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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's Word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in.

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And the NIV reads. Now, faith is confidence. Now, last Sunday, I explained that faith is not always 100% intellectual certainty. Faith is often a calculated risk. If you think about it, we engage in almost all our daily life without 100% certainty. We drive through intersections anyway, trusting that all the other cars are going to stop. We marry anyway, not knowing what the person's going to be like. Five years when you walk down the aisle. Some of y'all don't sound happy with your first five years. We bank anyway not knowing whether or not the bank's gonna shut down. And lots of banks are shut. The point is we don't really have 100% certainty about many things, but we still operate and we still function. God is the only one in the universe who is 100% sure about everything. But the rest of us have to live based on calculated risk. So we're going to take a look at this in a couple scriptures, and I'm going to talk a little bit about some things in my life and then we're going to wrap it up. But all we're going to do today is really just cover one verse, but we're going to do it through looking at some other scriptures. Second Kings, chapter seven and verse three. Now, there were four leprous men. We all know that lepers at this period in history were outcasts. They were the lowest of the low, and they were forced to live outside the city. But these lepers happened to be at the entrance of the gate. And if you read the earlier part of the chapter, you see that the Syrians had surrounded Samaria and they seized the city. They blocked supplies from coming in. And such a severe famine hit Israel that earlier in this chapter, we actually read about people eating their own children. So this is how bad it was and how bad it got. And, you know, when we think about our troubles, we think we really got them until we look at someone else's. You know, my mother used to say to me when I was a teenager, you know, the boy complained he had no shoes until he saw the boy that had no feet. And the four lepers had lots of problems. They were sick, they were outcasts. There wasn't a lot of hope for long life, but they still possessed presence of mind. And we can focus on all the things we don't have and miss celebrating. Some of the things we have left. Yeah. And these four lepers said to one another, and by the way, they still had each other. Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say we will enter the city, that's Samaria, Israel. The famine's in the city and we're going to die there. And if we sit here, we're going to die here also. So these four lepers were in a catch 22, a no wind situation. But how many of you have lived long enough to know that when you're down to nothing, God is up to something? Yes, yes. So God is actually orchestrating events that these men are not even aware of. And actually, it didn't. Oh, it did say they were men. Okay, good. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. Well, they wanted to go someplace where there was food. And First Corinthians 10:13 says, Every temptation that we can experience comes with a way of escape. So I've learned that whenever I'm at the end of myself to start looking for a trap door somewhere, sometimes it could be a telephone call. It could be asking someone to pray. It could be a lot of things. But God has planned our lives in such a way that there is no situation or no temptation that we have to give in and we have to yield. There is always some way out. The lepers said, if they keep us alive, we shall live. If they kill us, we shall only die. And the point I wanted to make is that these lepers were not 100% certain about what would happen either way. All they could do is take a step and trust God. Now, MLK said, He said, faith is taking the first step, even though you don't see the entire staircase. And they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. And when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise, no one was there. Now notice, they were what? Surprised? Meaning they didn't have everything figured out. When you step out in faith, you're not always going to have everything figured out. Secondly, everything's not always going to go exactly how you. But you know what? God never asked us to figure it out. He only asked us to trust him. He just wants us to trust him. But watch verse six, because up to this point, we see the Samaritans besieging the city. We see this woman, you know, arguing with this other lady because she said, listen, let's eat my baby first, and then afterwards we'll eat your baby. Then it came time to eat the other woman's baby. She was like, nope, she hid her baby. And it was a whole thing. And then we see these four lepers, and it seems like God is nowhere. But behind the scenes, behind the circumstances, God was still at work. And you may not see God. God may not be obvious in your circumstances, but that does not mean God is not still at work. Am I making sense? All right. For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses. You see, when the lepers leaned in the direction of God's leading, God's armies became their armies. When God puts in your heart what to do next, your enemies are not fighting you. They are ultimately fighting God. And God didn't lie to the Syrian army. All he did was supernaturally let the army hear the armies of God that were behind the lepers. And you don't know what the enemy hears. As you take a step of faith in the direction that God wants you to go, you're looking in the mirror, but you need to look in the spirit. They said that the Syrians heard the noise of a great army. So that they said to one another, look, the king of Israel has hired against us the king of the Hittites and the king of the Egyptians to attack us. And the result was this incredible army that had besieged the city and starved out the people, ran in fear. And what I've learned, if the Lord tells you to jump, don't try to figure it out. Just ask, how high? How can four lepers defeat an army? But when God is for you, who can be against you? Let's look at it in another place. Matthew 14:24. And we're going to see someone else taking a calculated risk. But the boat was in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, taken on water, for the wind was contrary. But the disciples looked up, saw Jesus walking on the water, and they thought that they had saw, initially a ghost. And then some conversation goes on. And Peter says, lord, if it's you. Now, this is a very important question, particularly when you're talking about the subject faith. Faith is not just arbitrarily coming up with something and then trying to hold God to your particular plan. How many of you have tried to make God do something that God had never promised in the first place? Or maybe God promised something generally, but you got real specific. And God said, well, I'm going to do what I said, but not that I'm going to do this. So Peter says, a good question. Lord, if it's you, Peter Needed confirmation. Faith is saying, lord, if this is how you're moving, I'm willing to move too. So Jesus was walking on the water. That's what God was doing. So Peter's like, can you let me in on it? So faith is not necessarily telling God what to do. It's getting in on what God is doing. Does that make sense? Okay, so Peter said, lord, if it's you. So Peter was willing to take a risk because the rest of it says, tell me to come down on the water. But Peter was no dummy. He wanted Christ to first confirmed that it was him. And you need to understand that everything that goes bump in the night is not necessarily God. Always wait for confirmation. Jesus is Jesus. And the Bible says he was out in the wilderness. And as fierce as Jesus is, the devil started talking to him. Which means just like God has a voice, the devil has a voice. And the way Jesus defeated the voice of the adversary was with scripture. But if you watch a little bit further, then he's like, okay, you're gonna use scripture. So then what the devil did was try to twist the scriptures. So you need to understand the devil is a devil and he's a very good devil. And his job is to get us out of God's will. So Peter asked the million dollar Lord, is it you? So your attitude needs to be Lord, not is it convenient, not as easy, not as everyone going to like it. But your fundamental question is, lord, is it you? And Lord, if it's you, I want in. He said, lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water. Now we're going to talk a little bit about confirmation, but then we're going to take a quick journey elsewhere. Job 9, 8 says, he alone speaking of God, God alone spreads out the heavens and literally treads, but literally walks on the waves of the sea. So now these are good Jewish boys. They know their Bible. They know what Job has written. Many of them have memorized about. They didn't have tv, they didn't have anything else to do but learn about the Bible. So Job said, God alone spreads out to heaven, treads on or walks on the ways of the sea, which he saw Jesus was doing. And Jesus started saying before Abraham was, I am, and I am the bread of life. I am the way, the truth and the life. And Jesus started claiming himself to be God, started forgiving people of their sins, something that only God could do. So, okay, Jesus is doing stuff. God's written word is the first place we need to go to establish any Truth or discern God's will for our particular lives. So I'm sure in their minds, it's like, okay, God alone spreads out the heavens and treads on the water of the sea. And that was one confirmation. But then the second confirmation was when Jesus told him to come. And let me back up for one second. This is important. God will not always confirm your opinion, but he will always confirm His Word. Everybody got an opinion, but everybody does have God's word. So Jesus said, come. So the first confirmation is that God walks on water. Jesus walking on water. Second, Jesus, Peter said, if it's you, tell me to what come. 2nd Corinthians 13:1 says, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, Every word shall be established. So the second confirmation again was Jesus speaking. But how many of you know we are the body of Christ? So when God confirms things, first go to the word. But also listen to your brothers and sisters. Not everybody. Cause I'm. But folks that are walking with God, that have a track record with God, pay attention to what the body is saying. So it was confirmed in general by Job here. Then Jesus specifically tells him to come. The big point I want you to see, despite the three witnesses. And the third witness was, by the way, that it worked. But we'll get there in a second. Despite the fact that Peter had a confirmed word, confirmed in Job, confirmed by Jesus. In a moment we're going to see. Confirmed by the fact he was actually able to do it. Human nature is a trip, because we're about to find out that even though he had some level of confidence, he was not 100% certain. Because we're going to watch how it ends. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. So again, it's confirmed. Confirmed in Scripture, confirmed by Jesus for us, the body of Christ. Also that inner witness that God speaks to us individually as the body of Christ. And third, we see that it worked. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried out, lord, save me. Which lets us know that when he stepped out of the boat, he was confident. But in time, we found out he was not 100% sure or certain. This is important. If you wait until you are 100% certain, you will not do anything. You know, we can criticize Peter all we want, but Peter got out the boat. The other 11 sat on the sidelines and watched. It's like Peter, you shouldn't have sunk. Well, you should have got out the boat too. But Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, he who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. In other words, if you're looking for excuses, you will always find one immediately. And this is the comfort to me. Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You see, you need to understand, when Jesus, when Peter got out of the boat, he was walking toward Jesus. And when you make mistakes, moving in the direction of God, even if you fail, God can catch you and he will catch you. So when I fail, I want to at least be falling in the right direction, failing forward. Okay, let's go back to our original verse, Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is confidence. Scholars say that 99.5% of our Bible is unchanged from the first century from the original autographs. The remaining 0.5% of our Bible can only be determined with a fair amount of certainty. But the wonderful thing about that is all of those, that 0.5%, those places are inconsequential. No major doctrine rests on him. It might be, you know, is it a plural? Were there many people in the room? One person in the room? How was the town spelled? You know, small stuff. But here's the deal. What reasonable person would abandon confidence in 99.5% because of the point 5% a writer wrote to doubt God, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything. To doubt God, even though we're not certain how he did it all, I don't even understand eternity. How is the past and the present all at the same? How is God the end of what you know? I live in time. I understand time and space. I understand the past, the present and future. But God, he sees it all simultaneously. I have to think God just knows. I mean, God imagine, you know, even you get a little bit older. It's like, where did they live? God just know all the time. He's the ancient of days, but he's the youngest person in the universe. I've left my, my quote here. But without God, you'd have to believe that non life produces life. Does that happen? Randomness produces fine tuning. If you leave your house, does it get cleaner in your absence? If you leave your lawn, does it get cut by itself? Chaos. We have to believe produces information. So we could just throw up the Alphabet and it's going to come down with a book or as a book. I'd have to believe that unconsciousness produces consciousness. Non reason produce reason. What reasonable person has this much faith? Now, faith is not always 100% certainty. I don't know all the details I believe that the Lord is going to have folks respond at the end of this message today. But I'm not certain the number. And God doesn't require me to be certain of the number. All he requires me to do is do my job, preach his word and watch him do the rest. Now, faith is confidence. Now, I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but you know, we were building this facility. I wasn't 100% certain all the time about how millions of dollars would come in despite the construction delays, in spite the fact I'm not the guy that tells you, listen, give $100 and then God's going to drop a million dollars in your mailbox. I'm not that guy. Sometimes God does stuff like that. But I'm not going to tell you that. Despite our inability to physically meet in Covid, despite the fact membership was declining due to the delay, despite the fact that construction costs were escalating. Some nights I wake up in a sweat. But in that season, I learned that God really wasn't looking for certainty out of me. All he wanted was confidence. So what I would do when I'd wake up at night, I'd use my lightning fast mind and I was like, you know what, devil, you gonna wake me up every night. I'm gonna make you regret it. So I'd wake up and instead of whining and crying about it and worrying, I'd put my nose in the book and I'd get in God's word. Yeah, sometimes it took me 15 minutes, sometimes it'd take me a couple hours, but I'd get in the word and I'd read the 27th Psalm. I'd read the different places in the Bible until I had enough peace to go back to sleep. But what I wanted to say here is I did not always wake up to face the day because I was certain. I faced it because I was persuaded. Now, faith is confident. May I tell you a little bit more? You know, to be frank with you, honest with you, full disclosure, when I talk about construction and all the rest of that, I'm not even telling you a tenth of the story. During like a five, six year period. I couldn't explain all the crises that visited me. Crisis is with my loved ones. In that period. We're building my health decline leaders left our church long term. I mean, friendships that lasted a decade went left. We never had a late payment on our own old building. But the bank tried to repossess our church. A wealthy and to me, powerful businessman tried to destroy us. We were facing A frivolous lawsuit that dragged on year after year after year, had expensive legal fees. And here's the deal. None of this was really about me. This battle was raging over those souls you see at this altar every single week. And what I need you to know that that battle you're fighting may not be about you. It may be about that child you need to raise or that family member you need to reach. Everything's not always about you. He's fighting you for a. During that time, my tongue turned black from acid. I didn't want to tell you this, but a tooth kind of just fell out. On top of that, I slept with braces each night to keep my hands from turning into or locking into claws. I would wake up on Monday morning. No one would know because I do my job. I preach that word. And you don't come here to hear about my problems. I come here to try to serve and help you with yours. But after the three services on the weekend and then the meetings we had afterwards, we go home and kind of eventually fall into bed, then wake up Monday morning. How many of you ever been in a car accident? Yeah. Every Monday morning, I would wake up feeling like a truck hit me. Because all of the stress in my body, the tenseness of the muscles and pushing through, I could go on and on, but, you know, it just would become too much. It's a little silly at some point, but all I'm trying to tell you is Superman is a myth. I was not always 100% certain how things would turn out. But each day, each night, God gave me the confidence to get up and go at it again. Now, some of you want God to give you complete certainty, but God is not going to put you under hypnosis. We are living, breathing souls. We have minds. We have wills. We have emotions. And our emotions fluctuate our minds, doubts can arise. And what's wonderful about God, he could set the bar really high. Because if any being we should have complete certainty about, it should be Him. But he is so merciful, he said, listen, I'm not even going to require certainty. All I want is you to have confidence. Confidence. I know you're processing what I'm saying, but 27 years ago, when not just a friend, not just a nurse, but a doctor, recommended that we terminate the pregnancy. Where Pastor was burying dj, we heard the report. Then we went to another doctor, and there were several doctors. The doctor was worried that Jesus. I'm sorry, that DJ is not Jesus. Tell you that. All right, Because DJ was supposed to Be born with half his brain hanging outside his head. And, you know, we went. We got the reports and took different tests. And I told my wife, I said, honey, it's going to be all right. Because deep down inside, I believed that I did. But here's the deal. You hear the story, but what. But many times we leave out is the fact I wake up at night, and to keep myself from imagining the worst, I have to roll out of bed. We were in a townhouse at that time. Go into the closet and just worship God. And sometimes I say things. Though you slay me, yet will I trust you? You are my. My shield, my buckler and my strength. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. The world rise up against me in this I will be confident. God, I look to the hills from which cometh my help. God, help me in this hour. God, I look to you. Some of y'all been there, too. You've been there, too, haven't you? And God would give me peace, he'd give me confidence, and I'd encourage my wife. But as confident as the Lord tried to make me, as soon as that little boy popped out, they had a special table set up with the special doctors there to take care of the child in case things, you know, didn't turn out the way we wanted. As a man of faith, I was supposed to just, you know, God's got it, you know, and just like, you know, no, no. I rushed over to that table, pull back the curtain. I wasn't supposed to pull back that curtain. And I wanted to look at him to be certain. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying. I had confidence, not mental or intellectual certainty. And in life, you will not always have 100% intellectual certainty. Just kind of know that, you know, you can't quite explain it. You can't explain it. And all you can do is take the step God told you to take, even though sometime you look a little bit stupid, a little bit foolish. But God. God didn't say, derek, when you can explain it, you can do it. But see, that's the reason why many of us don't do the thing God wants us to do. Because we want 100% certainty. And God said, I'm just going to give you enough confidence to take the next step. And what I find with each step I take, the more confidence often I get. But it's usually not the first step where I'm just instantly certain. And many of us, we want a relationship with God where we can be absolutely certain about everything. Only God is 100% certain about everything at all times. Are you still with me or did I lose you now? Faith is what covenant? I'm going to quit in a second. You know, David said I was young, but now I'm old. And I've not seen the righteous forsaken. You know, I've had young man faith, and now I have old man faith. Man, I like old man faith. So young people, I sympathize, I understand, stand. I was there too. But when I look back over my life and all the things he brought me through, my soul looks back and wonders how I got older. Young people, just live long enough, you will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. Just hang in there. Hold on to his unchanging hand. Sometimes I just gotta look back and consider God's track record. Not only in scripture, but in my life. And then I learned to ask myself, self, did God bring you this far to only bring you this far? Did he fulfill his first promises not to fulfill fulfill his latter promises? If God could pull me out of the hole I was in when he found me, can he also put me on a mountain so high no one can harm me? He's the same God. He's a faithful God. And he will keep you if you trust him. If you trust Him. If you trust him. I'm preaching good, self. I'm preaching good. All right, I'm going to finish this scripture. We're going to be done. It's one verse. Now, faith is confidence. Self confidence in this world can take you a long way. You could fool a lot of people, but only God. Confidence will take you all the way. Now, faith is confidence. Watch this. And assurance about what we do not see. We just finished a series. You got to see it before you see it. And faith is seeing it before you see it. But sometimes the picture is fuzzy and you don't see it as clearly. But you know that the thing that God promised you is there. Some of us say, I won't see it until I get 100% certainty. But I remember a man that Jesus laid hands on. He saw men like trees. Jesus popped him again in the head. Oh, I could see clearly. Sometimes it starts out a little fuzzy, but you gotta work with what you got until you get what you want. I'm really gonna finish the verse now. Faith is confidence and assurance about what we do not see. See, our minds will doubt at times deep down inside. God will give us the assurance the world can't give and the world can't take away. You know, I talked a little bit about, you know, stories in the Bible and I talk a little bit about some of my experiences. Some of those times were a little difficult. But I want you to think about it. You know, in my situation I went through a few things and. But I had God in my life. Imagine the people who don't. This is why we are here. To reach people who don't listen. If God wasn't with me, I would have lost my mind. Take everything, but don't take God. God never leave me. Never. A writer said this. When you come out of the storm, you will not be the same person who went into the storm. And that is what the storm is all about. I don't know if you heard me. I'm not saying God sent the storm. I'm talking about what God does does in the storm. When you come out of the storm, you will not be the same person that went into the storm. And that is what the storm is all about. What God wants you to know is he's with you. And all he requires is confidence. And he will keep you as the apple of your eye. His eye. Listen man, I could tell you story after story of things I faced and went through in my life. I should look like a 90 year old man. But God has kept me. God is faithful. He's given me a confidence so young. Derrick going into that storm would be a little bit different than the knocking on 60 Derek. Because faith is confidence and we older folk need to tell the young folk, baby, it's going to be all right. God's going to work it out. I tried them. Same for you. God got you. That's why we need multi generational churches so the old folk can talk to the young folk. Who was I talking about? I'm talking about being old and all the symptoms hit me. I know I'm healthy. Not on one pill. Thank God he's good. He healed me. He's a faithful, faithful, faithful God.