Were going to be talking about May the Faith Be With You this morning. For those of you who know Matt and Kristi Kauffman, who go to our church, two years ago on Mothers Day, Kristie was coming to the Mother/Daugher Banquet here with her mom and her grandmother. They had an absolutely wonderful time! On the way home, driving back on I90, because they lived in Beloit, they were singing songs and having a wonderful time. They dropped Kristie off at her house on Prairie Avenue, and within three minutes, she received a frantic phone call from her mom saying they had an accident. A drunk driver went through a red light at about 55 or 60 MPH in town and totally blindsided them. Kristies grandmother basically had her heart just ripped almost in half from the impact. Her mom survived and had all kinds of injuries she dealt with. I can just imagine what would be going through your mind, So let me get this straight, God. We go to a Mother/Daughter Banquet, at church, and on the way home, You allow a drunk driver to kill my grandmother? How do you deal with that? How do you have faith in a situation like that? How do you deal when youre two-day old baby dies, and you had no advanced warning? You thought the baby was totally healthy, and it completely blindsides you? How do you have faith at times like that? How do you deal with the feelings of Thanks a lot God for allowing this to happen in my life? A pastor friend of mind shared a story with me. He was a pastor at a church, and he received a phone call from a young couple. The husband had been diagnosed with a very rare type of cancer, which was very aggressive. Doctors gave him about 3-4 weeks to live. He remembers making the phone call and then going to meet with them at the hospital. He felt led by God to pray for total healing for this man. He went away from there totally believing in faith that God was going to completely heal him. Then he went about his business. About four weeks later, he received a call from a sobbing wife. She said, Pastor, I just want you to know my husband died. She began to cry. He remembers hanging up from that phone call and being so mad at God because he knew that God had led him to pray for total healing. He went so far in dealing with his feelings that he wrote his resignation letter and left it on his desk. Then he thought to himself, How am I going to face this woman after what I prayed for and believed in? Ill finish that story later. Ill leave you hanging on how that turned out. But how do you deal with that? How do you have authentic faith when believing the circumstances around you are screaming, There is no God, and if there is, what kind of a God would allow this to happen? Confusion about faith is what leads many people to abandon Christianity. I think its important to find out what authentic faith is. If you turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 4:1, page 1191, it says this: Now faith is being sure of what we hoped for and certain of what we do not see. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Sounds pretty simple, right? But we really need to know what authentic faith is about. A lot of times its our unwillingness to accept faith for what it really is, rather than what we want it to be. Or that faith is this magical thing we can tap into, like Star Wars, where we can use the force to get God to do what you want Him to do in your life or to be able to do the plans you have for your life. Faith is not confidence. I can be very confident as a basketball coach that I have prepared my team. I can be very confident that were going to win, and we could lose by 40 points. Confidence is not faith. Wishful thinking and wishing for something is not faith. When we wish, we want something, but we have no guarantee that well get it. Think of a celebrity or somebody in history that you would like to meet who is alive today. You write him or her a letter, and you invite this celebrity over for dinner. As soon as you mail off that letter, you get on the phone and call all your friends to say, So and so is coming to my house for dinner. You call the local paper, and you tell them all about that. Now, that would be the most idiotic thing you could ever do because you have no faith that this person is going to even receive that letter. If they did receive a letter, they probably get hundreds of thousands of letters like that, so you would have no faith. So what would it take? You wish that it would happen, but what would it take to get you from wishful thinking to faith that this person is going to come? If that person called you personally or sent you a letter directly from him or her and said, Hey, I really want to go to your house for dinner. Im going to be there at such and such a time, you now have a promise from that person directly. Now you actually go from wishful thinking to faith. How do we do that in our spiritual life? Hopefully, all of you got a handout called The Fathers Love Letter. Were not going to look at that right now, but I want you to take a look, after the sermon-some time when youre alone. These are the promises that God has given you and me. These are the promises from Someone who never, ever breaks a promise, Someone you can trust always. You have that promise from that person directly. You can move from wishful thinking about things to an authentic faith. Turn in your Bibles to Job 1:6-22, page 496. Were going to look at Job, and were going to find out what authentic faith is all about. If you follow along with me, were going to start with Verse 6 and read through Verse 22: One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, Where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord, From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it. The Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil; How cool would it be if you knew that God was up in Heaven and was saying, Of all the people on the earth, and Hes bragging, have you seen my servant Job? How cool would that be? Satan says: Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger. Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. One day when Jobs sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brothers house, a messenger came to Job and said, The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! While he was still speaking, another messenger came… And right here, Im saying, Job, dont talk to the messenger! Nothing good is going to come from this messenger! While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brothers house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert, struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you! At this point, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship… He did not fall to the ground and curse God. He did not say, Why oh why has this happened to me? All that happens, and he falls to the ground in worship and says: Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. That is authentic faith. Its not believing hard enough for something to happen. Its trusting that God knows what Hes doing no matter what the circumstances are; no matter what your circumstances are, you can trust that God knows what Hes doing. Now, Job is not some freak here that is like, Oh, praise God! My sons and daughters are dead! That would be insane. That would not be a normal response. It was a terrible, terrible thing to go through, but he had so much faith in God that he knew no matter what happens, I trust that God is in control. Circumstantial faith is fragile. When we pray and pray for something, and it doesnt happen, we start to not trust God or think He doesnt even hear our prayers. We misinterpret events. I know Ive shared in the past there was a time when my three-year-old son Connor cut his finger really bad, and we had to go to the emergency room. His meat was just hanging off his hand, and it was terrible. I dont handle it well when my kids get hurt. I remember praying the whole way to the emergency room. When we got there, the doctor pulled out this really long needle. He looked at me and said, Im going to have to stick this needle in your sons tiny, little three-year-olds fragile finger. I remember seeing Connors face as he saw this needle heading for his hand. Then he looked at his daddy, who will protect him from all things. The look on his face was like, Hey, Dad! Do you see what hes going to do to me? Youre not going to let that happen because I know…DAD! Its getting closer! DAD! I remember looking at him and saying, Connor, this is really going to hurt, but it is very necessary for them to fix your finger, so youre going to have to be a brave little boy. I expected him to give me this look of craziness. I was so proud of him. He looked me right in the eye and says [while breathing heavily], Okay. Then he held out his hand. As they stuck that needle in, he tried to be really tough, and then he just started crying. Thats the way it is with God. God knows. And that hurt me. Unless you have a son or a daughter who has gone through it, I cant explain to you what that feels like when you know you are letting them go through something thats hurting them. You want to protect them from it, but you know its what is best for them. Thats the way God looks down on us. He says, I know this is going to hurt you, and you are going to cry and wail, but I know whats best for you. I see the master plan because we cannot even fathom what its like, even in the context of one lifetime, what God is trying to do-besides the course of all eternity. Authentic faith says, I trust God, no matter what looks like is going to happen. Think of the story of Joseph, and were not going to turn there, but were going to go through it really quick. Joseph was a very Godly man. While hes being a very Godly man, his brothers decide to sell him into slavery. How would you like it if all of the sudden your siblings just decided to sell you into slavery without your mom and dads knowledge? Thanks! While hes in this pit, and while hes being sold into slavery, for many years, hes got to be thinking, Thanks a lot, God. I live my life like Im supposed to, and I get sold into slavery. Thank you very much. Oh, but it gets better. While hes a slave, he comes into Potiphars house. He is such a Godly man, Joseph is, that Potiphar trusts him with his entire household and all of his businesses. God blesses him. Then Potiphars wife comes up and says, Hey, Joe, youre looking mighty fine. Why dont you sleep with me? He looks at her and says, I could never do such an evil thing. Your husband has put great trust in me, and I would not sin against him or my God. How does God reward him? She screams and she cries rape, and he gets thrown in jail and loses the trust of somebody who trusted him implicitly. Thanks, God. Once again, I do whats right, and this is what happens. Then, while hes in jail, he is such a Godly man that the jailer puts him, a prisoner, in charge of the entire jail. It says that the warden didnt worry about a thing while Joseph was in charge. You know the story, the two kings men come, and they have this dream. Joseph interprets the dream for them. The dream comes true, and he says to the guy, Remember me and tell the king I am in here for this reason, and I dont deserve it. You need to get me out of here. The guy says, I promise to do that. Then as we read, it says that everything happened as it should, and he forgot to say anything. Then it says two long years passed. Thanks, God. Once again, I do what Im supposed to do. Do you know how easy it would be for him to say, Forget this Christianity thing. I want no part of it. I dont like this God? But God had a plan. You know how it ended up. Millions of peoples lives were saved because of the exact timing of what God wanted to do with Josephs life. That is authentic faith, trusting even when things are going terrible. So how about Noah? Im going to have a couple of Power Point slides come up behind me. Look at this picture of Noahs Ark; this is the picture thats up in nurseries, the nice little kids picture. I hate this picture. I used to like it because its so cute. Now that Ive studied and know what the Ark was really like, this is such a myth. No wonder people think that people and the flood is a myth. So, we get a little better (referring to the next slide). We make it a little bit bigger, but that is not what the Ark looked like. Seriously, think about this. Put yourself in Noahs position. God tells him, Im going to flood and destroy the entire earth, and I want you to build this huge boat, not only to save your family, but all of the animals on Earth. He starts to build this boat. (Next slide-true-to-life picture of the Ark) This is what the Ark of the Bible looked like. In fact, this is the smallest version that it possibly could be. We know that the Bible talks about cubits, and the smallest measurement of a cubit means it was 450 feet long, 73 feet wide, and 44 feet high. Im guessing nobody offered to help Noah and his family build this boat. So, hes building this huge boat out in the middle of this open field where theres no lake, no river, and people have got to be saying, Hey Noah, what have you been doing? He would say, Well, Im building this huge boat because God is going to flood the earth. Right, Noah. It took him over 100 years to build this boat. Some of you are thinking, One hundred years! We dont live that long! People lived to be 800 and 900 years old then. Not only can you take that by faith, but thats what God said, if you look at the scientific evidence of all the things that led up to that, after the flood, people didnt live over around 150 years. Before that, they lived 700 and 800 years. There were all kinds of things that changed that lifespan. But can you imagine him building that boat, and then heres the kicker: He says its going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights? Thats no big deal, right? To them, it meant this: It had never rained on Earth before this. Hey guys, water is going to come falling from the sky! And if youve never seen rain before, and I know youre thinking, Okay, Powers, yeah right, turn in your Bibles to Genesis 2:4-7, page 2,This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens-and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Did you know that? Up until Noah, there was an irrigation system that God had already in the ground, and every night water would come up. How cool would that be for your gardens? Water would just come up. Not only did it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, but the Bible says that the great fountains of the deep exploded out of the earth, and water not only came down, but water shot up too. That entire water reservoir that was used for that, a lot of it came up; thats where we had the flood from. Can you imagine Noah sitting there for 100 years, building this ark, having faith? If we dont have our prayers answered in a week, were like, God, youre not hearing me. Ill talk louder! One hundred years…hes having faith that Gods going to do what hes going to do. The next slide shows what the Ark would look like next to somebodys house. Can you imagine the amount of faith it would have taken to be Noah? When everybody in the world said you are crazy, he trusted God no matter what his circumstances were. Here is a motto that many people live by for faith. It goes like this: What is happening now, and what Im feeling now determines what I believe for now. What is happening now, and what Im feeling now determines what I believe for now. Dont let that be your statement of faith in your life. Turn to Hebrews 4: 14-16, page 1186. Before I read this verse, let me give you a quick background. In Hebrews, Paul was addressing a group of Jewish believers who are being pressured by the Jewish community to give up their faith. They were dealing with very, very tough circumstances in their lives. Their faith was costing them both financially and socially. There were places they could not shop. There were places they could not get jobs because people were against Christianity. If they stuck to their faith, they werent going to be able to buy food. Thats what they were dealing with. And, they thought Christ was coming back at any time. Remember that. First Century Christians thought Jesus could come back at any time. They were waiting for that, and it hadnt happened. Lets read Verses 14-16 of Chapter 4, Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin. If Jesus Christ really is who He says He is, and if He really says that all those things on that sheet, all those promises in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, if He really is who He says He is, Hes got your back. He will take care of you, even if you have no clue how its going to happen; even if every human sense tells you, I cannot trust this, trust that God is who He says He is. Remember the pastor who had to go visit this bride who had just had her husband die from cancer? He dreaded going to her house. As he walked up the driveway, he couldnt think of anything possibly that he could say to this woman. She opened the door, and she was crying hysterically. She ran straight at him. He had no idea if she was going to come up and smash him in the face or swear at him or what she was going to do. She ran up to him, and she threw her arms around this pastor, and she said, Thank you so much for praying for total healing for my husband because he is totally, totally healed now, in a way that he could never have been healed on this world. She praised God for that. The pastor rethought his resignation letter, and when he got back, he tore it up. Hes still in the ministry today. You never know how God is going to work things out. I have a friend named Rich Napper, who died this past November. I had never met a more Godly man in my entire life. He had been dealing with brain tumors for 10 years or so. I hadnt seen him in couple years. My wife and I went to see him this last fall. When I walked in his house, I did not recognize him. If he wouldve walked past me at the mall, I would not know that he was one of my best friends from high school. His face from one side was totally swollen up. He had what looked like a doorway-cut, like Frankenstein, from where they had so many times pealed his skull back to remove tumors. His whole left side was totally numb, and he just could not use it. I was shocked. I didnt know what to say. I kept saying, Lord, please help me to just act normal. His body was deteriorated, but he was the same old Rich. His spirit was shining so brightly. He went on and told me story after story about what God was doing in his life. I was thinking, Theyve given you so many days or weeks or months to live, and hes just continuing on, praising God with that. He told me a story of his little daughter Charissa, who was nine years old. Every night, they would pray for over a year, and she would pray this prayer: Dear God, please let Mommy and Daddy buy me a real horse. They lived out in the country, but they had no way of providing for a horse. Every night, this would go on, and Rich was thinking, Oh my goodness, I dont want to tell my daughter not to pray for this, but theres no way. She put posters of horses up all over her room, and she would tell people, Gods going to get me a horse someday. Finally, Rich said to her one night, Charissa, how about we pray that God will get you a horse, and make sure you pray that God will get you a free horse. So from that day, little Charissa prayed every night with her dad, Dear God, I know youre going to get me a horse, and its going to be free so Mommy and Daddy dont have to pay anything. One day a friend of the family was over visiting, someone they had not seen in a long time. He went into Charissas room and saw all the horse posters. He said, I didnt know Charissa liked horses. Then his wife, Tina, said, She is praying that God will provide a horse. He said, Well, guess what? I have a neighbor who has a horse they are trying to give away to somebody. To make a long story short, God provided a free horse for Charissa. Neighbors and friends of theirs that lived a mile down the road had horses, and they have been boarding him and feeding him for free. God worked that out. I said to Rich, You need to put posters of corvettes up in your room, right now. But as the visit went on, I was just touched by him and his authentic faith, and he said this to me, You know what, Im praying that God is going to heal me, but you know what? If I die and go to Heaven, then God has healed me. Either way, I win. He went on with his life. One of the last intelligible things he said on this earth was when he got the news that Tom Uppenkamp had a really bad accident, injured and lost his eye; and while he was in bed and could hardly function, he called his family around his bedside. He said, Were going to pray for Tom and his family. Here was a guy ravaged by brain tumors, and when he heard the news, all he could think of was Lord, please help the Uppenkamp family. Please get them through this. He just prayed blessing after blessing upon them. That was my Godly friend, Rich. When he died and went to heaven, if you know anything about Rich, my wife said, When we get to Heaven, the first thing Rich probably did when he got there was start timing the angels. Do you know how the Bible says that angels are going to and from the earth, and Rich was so into speed and engines, we could just see him with this timer, Okay, Gabriel, thats not bad, but we can do better. If you just keep your wings like this, and there are going to be all kinds of aerodynamics… I just know thats what Rich is doing in Heaven today. That is authentic faith: that no matter what the circumstances tell you, God is going to take care of you. This is what I want to leave you with: Eventually, the events of life will sway you to adapt what you believe, and circumstances will cause you to doubt God. God never intended for your faith to rest upon what is going on around you. Your faith cant rest on your ability to figure out the mysteries of life. It cant rest on your ability to understand how everything fits together. It cant rest on how consistently things go your way or how closely God follows the plans that you or I have made for our lives. It cant even rest on whether or not God seems to answer your prayers. It rests on the foundation of your faith, and that must be the person of Jesus Christ, who does not change-ever. Ill end with this poem: Pain's furnace heat within me quivers, God's breath upon the flame doth blow; And all my heart in anguish shivers And trembles at the fiery glow; And yet I whisper, "As God will!" And in the hottest fire hold still. He comes and lays my heart, all heated, On the hard anvil, minded so Into His own fair shape to beat it With His great hammer, blow on blow; And yet I whisper, "As God will!" And at His heaviest blows hold still. He takes my softened heart and beats it; The sparks fly off at every blow; He turns it o'er and o'er and heats it, And lets it cool, and makes it glow; And yet I whisper, "As God will!" And in His mighty hand hold still. Why should I murmur? for the sorrow Thus only longer-lived would be; The end may come, and will tomorrow, When God has done His work in me; So I say trusting, "As God will!" And, trusting to the end, hold still. When God has got you in his grip, and Hes molding and shaping you; and it hurts and you do not understand, hold still, and trust that God knows what Hes doing. Lets pray: Heavenly Father, we pray for a faith that is authentic. Lord, we pray for the faith of the Old Testament, people and Godly people that lived that trusted You no matter what. Lord, there are so many things that happen in our lives that we do not understand. Lord, help us to just cling to that promise that You have got our back, that You have a master plan-even if we go to our deathbed not understanding that Your plan will be made known in full at some time, whether here on Earth or in Heaven. Lord, we know You said in our lives, we will have trouble. We know its going to come, and, Lord, I pray that we cling to You and to Your cross, and to the promises that are the only solid thing in this existence. I pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Have a good morning!