Sermon Title: Faith that Opens Doors(Click Here to watch full Sermon)
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11:5-6
Pastor Dennis Martin
Let’s first look at life in general. The best way to see life is in stages. As people, we go through life and experience with different lenses. As we grow, our perception changes. Knowledge and understanding will always be progressive. What made no sense when we were younger probably now makes sense. Pastor Dennis now understands what his mother was saying as a father himself. Even with our success, we should see this in stages. As we go through every stage, we’ll know to celebrate ourselves as we overcome. That’s how God did it. God could have done everything in one day but He didn’t. He allowed creation to be done in stages. He didn’t wait until the ultimate end to celebrate after everything was done but celebrated everyday. At the end of each day, He said it was good. Life has its stages as well. As we grow up we experience stages. Infancy, early childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, old age. All these stages are necessary because of the experience we gain. God will allow us to go through process and process is necessary as it allows us to digest certain things in life in bite sizes. Spoon by spoon we gain knowledge, line upon line, precept upon precept. For everything in life, there are stages. We shouldn’t skip steps – but it is possible to do so.
One stage of importance is death. Death is important – death is not the end. It is a doorway to another experience of life called eternity. In this place called eternity, we get there through death, but here we find in the text a person called Enoch who God allows to skip a step called death because he pleased Him. Enoch pleased God and because of it, he didn’t see death. This is powerful. Enoch existed before the church and the Bible, there was no information given to him to please God. Today, we have so many resources at our disposal and sometimes we wonder if we are pleasing God and doing a good job in our relationship with Him. The Bible clearly says that we don’t have to die for God to consider us to be doing a good job.The reason why God was pleased with Enoch was because he had faith. God allowed a door to be opened to Enoch through his faith. Through his faith, he pleased God and he was allowed to skip the step of death. When we have faith in God believing that He is, it will allow us to skip some steps in life. What if working hard is not the only route, but that we need to have faith in God? Work like it’s all on you but believe like everything is all on God. Sometimes when we speak about faith we get confused.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen (Hebrews 11:1). The problem with faith is that it extends beyond our learning senses. Faith doesn’t contradict reason, it just goes beyond reason. It doesn’t contradict reason, it just goes beyond it. It is a level of understanding that is beyond reason. Sometimes when we see stuff we think okay it exists because we see it. And that’s true. But if we only allow our experience in life to be subjugated to what we see, our lives will be most miserable. It is in our hope and faith that we have a big and better understanding of tomorrow. We believe by faith and hope that all things work together for good for those who love God and are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). “This is just a pit stop on my journey.” You see how people with faith talk. Faith is not restricted to what we see or touch. It doesn’t contradict our reasoning, it is just a higher level of understanding. How far we can see restricts us to this world. We see people always moving forward but not getting to a level higher. Faith opens doors. Enoch had a faith that pleased God because he believed in God and his walk before God was a walk of faith.
This type of faith is not just “here God, do it for me”. The faith that pleases God allows us to walk before God. If you look at Enoch, you would say “wow, that’s crazy faith – no one can establish this faith.” For you to allow God to translate you or transport you to a different level of life, it doesn’t take crazy faith but simple faith. Look at verse 6 – without faith it is impossible to please God. We have to believe to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is – you must believe that God exists – can you look at everything out there and believe man made everything? You can accomplish anything you need to as you believe God exists. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through in life – it could be hard – this is what I love about the sermon from last week – God cares through it all. When God cares, we never did anything to make you Him care. We won’t have a carefree life, things will go sideways, but we have to have the faith to believe God is with us. Enoch existed before the Bible. Enoch had a prayer life – people who don’t pray, don’t believe that God exists. Do you know how many people go through hard times and they say “He doesn’t care?” He that comes to God must first believe He is. Why would you come to someone who you don’t believe in? This is the problem of our faith – not that you aren’t praying but it’s ritualistic, not fully convinced there is someone on the other side. You must believe He is and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. Some don’t believe God will move. There are people who don’t believe God exists and they don’t believe that when they pray He’ll move. But Enoch pleased God because the Bible says he walked before God. People that walk before God know that God has their back.
God does exist and He is a rewarder but you have to put in the work. Faith requires work. You are going against the grain. Believe God despite what anyone says. Noah had his good report as well. God told Noah to build a boat for what he didn’t know existed. The mist came out of the ground to water the grass in Noah’s time. It didn’t rain. Imagine you’re building a boat for rain like Noah and people are wondering, “what is rain?” But Noah walked before God because he knew God had his back. God wants to quickly accelerate you but do you have the faith for it? We ought to have faith that opens doors. Enoch who never had a church or a Bible, his ways pleased God. Here we are wondering if our ways please God. We have to come to a place where our faith comes to a higher level. This faith doesn’t warrant 6-7 days fasting. All we have to do when we pray is just understand that God exists. You know how many people pray and don’t believe He will move on their behalf? We have to be diligent in our seeking of the Lord and in our thought process. The Bible says “now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20)”. If God is saying He will do exceedingly above what we ask or think, that means what we think towards God and ask is all on the same level. After all, think and ask are in the same sentence. Our thinking and our asking are two of the same. Therefore, what we aren’t saying can hurt us. There has to be faith in our thought process. But does our thought process reflect faith? Is our thought process filled and fueled with faith? What is the mountain? We used to sing “we are climbing up the rough side of the mountain.” The Bible told us to speak to the mountain! When we are believing in God, we ought to understand that we will go through hard times, yet we ought to recognize that God is developing us. When Jesus died for us, that’s what warranted Him sitting at the right side of the Father – He earned it. He earned it because God is a rewarder. What if Pastor Dennis were to tell us that God is tired of blessing people and that He wants to reward us instead but to be rewarded, it takes work? For example, getting up to pray takes work. It is mental work to take your mind off of other things and to turn your attention to pleasing God. The faith we need to open the door for God to take us out of one realm and to bless us in another realm is to believe that God exists. When you believe that God exists and that when you pray and think towards Him He will move on your behalf, this is the faith that opens doors. It didn’t require fasting or dropping a seed for Enoch – no, he believed God existed. The Bible says this in Genesis 5 and Hebrews 11. Very little is said about Enoch in the Bible otherwise, but we gain much from his life.
As long as our ways please God, He will reward us. Pastor Dennis is talking to us who want to get ahead in life. Enoch skipped a stage – death, God transported us forward, and he experienced God. Whatever condition we are in right now, the Bible said that Enoch pleased God through faith – it was not the consumer-minded faith, but it is the faith that trusts God at His Word. Some theologians believe we will return to a day where there are no churches or Bible. Some believers believe that we will have to memorize the scriptures. Man shall not live by bread alone but by the word (Matthew 4:4). This is the word from the mouth of God. For us to walk before the Lord, it is all in our prayer life. Whatever Enoch got out of prayer, he believed God. We must let our thoughts and our mental place of reasoning be equal to what we are declaring. If we are going to approach God, we can’t from a mental place be in disbelief about who He is or about the fact that He is a rewarder. He won’t give us the life we want. But God is telling us today to put Him to the test. We can’t just half way search for God. Faith is believing that whatever you are searching for in Him He will do on your behalf. If we use faith, it allows us to experience a world far better. In the book of Hebrews, everything is summed up in three words – more better, more perfect, and more heavenly. Let’s produce a faith that will give us a life that is more perfect, more better and more heavenly.
Believe that God is. Believe that there is a God – someone sitting on high and looking down low, His eyes are on the sparrow and He is watching us. He wants us to walk before Him. We ought to believe that He will deliver us and that by Him we will overcome all. Whatever we need, God we know you have our back. From a mental place, we ought to believe that God exists. This is the internal thing that we have to do. Believe that God is a rewarder. Why wouldn’t God give it to us? There is nothing that we can ask or think of that God can’t go beyond.
Recent Comments