Faith is The Bridge Between Spiritual Reality and Physical Reality

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.                                                                                               Hebrew 11:6

I would like to speak a little about faith tonight. Faith is an important practice in the Christian walk, as we read in Hebrews 11:6 that it is impossible to please God without faith. For some there is a misunderstanding about what faith is. Some seem to define faith and belief as meaning the same thing but that is not correct, they are two different things.

If I believe in something then I am saying to myself that it is true. I believe that the sky is blue; I believe that the water is wet, and I believe in the Word of God. All of those are true, the sky is blue, water is wet, and God’s Word is truth.

The writer of Hebrews in chapter 11:1 defines faith this way. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Well what is hope? If I pray to God for something like maybe a car, then my hope becomes that I will have a car. Can you see my hope, can you touch my hope, can you smell my hope, can you taste my hope, and can you feel my hope, so you cannot detect hope by the senses. Hope is just another word for dream. Ok, I dream that I will have a car because I prayed for it.

Let’s look at belief in another way. Let’s say that is has been thirty days since I have had anything to eat, I am moments away from dying of starvation. I craw into a restaurant hoping that someone with provide me with something to eat. The cook in the kitchen has compassion for me and brings out a plate of food and sets it down before me and says do you believe if you eat this food you will live? I say yes if I eat this food I will live. I really believe if I eat this food I will live. There is no doubt in my mind that if I eat this food I will live. I am positive that if I eat this food I will live, and then I died of starvation. What I believed was true, if I had eaten the food I would have lived, but my belief did not save me.

Let’s look, for an example at John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. It takes more than believing, it takes faith.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith gives our hope substance. So what is faith them, faith is action, it is acting on God’s Word. If I believed that eating the food will save me, it will do me no good unless I act on my belief and eat the food. If I believe in Jesus Christ, it will do me no good unless I act in faith on His word. By believing on Jesus and acting in faith upon His word it gives the hope I have through Him substance as I walk in faith with Him.

Let’s put that concept into application. Mark 11:24 reads, “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” If we make a request to God in prayer and believe them in the spirit that we have received them they will be granted to us. If we really believe that He has answered our prayer then to please Him we must act on His promise that it has been granted to us in faith. I have a hope, a dream for a new car, but if I don’t act on His word and say I have a new car coming then I have denied that I believe in His promise. If tomorrow I again pray for a new car, I have denied His promise by not acting on faith that a new car is coming for me. Tomorrow I should pray Praise you Father, Thank You Jesus, for the new car you are sending me.

God is faithful and we know that He hears us because Jesus is our intercessor and is at the right and of the Father praying for us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. (1 John 5:15) When Jesus ascended to Heaven after His resurrection He went to sit at the right hand of the Father and there He intercedes in prayer to the Father for us. God cannot lie and Jesus cannot lie and if they say it in their word then it is true. If Jesus says it will be granted to us then it will, we have to believe it and act on it in faith. (Romans 8:34) who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. By our action of faith on what we believe it becomes the evidence of what is not yet seen. If we believe on God’s Word and in faith act on God’s Word then others we see we are living in that belief and will be attracted to it by our testimony of action in faith. I have a new car coming, I’m cleaning out the garage in preparation for it, you can’t see it because it is not hear yet, God promised it to me and it will be here soon. I am acting on faith and others can see that and know that I really believe and trust God’s Word and that is the evidence of what is not seen.

There are two kinds of Faith, the kind of faith man has and the kind that God has.

Mans kind of Faith

In Matthew 8:17 we read, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: "He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases." As followers of Christ we have already been healed because Jesus said in Matthew that He took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. If we become sick and believe in His word then we know we are already healed. We know from Mark 11:24 that if we ask for things and believe that we have them that they will be granted to us. So if someone prays for healing and then is asked, “Are you healed?” Well no not yet, my eyes are still itchy and my nose is still running and I just don’t feel well. That person may say they believe in God’s Word but their actions say they don’t. They are placing their belief on feelings, they are placing their belief on the senses. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7 writes, for we walk by faith, not by sight—. You have to apply faith to what you believe. You hope to be well, faith gives that hope substance. We can’t thank God for healing us and then tell everyone else we have not been healed. That is denying God’s Word that is denying Jesus. The correct answer, the answer that faith demands is, yes I am healed, I am healed in the spirit and soon God will manifest it in the flesh. Praise you Father and Thank You Jesus!

God’s kind of faith, the kind of faith that is pleasing to Him, it comes to us by His example, and it is the kind of faith that we must have. First we must discover a few truths about God that is revealed to us in the scriptures.

God is Omnipresent, there is nowhere in the heavens or on the earth that God is not present. God then must be bigger than His creation; if He is bigger than His creation then he is able to be everywhere at once. (Jeremiah 23:23-24) "Am I a God who is near," declares the LORD, "And not a God far off?"Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?" declares the LORD. "Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" declares the LORD." God is eternal, He is from everlasting to everlasting. God then must be bigger than eternity. (Isaiah 57:15) “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

God is eternal. Theologians say Biblically the world has been in existence for a little over 5000 years. What difference does it make in relationship to eternity? What if the world had been in existence for five hundred thousand years, one billion years, or five hundred trillion years, what difference would that make to an eternal God? Unlike man God is not confined to time, only man is confined to time. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, one day. Three hundred sixty five and a quarter of those and you have a year. God is eternal and time is nothing to Him Our Pastor says God is in the Garden of Eden and is here with us now and is sitting on His throne in Heaven. Man is confined to time but God is however your imagination can conceive eternity to be and beyond.

If God is bigger than His creation and bigger than eternity then God is in the present at all times. Moses was the one who was fished out of the Nile River by Pharaoh’s daughter during the time all Hebrew males under two were to be killed. By Pharaoh’s daughter’s request Moses’ own mother raised him. When Moses had grown into a man he realized that he was a Hebrew and he turned his back of the Egyptian way of life and chose to be with his people. Moses gave up the privileges of being in the house of Pharaoh, all the wealth of Egypt, all the power of being a prince, to become a Hebrew like his people, a life of slavery. One day he saw an Egyptian beating on a Hebrew slave and Moses lost his temper and killed the Egyptian and hid the body. But Moses got caught and he fled Egypt and went into the wilderness.

After forty years God called him. Moses, I want you to go down to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go. Can you imagine what was going through Moses’ mind at that command of God? Go down to Egypt and stand in front of Pharaoh? Moses had rejected the Egyptian way of life, he had turned his back of Pharaoh and his family, Moses had killed an Egyptian, and Moses had run away. There was probably a price on his head. Pharaoh might have had a rope hanging in his closet thinking if Moses ever returned to Egypt he was going to hang him. Moses chose to become nothing more than a slave.

Moses asked God whom shall I say sent me, by whose authority shall I say let my people go? In Exodus 3:14 we read God’s answer. “God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.” I am is present tense. God didn't say I was and He didn't say that He will be, God said that He is. God is in the present tense at all times in His word.

Jesus referred to Himself 8 times as the I Am in the Gospel of John. Before Abraham was born, I am; I am the bread of life; I am the Light of the world; I am the door of the sheep; I am the good shepherd; I am the true vine. When the Roman cohort came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and asked are you Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus answered, “I Am He.” Immediately the Romans fell back and onto the ground. There is Power, Power, Power in God’s Word.

Jesus also said in the Gospel of John, “Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)  There is no other way for man to reconciled with God, not other way to restore the harmony between man and God, and the is no way to stand before God on the judgment day but in the righteousness of Jesus.

Neither God nor Jesus said I was or I will be. God is, Jesus is, and when they speak what they say is for now in the present.

in Genesis 1:1 it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the beginning was God, nothing else, just God. God created the Heavens and the earth. He didn't have a pile of dust, He didn't have an aquarium, and He didn't have a zoo full of animals. All of creation was created from things unseen. 2 Corinthians 5:7 “ for we walk by faith, not by sight—.” God conceived it in His spirit and then spoke it into being. In Genesis chapter 1 God Spoke eight times and brought everything into existence. And God Said, let there be light and there was light. God believed it in His spirit and spoke it with His mouth and it came into being. That is how faith works that what happens in the spirit is manifested in the natural. That’s the kind of faith that God has. He believes in His Spirit, confesses it with His Word and what was real in His Spirit becomes real in the physical world. Faith then is the bridge between Spiritual reality and Physical reality. That is the God kind of faith and that is the kind of faith we must have to please Him.

Jesus cursed a fig tree in the Gospel of Mark. Mark 11:14 “Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!" And His disciples were listening.”

His disciples may have thought who are we following, this man is talking to trees.

Jesus believed in His Spirit that the fig tree was withered and confessed it with His mouth to His disciples and the next day they all passed by the fig tree and it was dried up from the root and dead.

Jesus calmed the sea and the wind in the Gospel of Matthew .Matthew 8:26, “He *said to them, "Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?" Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm.” Jesus calmed the sea by believing in His Spirit and confessing with His mouth and by that faith it was manifested in the physical world.

It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed. Matthew 17:20, “And He *said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” This world is full of trials and tribulations that we will have to face everyday but with the faith the size of a mustard seed He will move them out of our path. All we need to do is search God’s Word and find the scripture that relates to our mountain, pray over it, believe on His world, in faith walk as if it has been granted to us, and praise and thank Him for our answered prayer.

Here is a scripture that I want you to write down, write down its address, then when you get home write it down on a piece of paper. Read it, no don’t just read it, study it, question it, what’s this word mean, why is this word here, study it, understand it, pray it, eternalize it, eat it, digest it and believe it, and walk on it with faith.

Romans 10:9-10 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

On the Roman Cross Jesus bore our sins, He bore our grief’s, and He bore our afflictions. If you believe in your heart, believe in your spirit that Jesus is Lord and Savior that will result in Righteousness, as we will stand before God in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You are saved in the spirit, you have received the Holy Spirit which will live within you, He is your comforter, He is your advocate, and He will guide you to all truth. You have been equipped by the Spirit of God and He will bring to your mind what to say in the day of your trial. Then confess with your mouth what you believe which will result in your salvation by manifesting what is in the spirit into reality. I believe, I have confessed it, and will keep confessing it until I am Home with the Lord and lay down all the treasure He has for me at His feet for only He is worthy.

Is this true? Does this work? Yes it is true and yes this is how faith works. I said Faith is the Bridge between Spiritual Reality and Natural Reality. If we believe in our spirit that God’s Word is truth and in faith confess it with our mouth we will bring it into the reality of the physical world.

In April of 2009 I was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Ford came into the ER room and sat down with me for a spell and explained it to me in detail. I had cancer in my colon, I had cancer in my stomach, I had cancer in my spleen, I had cancer in my liver, and I had a little cancer in my brain. He was not giving me a very good picture and I was just wishing he would stop telling me all about it. Perhaps when he had finished he felt a little compassionate, this is out of his character, and started to find some words of hope. Dr. Ford said they are doing some amazing things with cancer treatments these days like chemo therapy. I've had three friends in the past go through chemo therapy and they were sick, miserable, and they died. I had heard all I wanted and said excuse me but I really do not want to hear any more. The next day they gave me instructions on who and where to go for treatment and let me out of the hospital.

Actually I was in good spirit, as they say, I didn't believe that God was through with me yet. I didn't believe that cancer was going to kill me. In the quite of my room I prayed this verse back to God and claimed the promise that He had given me. 1 Peter 2:24 “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” I like that verse, it made me feel good, it told me that I am healed. “By His wounds you were healed.”  I prayed it, I believed it, I praised the Lord for it, and I confessed it. Was I healed, Yes I was healed in the spirit, when was I healed, somewhere around AD 33 when Jesus we to the cross.

I went the chemo therapy route as this was the only option given to me. I was supposed to have eight treatments about two weeks in between. I got through the first three OK and then I was getting really sick. The trouble with chemo therapy is that it kills all the cells along with the cancer cells. I had to have blood transfusions about once a month. The doctors lengthened the time in between the treatments to let me catch up. After three more treatments just getting from one end of the apartment to the other was quite a journey. Also I was had blood transfusions twice a week, the chemo was killing my bone marrow. After the seventh treatment I came home and worked my way out to the porch of our apartment. I don’t remember but we were going somewhere and knowing how long it took me to do things I wanted to be ready. The next thing I remember I was in a hospital room with four IV’s stuck in my arm and ports. For a month I was at the hospital and every day I had to have blood. The doctors would come in and ask how I was doing? I’m doing great, can I go home today? There answer was always maybe tomorrow.

A few days after I got home I was really sick and I wasn't going back to the hospital. I crawled into bed and pulled the cover over my head. I hate to say to you all, as it is the opposite of the message I am trying to deliver but I gave up. I could not take it anymore, I was tired of it, I lost my hope, I no longer believed I was healed, I believed I was only a few minutes from death and I just wanted to get it over with. I was in denial of God’s Promise, I was denying Jesus, and I had failed the faith test.

Somewhere during the night Lou had the presence of mind to call Jason and Brandi to come over right away. When they came into my room I looked and I knew it was them but things were in a haze. Just to show you how crazy my mind can get I thought they had come over to say good-bye. I was wrong they had come to say hello. I thought they had come to pray that I would be healed, no that would have been an insult to God for I had already prayed to be healed. They had come and prayed that I would get over this selfish pity party I was in, get out of bed, stand on my own two feet, and get my life back in order. That was a turning point. I got out of bed, I thanked Jesus for healing me, praise you Father.

The first of this month, January, I went back to Moffitt Cancer Center to get the results of a PET scan and the Doctor took me off to a room. He said someone who has been in remission for over two years probably will not have to fight that kind of cancer again. Am I healed in the flesh, Yes, when was I healed, when Jesus was on the cross. At His crucifixion I was healed in the spirit. And even though I stumbled and fell, I am now healed in the flesh. Faith is the Bridge between Spiritual Reality and Physical Reality.

How do we achieve this kind of faith, the God kind of Faith?

Paul wrote in Romans that God gives to each a measure of faith. Romans 12:3 “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” God gives us this kind of faith. We can even ask the Lord to increase our faith. Luke 17:5 “The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"

Where does this kind of faith come from, it comes from the Word of God. Paul writes in Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Faith comes from hearing the Word of God, It comes from believing the Word of God, it is strengthened by stepping out on faith and acting on the Word of God. If you want to grow in your faith, if you want to know the scripture that relates to you need, if you want to know Jesus, if you want to know God, then you have to study God’s Word. How else will you know that you know what you know you know?

How do we make Faith work?

God is a Spirit. John 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." Everything that came into being came from the Spirit of God and by God’s Word was spoken into existence. That is the example of the God kind of faith that pleases Him. God does not want the feel good faith He wants the faith that can move the mountains in your life. God wants the kind of faith from belief on His word and action that gives testimony that you believe on His word.

God is Love. 1 John 4:8 “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” God operates in the context of love, He cannot be any other way for He is the definition of Love, agape love, and God is unconditional love. All that God has spoken, all of His word, all of His commandments are in the context of His love towards His creation, and His grace and love towards you.

John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. Why then would anyone serve Satan who comes upon us to kill and destroy, who is full of deceit and the father of lies. God is love and He never will instruct us outside of what He is, Love.

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.                                                                                               Hebrew 11:6

If you don’t have faith it is impossible to please Him, if you don’t have faith it is impossible to receive His righteousness, if you don’t have faith you will not have the power of God’s Word in your life, and if you don’t have faith you will not have an effective witness.

If you have heard nothing I have said, as I have said nothing except what the Spirit has told me to say, then perk up and hear this. It is a great piece of advice from a beautiful Hebrew woman from Nazareth. When she was a young girl growing up in Nazareth God found favor with her. The Holy Spirit came over her and she became pregnant with the Son of God, Jesus, and the Messiah. She was the mother of God in the flesh. Nobody knows a child better than their mother. She gave birth to Him, she nurtured Him, she raised Him up to His adulthood. Hear the advise that Mary, the mother of Jesus, says in John 2:5. Mary, Jesus, His half brothers, and some of His disciples were at a wedding feast in Cana. There Jesus preformed the first recorded sign in the Gospels when He turned water into wine. They had run out of wine at the wedding feast and Mary told Jesus about it. She did not tell Jesus what to do she just made Him aware. Then Mary told the servants, “His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it." That is Faith! Acting on God’s Word.

If anything you have heard tonight has spoken to your spirit, if you feel a tug in your spirit, it is not what I have said; it is the Spirit of God drawing you to His Son Jesus. What I have said tonight is not about me, it’s all about Jesus. It is always about Jesus. If God is calling you then now is the time to decide what you are going to do. God is in the present tense, He is now, this moment is now, are you going to let it slip away? I don’t know where you are at but God does, and you know also. You have seen your life up to this point and know the result so far. Are you on a path the leads only to the grave? Would you think it better to be on a path that leads to the Holy City in God’s Kingdom? It is no one else’s decision but yours, it’s between you and God. Jesus is at the door to your heart, knocking, pleading, calling your name, are you going to let Him in, or pull the cover over your head and close your eyes? Are you tired of carrying the burden of life in this world? Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

Have you had enough, you come. Are tired of the constant fight, you come. Is the burden in your conscious more that you can bear, you come. Don’t be unsure and ponder yourself past this present moment. You are not alone, the pastor is here, I am here, you are in the midst of a congregation of Holy Priests who even now are praying for you. All of us are willing to come pray with you. Who knows better than the mother of Jesus who gives this faithful advice, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. See, on the portals He’s waiting and watching, watching for you and for me.” If you are a prodigal son your Heavenly Father is waiting, wanting to run and greet you, you come. God is present, and we are present, and this moment is the only one we have that we can live in. Now is the time of salvation, now is the time to seek His Kingdom and righteousness.

“Come home, come home. You who are weary, come home. Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling, calling O sinner, come home.”