Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, everyone.
[00:00:06] I am so excited to be up here with you guys today. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Taylor Berger. I am an intern here at the church. I'm normally running upstairs with middle schooler high school. I'm also a student at Cleveland State, where I study middle childhood education.
[00:00:27] And I'm just so excited to share with you all what God put on my heart today. So let's pray and invite him into the conversation.
[00:00:35] Dear God, thank you. Thank you for this day. Lord, thank you for this message that you put on my heart. God, I pray that you would be in the room today. I pray that you would speak through me and just reach some of the hearts and the people in this room today. I love you, I trust you, and I thank you. Amen.
[00:00:59] Okay, so I'm gonna start you off with a question. Okay? I'm gonna just dive right in. Have you ever been in a situation that just overwhelms you with anxiety? Like, overwhelmed you with stress?
[00:01:15] Like, I'm talking about those situations where you feel so stressed out or nervous that, like, you feel stuck. Like, you feel paralyzed with the fear.
[00:01:26] For some of you, maybe that looks like a presentation you have to do at work. Or maybe things are just starting to add up in your week, and you're looking at your week, and you're thinking, oh, my gosh, I have so much to do, and it's not even Monday. Like, I can't even look at my week. There's too much. I just want to back out. I don't even want to start my week. There's too much to do if you've ever been there. I feel it.
[00:01:52] I've been there a lot. And today I'm so excited to be up here. And, like I said, to share what God's put in my heart.
[00:02:02] But I would be lying if I didn't say I was just equally as nervous. Like, truly, when I was asked to do this earlier in the summer, I said yes. I was like, let's go. I got it. I'll do it. Of course, I feel honored that I was even thought of to do something like this.
[00:02:20] And then the weeks started getting closer and closer to this date, and I started feeling, like, that tightness in my chest again, and I just felt like I wanted to back out. I felt like I started to just have this urge of just wanting to back out and not do it. And so the weeks, they kept getting closer. And one day, I decided that I would take the whole day to just work on my sermon.
[00:02:53] And that's something that I know how to prepare for a sermon, because I've preached upstairs at the high school. And that's something that I knew. That's my routine. I take the whole day, I'm going to just spend time with God. And when I woke up that morning, the tightness was coming back.
[00:03:12] And I got up and I just felt stuck. I felt paralyzed with my fear. I felt like I couldn't even go to God or start working on the sermon because I was just so scared.
[00:03:27] And so I was, like, this close to backing out. And so naturally, I texted my mom when those things kind of happen. And so I texted her. I told her what I was feeling, and she responded. And she said two things. She said, one, I always got your back.
[00:03:47] And I was like, let's go. She can take my servant for me.
[00:03:54] But then she said, two, she said, trust that God's got you.
[00:03:59] Trust that God has got you. And when I read that, I realized I was putting my faith into the wrong thing. This whole time, I had been putting my faith into myself. And I thought to myself, others have faith in me so I can do this. I was putting my abilities and what I wanted done and putting all this pressure on my shoulders when I should have been putting my faith into goddess and his abilities and what he wants done.
[00:04:32] And in this time, I felt like there was this small shift in my faith. There was, like, this moment where I just felt like, all right, let's go. Like, after that, I went on a walk. I spent my whole morning with God, just leaning into him. I was listening to sermons. I was listening to my worship music, just praying to him.
[00:04:58] And when I came back, I felt like a different person.
[00:05:03] You see, my circumstances, they didn't change.
[00:05:07] I still had to prepare for this. I still had to come up here and do the hard thing.
[00:05:13] But my trust in God did change.
[00:05:16] And that person who felt anxious and was procrastinating and just overwhelmed with fear became a person who felt ready to say yes to God, ready to see what he would do.
[00:05:31] And you see, I think faith is a word that we use a lot. Like, we throw it around a lot. Like, I have faith in you, you should have faith in me.
[00:05:41] Sometimes we see it on those signs as, like, all you need is faith. Trust and a little bit of pixie dust. Like, faith is used everywhere.
[00:05:50] It's thrown around a lot.
[00:05:53] But today I want to ask you, what are you truly putting your faith into?
[00:06:01] What are you truly putting your faith into?
[00:06:04] And in Hebrews, eleven, chapter eleven, verse one.
[00:06:09] It gives us this clear definition of faith.
[00:06:12] It says now, faith is the confidence and what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see.
[00:06:21] Some of you heard that and you're like, well, that's still not clear.
[00:06:25] That's the point though. Faith is hard. It's hard because it's trusting something that you don't see. It's hard because it's having confidence in something that's not tangible.
[00:06:36] Faith is not this magical word, it's not this magical thing. It's not saying to God, God, if you could just fix this detour on Mark's rope, then I could get to church on time and my faith can be better. Even though finally it's fixed and I got to church on time.
[00:06:53] That's not what faith is. It's not saying to God, God, my spiritual tank, it's low, it's empty. And I know I'm not doing anything to fill it up. I know I'm not going to you, I'm not praying to you, I'm not reading your word, but can you just fill it up? Can you just put it at a ten?
[00:07:11] Faith is not this magical thing, or this prayer, or this wish or willing things to happen. And I think sometimes our faith can get confused.
[00:07:23] And we have faith in God and we go to him and we pray to him and we're praying these prayers and we're just hoping that he will answer them. And I think that's really good.
[00:07:33] Don't stop doing that.
[00:07:36] But when faith, our faith gets confused is when we don't get the answer to our prayer that we thought we would. When we're still in the struggle and the pain and we lose our faith.
[00:07:53] That's not what faith is.
[00:07:55] Faith is having the confidence that God is God and he will do what he has promised to do.
[00:08:02] Faith is the gasoline on which our spiritual lives run.
[00:08:07] Having faith in Christ is fully trusting him, fully trusting in his plan and his timing.
[00:08:15] In all the moments of your life, faith is what's actually going to fuel you.
[00:08:22] In Hebrews eleven, it goes on to saying after this definition of faith that says in verse two is what the ancients were commended for.
[00:08:34] Now this is where we get to see this line of evidence of what having true faith looks like. From here out in this chapter, we just get to see these people of heroic faith.
[00:08:48] And some of these people, you may not know, some of you may know, but each example explains by how their faith they were able to overcome.
[00:08:59] By their faith they were able to endure by their faith they were able to sustain.
[00:09:08] By their faith. By their faith. By their faith. It says, by faith 21 times in 39 verses.
[00:09:17] 21 times.
[00:09:19] It shows us how faith made all the difference in the lives of these people.
[00:09:24] That feels important.
[00:09:28] We hear about Noah and how by his faith he built a boat. And by his faith he took action and he endured the great flood.
[00:09:38] We hear about Abraham, who God called to just pick up and leave his home. And Abraham, by his faith he obeyed God and he went to the place that God had promised.
[00:09:52] By faith. By faith. By faith. In verse five, it says, by faith, Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death.
[00:10:03] He could not be found because God had taken him away.
[00:10:07] For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
[00:10:13] And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists. And he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
[00:10:26] You see, by faith, Enoch was taken straight to heaven.
[00:10:32] That's crazy. By his faith he was taken up to heaven. Because he was known as one who pleased God.
[00:10:41] He earnestly sought after him.
[00:10:45] And without faith, it's impossible to please God.
[00:10:51] And you might be thinking, well, I don't really know how to do that. How do I have that faith? How do I please God like that? I don't know how earnestly seek after him sincerely. Reach out to him.
[00:11:09] I wonder, how sincerely are we seeking after God?
[00:11:17] Are we praying with the trust that God can do all things?
[00:11:23] Are we having the confidence in his plan and in his timing?
[00:11:29] Something I've been doing since I was a freshman in high school is journaling.
[00:11:35] It's just been a place where I've just been able to seek God with all of my heart. And when I was a freshman in high school, my grandma, she bought me this journal.
[00:11:45] And I didn't know that I would get so into journaling, but it's just a place where I get to land and think with God. And, you know, I'm not one of those journalers that's like, I'm going to do it every day and write ten pages a day. I'm not that person.
[00:12:03] My journals are in like three different books. They've never been finished. Sometimes my journal entries are like months apart. Sometimes they're like a couple days. But all in all, this is where I land when I just need a think and process with God.
[00:12:19] And I wanted to read you an entry, a prayer that I wrote one year ago, back in June, after I had just accepted the internship. Here at church, it says this.
[00:12:35] I want to follow you, God.
[00:12:37] I want to do so well in this internship.
[00:12:41] I prayed. Here I am, Lord, send me. And here you are sending me.
[00:12:46] I feel so honored, but I'm also so scared.
[00:12:50] I want to please you and serve you well. But it's a.
[00:12:55] I pray you continue to give me guidance, to give me a sound mind and use me in your greater plan.
[00:13:02] I want to do big things and better things for you, but it's hard.
[00:13:07] I pray for a courageous heart. I pray for a strong and healthy mind and body so that I can do things well.
[00:13:15] I pray I can get to know you better so I can help others know you better.
[00:13:19] Help me do so. Please, God. I love you. I trust you. Amen.
[00:13:32] You see, this was a time in my life where I was in this transition.
[00:13:36] I was giving more of my time at the church and I was leading in ways I've just never led before. And it was scary.
[00:13:44] I mean, I wrote like three times. I was scared.
[00:13:50] But today I get to stand up here by faith.
[00:13:56] By faith, I get to stand up here today.
[00:14:00] And this entry, I'm so thankful that God had brought me back to it. I'm so thankful that I get to see his hand in my life, see how he's working.
[00:14:09] But friends, sometimes when I go back, my entries, they don't always look like an answered prayer.
[00:14:17] You see, when we pray, we don't pray to get the answers that we want.
[00:14:24] We pray to have the relationship with Christ we so desperately need.
[00:14:30] I want to pray with the intention that God can do all things, not with the intention that God will do all things, because not my will be done, but his will be done. In my life, at times in our life, we get to pray. This prayer of just gratitude to God.
[00:14:49] Thank you God, for the miracle. Thank you God, for answering that prayer. Thank you God, for making it clear.
[00:14:58] But in other times in our life, it looks like a prayer to sustain us when we don't get the miracle.
[00:15:07] A prayer to sustain us when the answer isn't what we wanted.
[00:15:12] It looks like a peace that goes beyond all of understanding. When you feel like your marriage is just failing you, it looks like God reigniting your relationship with him when you felt so dormant from him for so long.
[00:15:29] It looks like being anchored to a hope when your depression leaves you feeling so hopeless.
[00:15:38] These great examples of faith, they're not stories that we just read and we just forget about.
[00:15:45] They're evidence of a great and powerful God.
[00:15:49] They are evidence that our God, he is a promise keeper.
[00:15:53] And sometimes you'll read this chapter and you'll think at a glance, it doesn't look like their promise is getting kept.
[00:16:02] They endured their life because their promise was one of a better eternal life with God.
[00:16:12] In verse 13, it says, all these people were still living by faith when they died.
[00:16:20] They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
[00:16:33] You see, these people, they had moments in their life where they had to choose to have faith.
[00:16:39] Even when they saw their promise so far in a distance, they could have backed out.
[00:16:47] I wanted to back out. A couple weeks ago, Abraham could have said, no way am I leaving my home. No way am I just picking up and leaving.
[00:16:58] Moses could have said, no way am I going back to Egypt after I just escaped. That's crazy. I'm not doing that.
[00:17:07] But instead of backing out by faith, they leaned into God.
[00:17:13] And at times in our life, we're going to have to choose to have faith.
[00:17:20] We're going to have to choose to, to lean in to God.
[00:17:26] And this isn't going to be easy. I'm just telling you right now, it's going to be hard. It's going to take practice, you know, small steps of faith. It's like exercising. You're probably wondering why I had my weights up here. I'll tell you why.
[00:17:39] Our faith is like exercising. We can pick up this two pound weight, we can say, God, I know where my faith is, and my faith is in you. God, I'm choosing to have my faith in you. That's where I'm defining where my faith is at. And now you're defining it. And now your five pound weight comes, and you repped the two pound weight, and now you moved up to five pounds, and now the five pound weight. Things in life come. So now your days look like, okay, I'm really angry, God. God, I'm exhausted. God, I'm choosing to go to you in that exhaustion. I'm choosing to go to you in that anger. And now you're repping your five pound weight, and then you get to move up to ten pounds.
[00:18:26] Ten pounds is harder for us to lift than others, so I'm just going to hold it.
[00:18:33] But our ten pound weight comes in life, and now you have to rep your ten pounds. And now you're saying to God, God, I trust you with my family.
[00:18:43] God, I trust you in my friendships. God, I pray that Christ would be in the center of it all.
[00:18:51] And your ten pound weight you rep it and you wrap it. And now you're at 25 pounds. I'm not going to pick it up.
[00:18:59] You're at 25 pounds in your 25 pound weight. It looks like saying to God, God, I have faith that you know who my partner is. God, I have faith that, you know where I should go to school.
[00:19:13] God, I have faith that, you know, if I should go back to school.
[00:19:17] I have faith that you're in my career, that you'll help guide me through that.
[00:19:23] And now you're training and you're exercising, and now you've worked your way up to the big things in life.
[00:19:30] And by faith, you're able to pick up the 50 pound weight, the 75 pound weight, the 100 pound weight, the big things in life that are hard.
[00:19:43] You lost a loved one, you're fighting illness.
[00:19:50] You feel like your mental health is just plummeting.
[00:19:55] And by faith, you're able to pick up the weight and trust in goddess.
[00:20:03] And these stories, they're showing us, these stories of great faith, they're just showing us a way of living.
[00:20:11] By faith, they're showing us a way of living, a way of seeing, and we have to choose to do the same.
[00:20:22] You see, my 50 pound weight, my 100 pound weight, it came earlier this summer, and my boyfriend had called me one day, and it's just a call you never want to get.
[00:20:39] It's a call that's just hard to hear.
[00:20:44] He had told me that one of his best friends had passed away at 21.
[00:20:56] And you see, on that day, on the hardest days of our life, we had to choose to lean in.
[00:21:09] We chose to put our full confidence in Christ.
[00:21:13] Even when the light at the end of the tunnel, it still feels far away, it still feels at a distance.
[00:21:22] But we're choosing to trust God, that he will light up our very next step.
[00:21:30] He will light up our next step in the dark tunnel.
[00:21:37] Even when we don't know where this will take us, we're choosing to lean in to the goodness and the comfort and the light of God.
[00:21:46] Faith is the confidence in what we hope for and the assurance in what we do not see.
[00:21:58] God didn't promise life without struggle.
[00:22:01] This chapter, it shows us that the Bible, it shows us that what he did promise is that he would be there every step of the way, guiding you through it so earnestly. Seek after him sincerely. Go to him. Be in constant communication with him, our helper, our savior church. When I read this chapter, I just felt so inspired.
[00:22:31] I felt so inspired by these people, their faith. I wanted to have a faith like theirs, like Abraham's and Enoch's and Moses, all of them, I wanted to have a faith like theirs. People who were on the other side of God's promise, just welcoming it from a distance, they had full confidence in his promise, in his promise of Jesus.
[00:23:01] Jesus came and he died here on earth so that we can have life, so that we can be set free. And these warriors of faith, they were just looking forward to that.
[00:23:15] And in the same way that they were pushing forward, looking forward to that promise, we, we have to go back to that promise.
[00:23:27] Sometimes I'll go back to my journals to just see God's faithfulness in my life. And I have to go back to the promise that God kept when he sent his one and only son, so that whoever believed in him will have eternal life.
[00:23:43] These people of great faith, they had trials, they had hard lives.
[00:23:51] But by faith they believed in a promise that gave them eternal life, their life here on earth, that had this temporary pain for a forever peace with our heavenly Father church. Our God, he is faithful.
[00:24:11] Our God, he is a promise keeper. He is loving and kind and caring.
[00:24:20] So why not put your faith into a faithful God?
[00:24:25] Why not lift your eyes above to the one that sees you and cares for you and loves you?
[00:24:33] Because the story, it isn't over yet.
[00:24:38] Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.
[00:24:52] Because of this great evidence of faith, let us go. Let us strip off every weight that's slowing us down. Let us love harder, trust in God deeper. Let us spread the name of Jesus to anyone that's willing to hear.
[00:25:09] Because by faith I believe that we will be a generation that says yes to God.
[00:25:15] By faith I believe that we will be men and women that lean in instead of backing out. By faith, I believe that we will put Christ in the center of our relationships. By faith, I believe that we will not have a spirit of fear, but a spirit of courage, because our God, he is worth it.
[00:25:37] So why not put your faith into him?
[00:25:40] Let's pray.
[00:25:42] Dear God, thank you for this message. Lord, thank you for the men and women that just showed up today. Lord, I pray that something that was said just speaks to their heart.
[00:25:55] I just love you and I trust in you so much, God. And I just pray that something of what was said can just be taken home today. Lord, I pray that by faith we will trust in you in every moment, in every step of our life. I love you, God, and I trust in you. And I thank you. Amen.
