't believe their faithless, or they have faith in in the benefactor. Uh unfaithful or faithful is speaking of the the the producer or God in this case. Is he faithful? Is he unfaithful? So that's that's the the object of our faith. Okay, so now it's all all clear. Um but yeah. So what so that's all talking about either a reasonable expectation that we have from somebody, or whether or not somebody will fulfill a reasonable expectation, or whether we're fulfilling somebody else's, you know, an unfaithful husband or an unfaithful wife, they did not fulfill the reasonable expectation of um monogamy or uh you know uh a one-on-one marriage relationship, right? Um so God, does God fulfill our reasonable expectation? What's our reasonable expectation of Him? So, first of all, yeah, it's not blind faith. We talk about blind faith and just taking a leap of faith to believe in God. Well, have you ever taken a leap of faith to believe in Joseph Smith? A leap of faith to believe in Buddha, a leap of faith to whatever you name it. There's a lot of bad targets of faith, right? So we cannot trust God in that way. We cannot just take a leap of faith. So what is it? Um how so blind faith is misplaced face with faith without hearing or seeing. You know, faith comes by hearing, right? And hearing through the word of God or through the word of Christ. How do I um what's what's a reasonable expectation from someone from whom I've never heard? Like, have you heard God speak literally? Maybe some of you have. I believe that he does that sometimes, but generally we don't. But we do have his word. We do hear him speak through his word, we do hear Jesus Christ, his words regarding who God is, who he is, his sacrifice for us. So we have heard. So we're not believing in a void. That's that's the important thing. Um, like blind faith, believing in someone, you know, for whom we have no information is not it's not considered faith, it's it's just stupidity. Okay. There, I don't think there really is such a thing as blind faith, for what it's worth. Um, second, hearing hearing through the word of Christ, we have heard the testimony of Jesus and others in Scripture. Third, think about Hebrews 12, 1. Uh therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, did you ever think about that and and try to dissect that? You know, is is it a cloud of ghosts pushing us on, cheering for us? I tend to look at that a little different and think of it as a cloud of witnesses

Belief Versus Faith And Action

SPEAKER_00 33:33

being all these stories that we heard in in Hebrews 11, which was the previous chapter, are testifying to the value of trusting in this God, right? He is trustworthy. And that's so, okay, here's here's another thing. Belief versus faith. What's the difference between belief and faith? You don't have to answer, just think about it for a second. What's the difference between belief and faith? I think of it as um faith is kind of the catalyst between belief and action. Something like that. Uh the devils, Jesus said, you know, the demons believe and tremble. Are they saved? No. It doesn't say they have faith and tremble, they believe and tremble. I mean, in a way, I guess you could make a case that that's faith because it's inspiring action of a sort. Um, but it's not defined as faith, it's belief. It's not changing how they live. But our belief in God is supposed to change how we live, whether or not we're willing to sit on the chair. Um, you'd also think of climbing ropes. Um if somebody says, you know, you're going on an expedition climbing uh well, I'm not gonna name any cliffs because I'm not that well versed in that stuff, but I did look up the price of climbing ropes. And if somebody says, okay, guys, we're going on this, you know, 3,000-foot cliff, and we're gonna use and I and I bought some really cheap ropes. You won't believe how cheap I got them. We can all afford it now. Let's go, right? Would you just love hearing that? You're gonna hang from the cheapest ropes that the guy could find. No, you want some vouchers. Okay, who else is using these ropes? If you find some good people that are using them, then you have faith that's based on something else. But generally, the price of climbing ropes is from $2 a meter to $5 a meter. And this guy says, I found some for 50 cents a meter. Well, good. Have fun. Um, you know, it doesn't matter who hangs on it in their shop and says, see, it doesn't break. Uh you want to see him on that cliff on it, and then we'll make our judgment, right? So looking at the the cloud of witnesses, you know, in in I think in Hebrews 11 is our cloud of witnesses testifying to the faithfulness of God, testifying that he is worthy. Why? Well, if it was all a lie, if Jesus was lying, who would have died for him? The disciples knew it. You know, maybe one crazy person would die in that case, but not this constant stream of people who have felt a change, who have been, who have seen him and heard him and seen what he did, seen him raise the dead, and know what they're talking about. So that's in my mind, I'm not saying this is the final, the final understanding of that verse, but in my mind, this is this is a logical meaning of that. But looking at these stories and saying, we do have a great cloud of witnesses. There's a lot of people who were killed, sawn asunder. Why would you do that if it wasn't worth it? Um, why would you waste your life getting beat up and ultimately killed for a lie? We have a lot of witnesses to the trustworthiness. And so based on that, we put our we put our belief into action, and that's faith. Um living by faith.

Reframing The Stories As Trust

SPEAKER_00 38:09

So going back going back to the stories, maybe I'll start at the top of my little list here. Um the one, the Sichuan earthquake, you know, we decided to go back in our house. Even though a lot of people were running outside at every every news of a new new shake, we decided to go back in and just trust that if God wanted us to die, then He would either let us die or else, if not, give us a warning before. But we didn't want to continue living in just living out of fear, being mastered by fear. Um we're still alive. Thank God. Our apartment building did not fall. Uh the flood last year. So it it flooded once, it flooded twice. The second flood, it was still raining hard, the water was rising, and we weren't sure. You know, is it going to come up? We knew that it was it had hit the second floor in some places. In our area, it would come up fast, and then within two hours or so it was gone. Just left a bunch of mud behind. Um, but what if it didn't stop rising this time? What if we had to go out the window? What if it kept rising fast? I don't know. I didn't know enough about the lay of the land. Um, there were other people who, you know, were in their house for a week with no no way out. We were begging God, God, stop the rain, stop the rain, save these people. Um, save our friends and our enemies, but uh particularly the the friends that we knew their names and knew knew where they were. And uh everybody that we were praying for survived. But during that time, you know, at one point the water was coming up and I had measured it and still rising, said, you know what? Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. We're gonna just trust God and go to sleep. So we went to sleep, and in the morning we figured out the water had come up a few more inches, then went back down. Um, we chose to trust, and and God worked out everything. That doesn't mean that he couldn't let us die or have hardship. God is God, and faith is not a way to magically manipulate God into doing everything you want, but it is living out of a trust in the character of God. Um oh, the other stories. So that time when we were we stopped by the road and prayed, God, what are you gonna do about this? We're out of money. Um, can you provide? Will you provide? Well, we know you can, but will you please? So we went and cracked walnuts with Becky's family that night. This was in October, and uh at the end of the evening, one of Becky's parents said, Hey, we we decided to do something different this year. We decided to give out our Christmas gifts early, and we got a check for $500. We hadn't told them. I don't think they saw tears on our faces or anything like that, but they may have after, I don't know. We told them sometime later. Um, but God provided, completely separate from our making it happen. Um that's a little a little different note. So that time when we ended up sitting in in Hong Kong in Shenzhen on the China side of the Hong Kong border for several days, finally our teammates called and said, Hey, if you guys had money for tickets to fly home, would you come back? They suspected something. Um, they said, We have we have some money set aside here and we'd like to help you out if if you'll consider it. And that was kind of a downer for our family. But we um agreed to do that and and we flew home on on tickets that they bought for us. I don't look at that one as a a huge miracle. Maybe I should. That one feels like kind of a downer. You know, maybe I don't know why, but maybe in response to uh my virtually shaking my fist at God and saying, You didn't provide. I've I've always wondered what would have happened if I'd have just said, okay, blessed be you, Lord. We'll see what happens to us tomorrow. I'll never know. Um but God still provided for us in spite of in spite of uh making us think hard about why we did what we did. So Yeah, and I finished the other one about we going to going to sleep miraculously and then the the money was there in the morning. I could tell you some more yet, but my time is overgone already. Um yeah, again, faith is not a way to manipulate God into doing anything we wish. It's not a Christian version of a magic spell or an incantation, something like that. Um to me, it is the catalyst between belief and action. It's belief that's based on fact. Um, it's the so what do we do if we don't have faith? We're stuck figuring it out on my own. Depression, despair that comes from there's no way out. Rather than handing it to God and saying, Hey, I'm gonna rest in what you've done before and what I know you can do today, even though I haven't seen it yet. Someone told us after hearing, you know, knowing some of our stories, they said, Oh, it must be so easy for you. Um, you guys have the faith thing down. But it's like we've talked about it so often, it's like it's like a video game. Uh you played a video game with with different levels, you know. You get through one level and it says, Yes, I've conquered this thing. Whoa. Now the monsters are bigger, right? The situation's different, and again, it's that same old temptation. I've got to take care of this. It's not a, you know, maybe God's not gonna do it this time because God doesn't have to do anything, right? Um just gonna read just a couple

The Next Level Challenge From Jesus

SPEAKER_00 46:08

more verses and then I'm done. Matthew. No, Mark. Mark 11, 22 to 24. Now this is next level. Actually, I'm gonna read verses 20, just to the end of that section there, if you bear with me for a few more minutes. Um, but again, I'm not saying I've learned how to do this. This this is next level, but I think this is valid. Jesus said it. He said, do this, and this is what you're gonna see. This is what you're gonna experience. Um, and I would really challenge you guys. Cody and I talked about this a little bit, you know. What what are we doing when we when we stand up here and teach? Are we just filling people's heads? Are we saying everything that there is to be said on a topic? You know, what I really want to see is that this challenges one of you to grab onto it and say, I am gonna get at least to the grade two, to grade three in the in the game. Um, it's not a game, it's real life. Mark 11, 20. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. Jesus answered them, Have faith in God. So there's the command, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also, who is in heaven, may forgive your trespasses. And I think the my conclusion, looking at this and looking at you know our experiences and looking at uh other things that are in scripture regarding faith. Look at the number of times Jesus says, Your faith has healed you. He didn't say, I've healed you in response to your faith. His choice of words is kind of interesting there. Your faith has healed you. Make of that what you will, but faith matters, and we really do well to put the effort into wrestling down. You know, what does faith look like? What should it look like in my life? What does it mean to me? How does it change my life? How does it change how I live? God is trustworthy. I've found it, and I hope you were able to hear in the stories that I told, you know, just how

McDonald’s Wi-Fi And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 49:20

closely God knows what's going on in our life. Um, one more fun detail about that thing when we were stuck in Shenzhen. It's a Cody story. Um, we're in McDonald's to get Wi-Fi. We went in and bought one or two drinks just because that's the cheapest thing we could get. And uh just so we could be in McDonald's and use the Wi-Fi to check our bank account, literally. And uh this guy sat down with a full meal deal just over the you know, their short walls there. He sat down over here with this meal deal. He had this burger laying open on the on the paper there and fries, and he's eating the fries slowly and playing his game on his phone. And Cody's this little guy, he's looking over the wall and he says, Man, if he doesn't eat that and leaves, said, I am so over there. Told that to somebody, and they said, Jeff, can we have lunch together tomorrow? So we went out for lunch and he's like, Jeff, I don't mean to be prying into your stuff, but would you really let your family starve for the sake of uh a principle or I said I'm human, you know? I would go on the street and beg before I'd let my family starve. I love my family, I am not that hard-headed, but we would have all been happy for a happy meal. Um but we were eating these cheap little crackers to keep us going, and and we were all we were all good. So we we had to, you know, maybe tighten up our belt a little bit, but I don't think anybody was starving. I don't think that any of us remembers that really negatively. Maybe a little bit, I don't know. Is it negative, Cody? Um but God, God, He knows what is happening for you. He knows, He does care, and He has promised, Jesus said, I will never leave you or forsake you. And as we live that out, that's that's faith. And I think you know, getting to the next level is a matter of linking up tightly with the Father, you know, being part of the vine, drinking from the vine continually, aligning our our heart, our desires. Um, there was a song we sang this morning, but now I forgot, I didn't write it down. But talking about you know being basically one desire, one mind with God. Um and I think that's how we get to the point where where uh you can ask for anything that you that you want and it will be done because that's that's where we're at. So anyway, make that your focus, connecting to God, and just drinking from the vine, drinking from the the um the water that he supplies, and live out that belief. Don't let it be a dead, a dead belief. Demons have that. We want to be beyond that. We want to we want to be living that out, demonstrating it. Um living by faith.

Prayer And Closing

SPEAKER_00 53:04

May I pray with you, Father? Thank you for your goodness. The many ways that you've demonstrated that to us, we are not lacking in any way. Um but God, we do hit hard times. And we want to see ourselves not as the final the final source of supply for ourselves or our families. But God, you are our you are the one with the last word. You are the ultimate provider. In uh in pulling in the yoke with you, you are the big horse, the big ox. We're just the little one that that is trying to keep up. So God forgive us for taking more on ourselves than than is ours to carry. We want to put that back in your in your court and trust you with it. And see you provide. You are worthy of our trust, and we thank you for that. Guide the rest of our day in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks.