Show Notes
Faith is the connecting link between you and God, and you don't need to see that connection. Just believe in it. Believe in the fact that'll provide reassurance and that your faith will pull you out of any challenge you face in your life.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Your work ethic has never been in question, but the faith that you have is actually the thing that keeps you from experiencing the life that you intend to live. And in fact, the life that God intends you to live.
[00:00:16] We're going to talk about it.
[00:00:23] God doesn't design us to fit. He designs us to be impactful.
[00:00:29] Welcome to Shifts and Ladders. This is Ryan Robinson. And haven't seen you in a little bit. I've seen you a little bit, but I want to just jump right into things.
[00:00:38] We have been talking about, at least the last podcast or so. We talked about walking on water, Peter jumping out of the boat, and essentially understanding that faith got him out of the boat. But also his lack of faith actually was what almost made him drown.
[00:00:59] But God, Jesus reached out immediately, pulled him up out of the water, said, oh, why did you doubt me?
[00:01:06] Oh, ye of little faith, why did you not believe me for what I can do and what I had already been doing until you got out the boat and you saw something that wasn't even there.
[00:01:20] Isn't that crazy? Sometimes we feel pain, sometimes we feel scared, and that's actually more real to us than God's promises.
[00:01:31] So what we really need to do is understand what God has already said so that we can be anchored to that when we go through storms, like Peter did when he was walking on the water, and he ended up seeing something that we cannot, cannot see, but can feel.
[00:01:49] Okay, so I'm gonna jump into one place first, and then we're gonna jump a couple places, actually. Well, two places.
[00:01:57] There is a book in the Bible called Hebrews not he brews coffee. No, there might be one of those places somewhere. I don't know. But it is a book in the Bible that I just lost a page. Hold up. It's a letter to individuals who are Hebrews who are trying to keep the law of Moses and try and keep Jesus's new commandments. So what they're doing is they're muddying the lines. They're blurring the lines, like, you got to do this, the old thing and do the new thing in order to keep God's promises. So.
[00:02:40] But Hebrews chapter 11 is this book where our chapter that most people call the hall of faith. And we're going to walk through it a little bit so that we can get a little bit of context. But then I also want to bring it to something that Jesus had actually walked through in the word of God. So Hebrews chapter 11, verse one says this. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
[00:03:07] For by it, the men of old obtained a good report.
[00:03:11] By faith, we understand that the universe was framed by the word of God, so that things that are seen were made out of things which are visible. I'm gonna stop there.
[00:03:23] So faith, what are components of faith? If you are a English person or grammatical person, is. Is a linking verb. Why? It means that it, whatever comes after the is, defines the subject. So now faith, now not being comma, or bring someone's attention, is now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
[00:03:53] Now, faith is something that's very present.
[00:03:57] You can have future.
[00:03:59] You could have a future belief or a goal for an outcome, but you actually have to have the faith now in order to believe for that in the future.
[00:04:07] Right? So faith has this capability and ability to start working on you now for something that's in the future. I'm going to say that again. Faith has a way of making you change now who you are now for something anticipated in the future.
[00:04:23] And it's the evidence of things not seen. So let's take some of the.
[00:04:34] Actually, I'm on a camera now, I'm on a MacBook, and I'm on a microphone. We all have an iPhone.
[00:04:41] These things were in somebody's mind at some point during time, right? Someone had a vision, someone had an idea, someone had something.
[00:04:55] And they took the time and they had the now faith to build it, create it, draw it, build the specs, whatever, actually even make the book. I got this Miles Monroe book right in front of me.
[00:05:10] Highly recommend it.
[00:05:13] I just dropped it. There we go.
[00:05:16] This Miles Monroe book is called Rediscovering the Kingdom.
[00:05:20] Okay. It's a book. I'm just. Me and some of my friends are actually rediscovering some of the books that Dr. Miles Monroe had walked through, taught, and it's timeless. It is eternal, really.
[00:05:34] And, you know, just. We just talked, started talking about him, and he wrote that book.
[00:05:41] But that idea was in his mind, it was in his spirit. So he took what was intangible, made it something tangible, turned it into something.
[00:05:51] All of the ideas, you are filled with ideas, you are filled with creativity. And those are very now things.
[00:06:00] When you have an idea of what to do, the next thing we have to do, if we have the now faith, is to activate and do something with it.
[00:06:10] So then. So let's get back to the word here. It says, now faith, the substance of things hoped for. So it is the building blocks for what you hope For.
[00:06:22] So it starts building.
[00:06:24] So you have enough faith to start building substance. So you start. You have the book idea, but you start writing the theme, and then you start making the outline, and you start filling in the details, and then you start writing out paragraphs, and then paragraphs turn to chapters, and chapters turn into a book.
[00:06:42] It's the substance. So the thing is, at the very moment of faith, you have to have it in order to fuel what you're believing in.
[00:06:51] Right?
[00:06:52] And here we go.
[00:06:54] Substant things, hope for the evidence of things not seen. So when it is completed, it then becomes the evidence. See, this was in my. The book, Miles Monroe's book. This iPhone was in somebody's brain.
[00:07:09] It was in somebody's head the whole time.
[00:07:12] And now it becomes evidence. And then it becomes old, because now you got to make something new, like an iPad or something.
[00:07:21] But why is this important? Why is God bringing this up?
[00:07:26] Faith is something that is so potent that if we don't properly apply it in other places, we can actually. It could actually be used to our detriment.
[00:07:37] And it's simply because we have not allowed ourselves to move when we say we believe.
[00:07:47] I consider faith like a lighter fluid, okay?
[00:07:53] If you put lighter fluid on anything other than charcoal, you're going to be in trouble.
[00:08:01] You are going to be in trouble. Right?
[00:08:05] It is what gets us moving.
[00:08:08] It's the substance and evidence.
[00:08:12] All of its makeup is built in the spiritual realm in the areas that we cannot see. Okay?
[00:08:20] Now, with that being said, I want to go to Matthew, chapter 8, and it's going to be in verse Matthew, chapter 8, verse 5 through 13.
[00:08:32] And I want to say this because this is part of seeing and not seeing things. Okay?
[00:08:40] There is a scripture here, and I want to read it for us. But It's Matthew, chapter 8, verses 5 through 13. It says this. And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, entreating him, saying, lord, my servant is lying at home sick with paralysis, terribly tormented. Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. But speak the word only, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me.
[00:09:16] And I say to this man, go. And he goes, and another come. And he comes. And to my servant do this. And he does it.
[00:09:25] When Jesus heard it, he was amazed and said to those who followed, truly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say to you that many of you will come from the east and the west and will dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
[00:09:46] But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into utter darkness and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
[00:09:54] Then Jesus said to the centurion, go your way, and as you have believed, let it be done for you. And his servant was healed that very moment. Okay, I wanna. That was a little bit longer than I thought, but I want to just speak on this a little bit.
[00:10:10] The centurion had enough faith. Now, might I add, the centurion is not Jewish, okay? Centurions mean Roman.
[00:10:21] So a centurion talking to a Jew is a rough deal anyway, because typically they run. They run away from them, right? The centurion had command over 100 soldiers. Centurion sent the prefix meaning 100, right?
[00:10:39] So this man who was centurion had a legion of 100 people soldiers, and he was also Roman. Therefore he and Jesus ain't supposed to be talking like that.
[00:10:54] And this is the crazy part. He's addressing him as Lord, which means he's believing and trusting that God. That Jesus himself is God himself. So he already has faith, right? So he is considered a gentile under command, identifying with a Jew who is Jesus, that he is God of all.
[00:11:20] All right, So I want to set this stage so you have context for this. Okay?
[00:11:23] So he needs his servant healed. He says, I'm good. And he said, all right. Jesus said, all right, I'll go.
[00:11:31] But the centurion says this. He said, I'm not worthy for you to come into my house. Because one, he knows that he's a God, that he's God.
[00:11:39] Two, he also realizes that he is unclean, considering that he's a gentile. He doesn't show or have or follow any of the Jewish customs. But what he does believe is that because he is God and he has the authority, he can say something where he is.
[00:11:57] And it still have the same effect elsewhere. And the centurion gives the example. I give an order to my soldiers.
[00:12:05] They've got to do it because of the weight of my words.
[00:12:10] The weight of the words in the military means something.
[00:12:15] It's powerful.
[00:12:17] And it's also. Here's the.
[00:12:20] Let me scoot up.
[00:12:23] This is the other powerful part.
[00:12:26] It's who says the words that makes the movement happen.
[00:12:31] So if Jesus was someone else, like a rabbi or just a general, everyday person, yeah, his words may mean something to a few people, but what the centurion Understood was that Jesus is the authority.
[00:12:51] And when he says something, it has to be done.
[00:12:56] He don't need to go nowhere. He doesn't need to put his hands on it. He can speak the word and something's going to happen.
[00:13:04] The centurion had enough faith in the authority that Jesus has or had in the time to do what he asked him to do, and it would be done.
[00:13:22] Jesus turns around and uses this as a case study to tell people, like, listen, he doesn't even know. He doesn't even have the history that we have with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the originators of faith in our time. He don't even know that. But he knows this, though.
[00:13:41] He just got here. He just acknowledged that I'm Lord.
[00:13:47] He just got here, but y' all been here, and all of a sudden, now Jesus is using the centurion to display what it's like to have faith in moments where you have no history of it.
[00:14:05] He didn't grow up with that. They had all kinds of gods in Roman.
[00:14:10] In the Roman lifestyle. Zeus, Hades, There's a whole bunch of them. Aphrodite, there's all kind of. All kinds of gods.
[00:14:22] But he recognized that Jesus was the God and he didn't have any background. So his faith was easy.
[00:14:30] It was.
[00:14:33] Let me say this correctly.
[00:14:35] It wasn't such a heavy lift for him because he's used to recognizing authority in the first place.
[00:14:46] He understood authority more than he understood supernatural things.
[00:14:53] And in many cases, authority is a supernatural circumstance. I'm gonna put a pin there.
[00:14:59] Okay? So this goes back to what we were talking about in Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1 through 3.
[00:15:07] Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It says. By it, the elders obtained a good report.
[00:15:19] Faith requires us to be present in the moment.
[00:15:25] And when we're in the moment, we can operate with the expectation that God can do something. Now, this is something I want to kind of leave us with. Faith has to have an object.
[00:15:45] It has to have a focus.
[00:15:48] It literally has to have a focus. Okay?
[00:15:53] Every circumstance, whether it was healing, whether it was resurrection, had the faith, had to have a focus.
[00:16:06] It wasn't on a human being.
[00:16:10] It always prompts us to have the question, God, will you do?
[00:16:18] Can you do?
[00:16:20] And I believe you can.
[00:16:24] There we go. So faith prompts us to have questions, but the ultimate answer we get to is, I believe that God can do this, which requires us to have our hands off of it.
[00:16:46] Do we believe that God can heal our family? Do we believe that God can bring us out of debt? Do we believe that God can restore relationships? Do we believe that God can keep marriages whole? Do you believe that God can?
[00:17:05] And if you believe and keep your eyes focused like Peter initially did, you can start walking on water. Because the object of your faith is not your ability, your mindset, your wisdom, your education and your pedigree.
[00:17:23] It is Jesus.
[00:17:26] And if you believe that Jesus can, you may not know how. But if you believe that he can, if it's in his will, he can. And he will do it.
[00:17:39] I'm going to keep going on this faith thing. This is increasing my faith. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The only way you can increase in faith is if you read and listen to God's word. So I hope this is encouraging you. I hope this is building your faith.
[00:17:56] Because there's aspects of our life that we may have an immense amount of faith. We don't have any issues, we don't have any challenges. We're like, hey, I got. Do your thing.
[00:18:05] Take care of my body, take care of the people I love. But there are areas that you may not have identified, areas where you lack faith.
[00:18:16] And usually the areas you lack faith in are the areas that you have anxiety in because you are anticipating a negative outcome.
[00:18:27] That's the definition of anxiety. So, anyway, keep it locked here. Share this with somebody. If you. If they need an increase in faith, send them this podcast. If you need it, run this back like a DJ. If you can share this on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, I would. It would bless me that we could help some people increase in the very thing that the world says we shouldn't have, that we need to trust in numbers, calculations and data.
[00:18:59] But the currency of the kingdom is faith.
[00:19:02] And let's see and watch what God does. And he will get the glory out of your life. Until next time, we'll catch you. Peace.
