The Faith-Building Power of God Moments [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. And I could sit here today and I could enumerate for you many, many, many things that I don't understand for my own personal life. But I could also enumerate many times that I've walked with some of you in pain, and we can't explain why that suffering was there, why God allowed it.

We have no answers for some of those things. But the way that faith grows is not by dwelling upon what we don't understand, but instead meditating upon what we do know for sure. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, God Moments, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina.

If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It's Pastor Alan's book by the same title, God Moments, and it can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you a copy of Pastor Alan's book, God Moments, our special offer today.

Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860, that's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program, but right now, let's get started with today's teaching on God Moments. Here is Alan Wright.

You ready for some good news? God's been with you every moment of your life. He's been there for every breath.

The only question is how much have we seen Him? And the more that you see God in your life, the more your faith grows. We know how important faith is, we walk by faith, not by sight.

The Scripture even says without faith, it's impossible to please God. I want to show you today how faith grows, what faith is, and I want to show you just how much God is for you having faith. It's a wonderful, wonderful story, and we turn to it often.

It's a childhood story. I've preached on it several times in recent years, but I want to focus back in on the story of David and Goliath to just look at this moment in which you see where David's faith rested. And he said to King Saul, the Lord delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, and He'll deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine as well.

When he remembered how God had been faithful to him in the past, he had faith for the present moment. This is in 1 Samuel chapter 17. The scene was this. The Philistines had gathered on one hill, the Israelites had gathered on the other, and these two opposing armies were stalemated because no one wanted to go down into the vulnerable valley and give the other side the superior height advantage on the hillside. Nobody really wanted to try to ascend the other hillside and try to attack them because that was a strategic disadvantage as well. And so there they were, stymied, and then there was an issue of a challenge. And this challenge was a battle of champions, and this was a common occurrence in ancient warfare where one representative from each of the armies would come out and fight each other, and whoever would win would win for the entire army. And thus ensues the famous story of David and Goliath.

We pick up reading 1 Samuel 17 verse 3. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley between them. And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze. He had bronze armor on his legs, a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders, the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron. And his shield-bearer went before him. Let me pause here and say, somebody who had been studying quite in-depth Goliath's armor, had they not?

You can see where the meditation of the hearts of the people were, just how incredible Goliath was. And he stood at verse 8 and shouted to the ranks of Israel, Why have you come out to draw for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are not you servants of Saul?

Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. And the Philistines said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day, give me a man that we may fight together. And this sums it up at verse 11, When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistines, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Well, at verse 17, what happens is that David's father Jesse says to his son, this is verse 17, Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to camp to your battle. So just pause and notice just how David, how much he is prefiguring the son of David.

How much like Jesus. This is a son who is an unlikely candidate to be the hero. He is seemingly forgotten. He's born in Bethlehem. He's a shepherd and he's sent by his father to take bread to his fearful brothers.

He is, as we will see, received not by his own, but he becomes the champion. What happens at verse 28 is that Eliab had held his brother when he heard, he spoke to the man who heard of this, Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why have you come down? And with whom have you left so few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption, the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. And David said, What have I done now? Was it not but a word?

As the youngest of three brothers, I know what that's like. What, can I not even speak anymore? I said, What are you saying? And so what happens is that David comes to King Saul at verse 32, and said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, You're not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he's been a man of war from his youth. Just can't be any more direct of a statement of curse than that. You can't do it.

Let me tell you your limitation and why you can't. Verse 34, But David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him.

Your servant has struck down both lions and bears. And this uncircumcised Philistine, this man who's not in covenant with God at all, this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God. And David said, Verse 37, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Go and the Lord be with you.

The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will also deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine. He will be faithful to me today because I know that he's been faithful to me in the past. What David had done is he spent his life meditating on the goodness of God and had seen the evidence of God in his life so much that this just became the faith that lived in his heart. How you remember yesterday determines how you will act today and tomorrow. The way in which you see God or don't see God will determine the extent to which you have faith in your life.

Well, faith is, on the one hand, it's one of the most simple things imaginable, but on the other hand, we all know that there are things that sometimes to us that make it hard to really trust. Years ago, Ann's uncle Stanley that I mentioned so often, he's in heaven now, but he's just full of good stories. And one of the stories was about his little neighbor. He had a little boy that lived next to him. And there also was a neighborhood dog.

His name was Lucky, I think. And Lucky was a very friendly dog, actually, but this little boy was scared of Lucky. And it was a big dog, and the little boy was scared. And so the little boy's family, being Christian, they thought what we'll do is we'll teach the boy a very important verse of the Bible from 2 Timothy 1.7. He said, The Lord has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. And so the little boy memorized that scripture. And one day Lucky came around, and the little boy was afraid.

And his parents said to him, said, Now, what does the Bible say? And the little boy said, The Lord hasn't given me a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. But I'm still afraid of Lucky. And I've never forgotten that because you ever felt something like that? I'm saying the right things. I know the right Bible verses.

But I'm still afraid of Lucky. It sometimes seems like that faith is a little bit elusive from us. How does faith actually come? How is it that faith actually grows? When the Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, how does this take place in our lives? I just wanted to have some plain talk with you today about what faith is and how faith comes in our lives and to learn from this magnificent picture of David who remembers God's faithfulness in his past. It is a beautiful and wonderful thing to think on what God has done in your life. But what I also want you to see is it not only causes a bliss of soul, it not only brings peace, but this becomes the substance of our faith. What is faith?

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's always been there. In every moment you narrowly escape from danger. In every moment you were surprised by a blessing.

In every moment you just knew the direction to take. God was there. Your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace. Perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life, but your life is full of God moments. When you make a gift today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's heart-stirring book, God Moments, that will lead you on a spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments. It's Alan Wright's timeless book, God Moments. Take your God moments in the past and be filled with fresh faith today. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860, or come to our website, pastorallan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Faith is not really so much this blind leap in something that is ridiculous.

That's the way people often think about faith. Sort of like the story of these nuns that they were nurses, and they just left caring for some patients at a facility, and they were driving down the road and ran out of gas. And they said, oh, what are we going to do? Well, one of them said, I think there's a gas station just maybe a quarter mile down the road, and they're just going to walk down there and get some gas. And one of the sisters said, but we don't have a gas can.

What are we going to do? And so one of them pulled out of the back seat and said, the bedpan. And so they walked out of the gas station and filled up the bedpan with some gasoline and carefully carried it back to the car, and they were there on the side of the road pouring the contents of the bedpan into the gas tank whereupon a Baptist minister pulled up next to him and said, sisters, that's faith. Faith isn't really so much a blind leap in the preposterous as it is something that has a lot of evidence and substance to it. It's the assurance of things that are hoped for.

It's a substance of that. It is a conviction of things you haven't seen. That's what Hebrews says. Faith is, according to Augustine, to believe what we do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what we do believe.

Let me say that again. St. Augustine said, faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of the faith is to see what we believe. Faith, according to Clement of Alexandria, another early church father, said, faith is a voluntary anticipation. Martin Luther said, God, our Father, has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing. Thomas Aquinas said, faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.

I love what E. Stanley Jones said. Faith is not merely you holding on to God. It's God holding on to you.

He will not let you go. Faith is not your ability to muster up some kind of mental ascent so that you can hold on to God. Faith is the confidence that knows that God is holding on to you. Faith is, by another definition that I'd like to give you today, is very simply this. It is ultimate confidence in ultimate truth. You can know whether you have faith or not because whatever you believe is what you act on. It's just that simple.

If you wonder what faith you have and what your belief is, you can simply tell by what you act on. That's just the way it is. There's a famous story of a tightrope walker who assembled a crowd in a downtown area by going up high, stretching a tightrope across two municipal buildings. And a crowd began to form beneath him to see what this daredevil was going to do. And he said, how many of you all believe I can walk across to the other side? And he just walked right across. They cheered and he got on the other side. He said, how many of you believe I could take a wheelbarrow and push it across to the other side? And now the crowd had grown and people would cheer. Yeah, we think you can do it.

Yeah, you go for it. And he pushed a wheelbarrow very easily across to the other side on the tightrope. And he said, how many of you think I could actually take a person, put that person in the wheelbarrow and push it across to the other side? And everybody cheered louder than ever and said, yeah! And he said, okay, one of you believers, come on up and get in the wheelbarrow.

Hurry up. I've never seen a crowd disperse so fast in all your life, you know, because they were chanting, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we believe that, but ultimately they didn't really believe it. Here's just, just to submit this to you, faith is just very simply ultimate confidence, ultimate belief, and ultimate truth. It really is about truth. It's really what it's about.

Well, think of it this way. If a child were to trust his parent, but the parent wasn't trustworthy, we wouldn't call that faith. We'd call it foolishness. If there's somebody in your life that you blindly trust and they hurt you, that's not faith.

That's folly. But if there was someone that you did not trust because you were ignorant of how much they loved you and just how much they advocated for you and how much good they wanted for your life, but you pushed them away and you distanced yourself because you just couldn't trust, then that would be foolishness where you really needed faith. Because to really have faith is to have an awareness of the truth of a situation and then have confidence in it. There can be truths that seem to be competing at the same time.

That's why I say faith is confidence and ultimate truth. For example, if when my kids were little, I disciplined one of them by taking away one of their favorite toys temporarily. And if that child is thinking through it, a child in our home where there was lots of love and support and they knew that punishment wasn't permanent and they knew that there was lots of love and that there was supposed to be a lesson to the discipline, that child might have two truths at the same time. One truth would be, I'm not happy right now.

I don't have my favorite toy and I feel really hurt by this. But there's a bigger truth. And that truth is, my father loves me, my mother loves me, my home is secure, I am safe, I may not understand everything about why this is happening and I may not like it, but the bigger truth here is that they have my best in mind and I am going to be secure in that.

I'm loved and provided for. But if a child had a toy that was taken away and that child was in an environment where there was no love, there was no honor, where there was no security, where there was no acceptance and a sense of safety and that child loses a toy and that child then is going to have a reality of this has been taken away from me and the mind is going to begin to think and this is the way life is, so I need to hold on to everything that I possibly can. It raises this very important point about faith and how faith is built. Faith is built upon what you do know rather than the things you don't know. I just cannot overemphasize the importance of this, especially when you go through a difficult time. I think back to some of the most difficult times of life, the most painful times of life and the things that I just don't understand and I could sit here today and I could enumerate for you many, many, many things that I don't understand for my own personal life, but I could also enumerate many times that I've walked with some of you in pain and we can't explain why that suffering was there, why God allowed it.

We have no answers for some of those things. But the way that faith grows is not by dwelling upon what we don't understand, but instead meditating upon what we do know for sure. So what I know for sure, because I have a deposit of the Holy Spirit in me that guarantees, like an earnest money, a deposit within me that guarantees a greater inheritance in the saints, what I could say to you for sure is I know I'm a child of God. What I could say for sure is that I have been rescued, that I have been loved with a fierce love by a God who came in the person of Jesus Christ and died in my place on a cross. What I could say for sure is that time and time and time and time again, many convincing proofs by the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life that had given me four tastes of heaven.

What I could say for sure is that there is a plan and that God is sovereign and that He is on His throne. And so faith gets built upon meditating upon all these things that you know for sure. If you fix your life upon the meditation of things that you don't understand, then there is no faith that is in that. Faith is believing in ultimate truth. Turning on the light in a room is a very simple thing.

But it's an act of faith. You step in the room, you don't think about it. The light switch is there, you flip the switch.

Why? Because you are convinced that even though you may not understand everything about electrical currents or lights and how it works, that this is what we do. We flip on this switch and then the light comes on. You don't go into a room and turn around three times, stomp your feet twice, and then jump up and down and say woo-hoo in order to get the light to cut on. You don't do that because that's foolish because that doesn't turn on a light. But a light switch does.

You get into a car, you turn the key or you push a button for the car to start. And you do this because it's an act of faith. In other words, if you just pay attention to what you do, then you'll know what you believe, which will describe to you what faith really is. To have faith therefore is not a blind leap as many people propose. And it is not mental gymnastics that is about developing some intellectual certainty for something for which you have no evidence. That's not what faith is at all. Faith is something that is not a work of the mind, it's not a work of the flesh, and it's really silly to even think about going into a room and concentrating hard and saying I believe that this light switch will turn on the light, I believe this light switch will turn on the light, I believe it will turn on this light, and then flip it on.

No, it's not like that, is it? It's just something you're convinced of and you turn on the light switch because it has something that you believe. Notice, please, that you do not have to understand how something works or even why something works in order to believe in it. I don't know how a plane flies. I know there's some kind of Bernoulli principle and something about air pressure and the wings and the air speed. I thought, oh, but I have no idea how it flies.

I have no idea. That's such a big, heavy piece of metal to go through the air like that. I still get on a plane. I go, how does this thing even work? But I know this.

I know it's the safest way to travel. Alan Wright and today's teaching, God Moments. Stick with us. Alan is back here in the studio in just a moment with additional insight on this for your life and a final word. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. God's always been there. In every moment, you narrowly escaped from danger. In every moment, you were surprised by a blessing.

In every moment, you just knew the direction to take. God was there. Your life is defined by countless moments of God's grace. Perhaps they've been covered by the sands of time or have just gone unnoticed in the rush of life, but your life is full of God moments. When you make a gift today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's heart-stirring book, God Moments, that will lead you on a spiritual treasure hunt to uncover your God moments. It's Alan Wright's timeless book, God Moments.

Discover your God moments in the past and be filled with fresh faith today. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan threw up his series of God moments. Obviously, we're gonna be thinking back to the moments where God was faithful in our lives. What about the person who's listening right now who is either going through something really difficult or maybe has come through something difficult on the other side of it? But it's just really hard to even see God's hand at work or even to realize, wait, no, God was there. What will happen, and this is so much of the point of the book and of this series, Daniel, is where you have not been able to see him, maybe because your pain was screaming at you so loud at the time, or maybe you're in the midst of it now, there is a way in which you can begin to attune your heart and your mind to God's presence where you previously didn't see him. We're not talking about having to manufacture some sense of God being with you because God's always with you. What we're doing is we're cultivating the ability with our spiritual eyes to see God where previously we hadn't seen him. And so today we're just learning about, it's amazing how when you really see God, it builds your faith. And so instead of trying to have more faith by just saying, I'll have more faith, it's a better enterprise to go back and look for those God moments and revel in them. It's something we can do. So what we're saying is that you might be going through something difficult now. You may have just come through a difficult time. Maybe you're on the mountaintop right now. But in either case, look for God and we've got a roadmap, a treasure, a hunt in front of us. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.