Faith Till the End (part 1)

Four Reasons Problems Come

6.5.2022

Introduction

Until Jesus returns, faith should be our response to the pressures of living in chaotic times.

I have been living with an active faith all of my adult life.

Faith must be a way of life if it is going to work!

1 John 5:4
For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.

I was raised in church and never heard one message about how faith can change your everyday life.

I was a pessimist. I was afraid. I was insecure. I felt rejected by everyone. I thought my life would never matter very much. I thought I would die young.

I heard a message about the life-changing power of faith in the Word of God, and my world turned rightside up!

I’ve been living by faith for almost 46 years now. I want to share some things that have helped me.

In this series, I want to share some principles with you that, if you will listen to and put into practice, will totally change how you live your life!

God has a plan to free you from your past, empower your present, and launch you into the future He has for your life!

Faith is the best way to navigate through the problems we face in a fallen world.

The fall of man allowed Satan access to the earth. The fall and Satan’s rule here is the foundation of understanding why faith is the best way to live.

Because of Satan’s legal right to be here and to steal, kill, and destroy, believers must learn how to live by faith, and live out from under his control.

Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV)

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Today, for this period of “Adam’s lease,” God has to have permission to invade earth with His ability and power. Our prayers and our faith give God permission to invade our lives and circumstances with His grace, His mercy, and His provision!

Romans 8:2 (NKJV)

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Many people believe that all problems come through God’s hands and become His will for us in order to make us better people.

We are flawed, the environment of earth is flawed, and demonic forces are here.

Personal sin, organic illness, demonic influence…

But the Bible is clear that we live in a Satan-ruled environment! We are to see ourselves as soldiers in an army directed by God that will resist Satan’s rule and will help free others!

Regardless of the challenge, God has made a way for us to come out on top!

John 16:33 (NKJV)

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Romans 8:31-37 (NKJV)

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

2 Corinthians 4:7-9 (NLT)

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

Psalms 34:19 (NLT)

The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.

James 1:17 (NIV)

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

On the one hand, challenges that we face can help mold us if we choose to do the right thing in them.

If you see them properly, your problems help develop your character as you resist them with faith!

On the other hand, we must learn to exercise faith and expect God to help us out of the challenges of life!.

Today – 4 Main Reasons Problems Come in Life and Why We Must Exercise Faith

Knowing the origin of problems helps us find the proper solution…

Regardless of the reason the problem came, God wants us to exercise faith in Him and expect Him to help and deliver!

1. The sin nature and personal mistakes

People can be inherently mean, unfair, and cruel.

The human heart is inherently selfish and cruel.

Without salvation, people can be hostile to God and His will: selfish, self-serving.

2 Samuel 24:14 (NKJV)

And David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

Jeremiah 17:9 (NKJV)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

Matthew 15:18 (NKJV)

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.

People do cruel things. God can only intervene when faith is exercised through personal prayer or by the intercession of another.

Example: Lindsay’s car.

Example: building appraiser.

2013 – I broke my arm – made a personal mistake. But, I trusted God, and He turned it out for my good!

Sometimes God’s hands are tied because there is no one to help pray it through.

Ezekiel 22:29-31 (NKJV)

“The people of the land have used oppressions, committed robbery, and mistreated the poor and needy; and they wrongfully oppress the stranger. 30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. 31 Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord God.

2. The curse on the earth because of man’s fall

Genesis 3:17-19 (NKJV)

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

Because of the curse, we have microbes that hinder health, and a whole host of challenges because the earth is now tainted with the curse of sin.

With industrialization, we have changed the original form of so many substances, we have polluted the environment, and we ourselves have caused a host of new physical, mental, and emotional challenges.

The stress on modern life is unlike any other generation. Life has become complex and chaotic, and we suffer from the effects of too much stress.

Genetics transferred from previous generations to the next can follow a family for generations.

The good news is that we can resist this:

Galatians 3:13-14 (NKJV)

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

We must resist and refuse the things that come to our lives as a result of living in a fallen world.

Most people offer NO resistance. They just float along and subsist, barely getting by. God wants you blessed! But you can’t just coast along with little or no spiritual effort and think that all will go well. We live in a fallen world!

Romans 5:17 (NKJV)

For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

3. Demonic intrusion into your life

Familiar spirits, familiar with individuals and families, often follow families for generations, until someone rises up and refuses their domination.

Exodus 34:6-7 (HCSB)

And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

In my own family, my maternal grandfather had mental illness, and that has attacked some of my extended family. It tried to attack me when I was young but I absolutely refused it!

Sexual sin, addictions, anger, hatred, violence, and many others things can be exacerbated or made worse by demonic forces that must be opposed in the name of Jesus Christ!

Matthew 12:43-45 (NKJV)

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.

We must learn to hear the Holy Spirit and follow his lead.

4. Failure to listen to the Holy Spirit

Romans 8:14 (NLT)

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

John 16:13 (NLT)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.

Me – Don’t go that way – January – 1984

2004 – don’t get on the next flight…

Early 20’s Exercise – have done it all my life.

Many people do not listen to the Holy Spirit and get into trouble physically.

Worry? Diet? Sedentary lifestyle – all get people into trouble.

These are our responsibility – not God’s! And if we will listen, the Holy Spirit will guide us and help us.

Pray in the spirit every day. The Holy Spirit will place desires deep within you to do this or that, and will challenge you in areas that will bring harm.

All areas:

Psalm 139: 23-24 (NLT)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Psalm 90:8 (AMPC)

Our iniquities, our secret heart and its sins [which we would so like to conceal even from ourselves], You have set in the [revealing] light of Your countenance.

1. The sin nature and personal mistakes

2. The curse on the earth because of man’s fall

3. Demonic intrusion into your life

4. Failure to listen to the Holy Spirit

Action Points:

1. Do you blame God for allowing problems to come into your life?
2. Do you see God as a good God who only wants to bless and help you?
3. Are there areas of demonic intrusion into your life that you need to resist and ask God for deliverance from, such as anger, jealousy, addictions, lusts, etc?
4. Are you listening for the Holy Spirit to direct you as you make decisions each day?