Living and Dying by Faith

This is Celebration Church, but it's more than just a building or a church. Together we will be able to do that. To change the world. Jesus is famous. Glory goes to God. This is celebration. Good morning. Welcome to Celebration Church. Let's all stand together as our online family joined us as well. And let's recite together the Apostles' Creed. This is our statement of faith. This is who we are and what we believe at Celebration Church.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who for us and for our salvation was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Born of the Virgin, Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead, and on the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church. the fellowship of believers, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated. Good to have you with us this morning. I sure enjoy these uh video clips.

From these guys. They're all one family, the Harpers. Uh so far, the dad and three sons have done it. And one daughter, she did it too. Ooh, I missed her. I must have been gone. No, you were here. Shut up. Tonight I was here. I'm old. I'm talking about that today by the way. So anyway. So we had the dad, this the daughter and t two sons. Yeah. Great job. What about the mom? What's her deal? Is she here or is she out? When you say mom, you up for it?

If if you're you know, me and my kids were all blabber mouths, my wife She wasn't having none of it. Don't put her in front of anybody. So I totally understand if that's where you're at. All right. Um Where am I? Oh, uh our offering today, for those of you who are unfamiliar how we do our offerings, those envelopes in the seat bags in front of you. You can use those to put in a checks or cash and give them to the ushers on the way out of the service this morning.

Or if you're a regular attender of Celebration Church Week. encourage you to go online and sign up for recurring giving. Uh something just happens automatically, very helpful uh to the to the church, so we can plan accordingly knowing what's coming in. And uh or you can use your phone and use the Celebration Church app and give that way as well.

Amen. I got my iPad working again. I didn't have it working in the first service. I said if my wife was here, she could make it work. She's here, she made it work. Yes. Where was she in the first service? She was sleeping in. Yeah. No, she was on uh she's been in Arizona for the last week uh for grandma time. So she's like at seven o'clock in the morning, this morning it was five a.m. to her.

I woke her up, she just grunted. So All right, see in the second service. That's how we'll do that today. And uh glad she's here, all sparkly and all.

Uh, I want to talk to you about faith this morning. Uh I'm gonna read from Hebrews the 11th chapter. Those of you familiar with Uh this portion of the scriptures know this is known as the faith chapter. So where he starts talking and describing faith and examples of faith. And that's what we're going to do in the next few minutes here. Starting at verse 1 in Hebrews 11. Now, faith is the confidence. in what we hope for, the assurance about what we do not see.

Uh you know, people say, Well w what does that mean? It's just y you know that you know You just know. And so, well, I can't do it. People do it all the time. People have faith all the time in all kinds of things. Most of y'all buy stuff on Amazon, right? As soon as you click that button. You know it's gonna be here in a couple of days, right? Can you see it? No. Is there any guarantee it'll be here? No. You can wind up on the other side of China for all we know. But it usually shows up.

And you have great confidence when you click that button. That's what faith is. You're having confidence in something you can't see. There's no proof of it one way or the other, but you know because you have confidence. You want to grow in your faith, your trust in God, so that when it comes to calling out to God, you have confidence. And the best way to do that is start small. Trust God for small things. The more you trust God for small things, the more you can trust God for bigger things.

You know, the people I feel the sorriest for are people who have never had to have faith or tried to have faith or anything, and then at some point in life they are faced with some major deal. And they collapse like a deck of cards. It's not their fault, it's just they've never really had to have faith. Don't let yourself get in this situation. Trust God for small things. Have some faith. Exercise your faith. It's like working out something I do not do. But if I did

You start with smaller weights and build up to bigger ones. It's how you get strong. It needs to be the same with your faith. So faith is confidence, you know what you hope for. Assurance about you. Do not see

And he says, this is what the ancients were commended for. So he starts to start talking about so many of the guys in the Old Testament who had dramatic stories of faith. In verse 13, he says, all these people were still living by faith when they died. Uh they did not receive the things promised.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. I'm gonna come back to this'cause he's kinda gets ahead of himself here by making that statement. We'll see what he's talking about in just a minute. Anyway you go down further and he starts describing Some key events in the scriptures. He gets to verse 32 and he starts to summarize. And he says, What more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak,

Samson, Jephtha, David, and Samuel and the prophets. And then he starts to list and talk about these people who lived victoriously in life through faith. So he describes so these are people who through faith conquered kingdoms, they administered justice and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of the lions. That was Daniel. Remember, he gets thrown in the lion's den, and the lions don't eat him. They were supposed to and would have normally, but they did not.

They quenched the fury of the flames. This was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these three Hebrew men that were be pressured by King Nebuchadnezzar, and said to him, said uh was it Nebuchadnezzar? I can't remember. Anyway, uh and he wanted him to bow and worship idols and he said, No, we're not gonna do it. He said, Well I'm gonna throw you into this fiery furnace. He said, Okay, well, our God will deliver us, but even if he doesn't, which means they didn't know for sure.

Uh they just didn't fear. And uh and sure enough, they escaped the flames. Amazing, one of the amazing stories in the scriptures. They escaped the edge of the sword. Most dramatic event there is King David. For a lot of David's early life, he was running from Saul. King Saul. was in charge when David killed Goliath and Saul was kind of jealous of him and uh one time uh David is playing the harp and singing and the king throws a spear at him trying to pin him up against the wall.

Uh and then he did it again a few days later. I'm thinking, you know? One time would have been pretty much it for me. Try to pin me up against the wall. I'm moving on, finding new employment. He does it again. Eventually poor David's got to run for his life. And the king sends everybody out to find him. He's hiding in caves, all these places and A lot of the psalms that you read where he's crying out to God is a

It's because Saul was trying to kill him, and the pressure was on. It was miserable, a difficult time for him, but he uh escaped the edge of the sword. Those who were weak had their weakness turned to strength. Of course, we think of Samson. Now, oftentimes when they do movies of Samson, uh they always have you know some big muscle bound guy, you know, who who plays the role. But there's nothing in the scriptures that implies Samson was of great stature at all.

Uh and the scripture usually does if there's something unusual about something someone, uh the way they look, it points it out. They did it about King David. Anybody know what King David's physical thing was unusual? You'd notice that part. No, he he was a redhead. And uh he had red hair. That's what you know, so but they don't say anything about Samson. He was unlikely some big muscle bound guy. He could have looked Like me!

You know? No muscles at all. But he when the spirit of God would fall on him, he could do stuff that just blew everybody's mind. They knew it was the Spirit of God because it wasn't wasn't Anna Schwarzenegger. Playing the part of you know What am I talking about? Uh where'd he go? I got lost. Okay, here we go. Oh okay. Strength. Uh we just turned into strength. Who became powerful in battle?

Routed foreign armies, then women who receive back their dead raised to life. So these are dramatic stories. dramatically turned around. But we often forget the context. They were dramatically turned around because something awful was going on. The point here is don't get discouraged when something awful comes along. Get all depressed. Uh, awful. Yeah, look, I get it. We all deal with this stuff.

But you gotta shake yourself and get out of this place of just boo-hoo. Here's how you could read those verses I just said. Uh there was a guy who got thrown in the lines then. There's a bunch of guys got thrown into flames. The guy was running for his left life. Guy was in battle, armies all around him, and women had dead people. Our kids died. That's the same story.

But that's not the focus. The focus is what turned it around. But you have to remember, you get miracles when you need a miracle. Don't get mad when you need a miracle. Everybody says, I want a miracle, yeah. But then when we need miracles, we get upset. The great news is that God shut the mouth of the lion. The bad news, you got thrown into lion's den. The good news is you live through these flames. The bad news, they're throwing you into the flames.

I don't know what needs to go through their minds, but I'd be going It's great when you win the battle. The bad news is you're stuck in a battle. Women receive their dead back. That's awesome. The bad news is somebody's got to be dead. Don't lose heart. And above all, when you have hard times. Hit you. The first thing Get control of the fear.

Because the first thing your heart wants to do is seize in fear. Something bad's about to happen. You hear about something bad that happened to one of your kids. You hear somebody has cancer. The doctor tells you you have cancer. The first thing your heart seizes in fear. And I get that. That's a normal reaction. And I've always said, most of my life, I always gave myself 24 hours to freak out. A few years ago, I up to forty eight.

When my wife is dying, sometimes it goes really, really bad. But I don't stay there, I refuse to stay there. I gotta pull myself okay, pull it together. Get in a place of faith. Why? Because fear is the antidote to faith. Someone said to me, No, Pastor, you're wrong. Faith is the anti antidote to fear. No, not really. Not in this world that we live in. We live in a fallen world and there's one thing that easily comes to human beings, it's fear.

That's why so many times you read in the scriptures over and over and over again, fear not. Don't be afraid. Fear and the first thing that happens, they show, you know, angels. Every time an angel, everybody thinks, oh, it'd be great to see an angel. I don't think so, because everybody who ever saw it freaked out. They would appear. These guys would panic. First thing the angel says, Fear not. Easy for him to say.

You just popped out of nowhere. But fear is the enemy of faith. And I get it. Everybody has their initial freak out, but get a hold of yourself. Get the fear under control so faith can come alive. Because when you got faith, anything's possible to him who believes.

All right? Now, all these people live victoriously by faith. And that was the list. But he continues with the list. That was the first half of the list. Second half of the list is all the people who died and didn't get their answer. Those are the stories we don't like to think about. He said there were others who were tortured. Refusing to be released so that they may gain a better resurrection. Ah, I've said to the Lord many times, Lord, please don't let me go out being tortured.

You know, I travel all over the world. You never know what can happen, right? Somebody grab you. You're stuck in some weird situation, some cycles torturing you. Lord, don't let me go out torturing. I'm afraid I'll embarrass myself. Crying like a little girl. You know, not exactly the vision of faith in that situation. Everybody can hand different things. I don't think I'm in the torture category. May that be so, Lord, keep me from that stuff. Some face jeers and flogging out.

Even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning. These are people who had faith. I thought they had faith. Oh, they had faith, all right. Well how come they had stoned to death? Because They stoned him to death. Why didn't God intervene? I don't know. Someday we'll know. I think the first thing everybody's gonna say when they get to heaven is uh that's It all makes sense then. Next one. They were sawed in two. Oh dude. This is awful. What a way to go.

They were killed by the sword. That's me. OOOOO They went about in sheepskins and goatskins. Destitute. That would be horrible. I like to dress up. Miss Sparkly likes it. Stand up, let everybody see your sparkles. Come stand up. Stand up. Turn around. It's our thing. We just like to do that. We will get dressed up, dressed to kill.

She's dialed up. I got bow tie on, suits, sparkles, whatever, and we'll go just to dinner somewhere in Green Bay. People always say to us, you guys just come from a wedding? I know, we just like to dress up. One lady said to me, You know you live in Green Bay, right?

I know. We just like to dress up. It's our thing. We love to do it. One of the first things I get from pastors when we invite him to come speak at the church, he says, Now, do I need to dress up? I said, No, no. Well you're always dressed up. I said, Yeah, I'm the only one. You know, I tried, some of you guys remember, you know, first seven years or so when I was here, I wore jeans and everything like tried to look cool, like all the cool pastors. But but I look like a homeless person.

It's just this is awful. I got all these videos I can show you, it's just horrible. You know it's bad when you're holding your coffee cup and people are throwing in quarters as they're walking past you into the church. I'm not that bad. So I started dressing up now, now I can handle it. on TV. When I gotta look at myself. Anyway, these poor souls. We're in goat skins. They were destitute, persecuted, mistreated.

The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and in mountains, lived in caves and in holes in the ground. And they were all commended for their faith. Yet none of them received. What had been promised, which takes us back to verse 13. He kind of got a hold of him ahead of himself when he's writing. He said, All these people were still living by faith when they died.

Now this morning I want to talk a little bit uh to the senior citizens in our group. Those of you got a few years on you. Um you know, we live in a time uh in our nation where Wisdom and age are not valued, which is sad. We seem to genuflect, which means to bow your knee, at the altar of youth. And while there is great benefit in the energy and passion that youth brings, there's not a lot of wisdom there. And that's because wisdom comes with age and experience.

Sadly, so much of our culture today's and and thinking is driven by very young people. Who don't really know what they're talking about. You know, not to be mean. I mean I was young once, back in the eighteen hundreds, you know, it I rem remember when you're twenties? You know everything. And then you get to your forties and go, God, I don't know anything. And then you get to your sixties and think, ah, nobody cares. So

You think you got it all? No. A lot of the ideas of tossing around today is like Yeah. They're just crazy ideas. And they don't listen to age and wisdom. And you know I I feared a tread here, but I'm not sure. You know, one of the things I don't like in the whole political thing where everybody's going at each other's throat is the constant mocking of Joe Biden for being a a geezer and and not being sharp like he used to be.

Well, there's a lot of us that are no longer sharp like we used to be, though in my case, I'm not sure I ever was. I told Diana, if I ever start to lose it, I'm not sure my family would know. He's losing. How can you tell? He can't remember that. He never remembered anything anyway. He spaces out. He's always spaced out. Anyway. So I'm sure Mr. Biden knows exactly what he's took doing. He's not as sharp by any means. I get it. And personally, I don't like virtually anything he does.

Don't clap!Don't clap!All the Republicans-AH!Tell him!No, no, no, no! But we shouldn't disrespect him and treat him insultingly because he's older. Great wisdom comes with age. And really there's there's people here in this church, they've been around the block. They know what they're doing. They have a clue. You want you to engage with some of these older people.

Ask them questions. You're facing stuff in life. Ask them. They got the you don't have to listen to everything they say, but they give you some insights. You know, it's like if you're single, don't get dating advice from another single person. Because they're as dumb as you are. So you're still single, for heaven's sakes. You're dating? Ask married people. What should they do? Come on. Amen. Two people. Asking someone as clueless as you for advice is not helpful.

I was talking to Jimmy Bratcher when he was here a few weeks ago. He's talking about this it seems like an accelerated path where now so many pastors are are uh retiring early. And look I get the whole retirement thing, particularly if you've been doing some mind numbing job for Fifty years or whatever it is.

You finally want to check out I get that. But the ministry shouldn't be in that category. These guys are some retiring in their late fifties. As soon as they hit sixty, sixty one, sixty two, they're they're checking out. Uh, and I think it's to the detriment of the kingdom of God. Now, I get that some of these people are uh

They say they're burnout. There's the p pastor burnout. You know th you've heard this right? Preacher burnout. And I I don't know what that's about. Honestly, I I I think I understand. I'll tell you what I think it is. But For heaven's sakes. I mean I just had lunch with another pastor in town. The guy's in his mid-40s. He's asked me questions. Talking to an older guy is a smart thing for him to do, but he said, Man, I can't I can't wait till I retire.

He's in his mid forties. Already looking forward to retirement? Dude, you ain't doing this right. But it's not like pastoring is physically taxing. It's not like we're carrying bundles of shingles on top of roofs and getting up at the crack of dawn to milk cows or, you know, our knees giving out because We don't do anything. Physical anyway.

Say, well, it's mental stress. Mental stress about what? You're studying the scriptures all the time. That gives you life and energy. You want some life and energy? Read the Bible. That'll perk you right up. Woo! They're burning. What are they burning out from? The only thing I can figure is because a lot of them are in church situations where the churches are sucking the life out of them. The problem of Pastor Burnout is not the pastors, it's the churches in which they serve.

And a lot of these people, the places it's all about politics, church politics, not national politics. You know, y you tick somebody off, you know, Graham, I guess, mad because you said something, she talks to tell twelve other people, they get together and they vote you out next year. Now it's not the thing how terrifying that is. Most people in here have job security. You can't just have five other guys at work that don't like you and get you fired. It doesn't work that way.

Some of you are in unions and they can't touch you. And there's reasons for that. Pastors, you take off a bunch of people and all of a sudden they're throwing you out. You spent all your life preparing for this. Studying, getting in a place of ministry, giving your life to this. You got children to feed. You got a wife to support.

And all of a sudden you're out of a job because so they live under fear and stress constantly. This is what's burning them out. They can't wait to get enough money to get out. And and even then, I mean, how much money can they have? It's not exactly the highest paying feel in the world. They get it just I think I can still survive at this point they bail, you know. Goodness gracious, these churches need I'm not they're not gonna listen to me, but that needs to stop. All this you know.

And if a pastor's doing his job, he's gonna tick some people off. Now we shouldn't be mean about it though I may have crossed that line on occasion. But I don't gotta worry, they're gonna vote me out next week. Good thing I'd be unemployed. But when we rob ourselves of the wisdom and the energy and the insight of guys who've been serving God and studying the scriptures all their life, they hit what is relatively still a young age, I think.

You hit sixty years old and you're retiring? What the heck? That shouldn't be happening. And then of course we have people And they don't really get involved much anymore and stuff like that. So well I'll make room for the younger people. They they got they got plenty of room. They're gonna make room for themselves.

Stay involved. Say, well, I'll get involved. So what if I'm not around to see it finish? Good. Then you died in faith. Remember what it says? These people died in faith, not having received what was promised. I hope I go out, still stuff to do. Right. Die in faith. Keep going until you can't go. Leave stuff undone. Let somebody else step in. But keep engaged. Keep going. Stay energized.

As long as you're sucking in air, you're alive, you can use your wisdom and insight to bless the kingdom of God. And you can keep investing in the kingdom of God. You get a great idea at some point. Go with your idea. And this is true even for people in business. Uh you remember Colonel Sanders? How old was he? Was he 66 or 68 before he finally came up with his chicken recipe and somebody said I'll do it. Most people are thinking I'm just gonna sit and eat chicken.

This guy, late 60s, decides to make chicken for the whole world. And it was very successful. And he went out still working. Right? This is the way to do life. Don't just Stop living. And I get it. Again, I'm not slamming people some of those of you who have plans to retire early because of the kind of job you have. By all means. But do something. Just don't do nothing. You know how many people just die?

They don't have any any reason to live, man. Keep staying energized. And I want to go as long as I can. The only thing that will stop me is health. If I don't have the health. Or if I f in fact I I start losing it. Again, not sure how you know. But if I do, at some point they'll sit down and say, Mar? Mark. Wake up, Mark. Time to wrap it up. Move on. Uh and even then I wanted to keep doing something for heaven's sake.

Anyway, don't get discouraged. Well, if I start something I may not be able to finish it. That's all right. Say I'm too old. If I start something, I might die before it can even finish. Well what happened then? Then you die in faith. All these people, verse 13 says, were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things from.

They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting they were foreigners and strangers on earth. And you want something that really help you? Just remember in this world, we're just passing through this place. This is not home for us. This is temporary. All this is temporary. Don't put your hope and all your energy in today. Every little thing, you know, s around your little

limited time here on earth. We gotta deal with today. I get that. But let your focus be on eternity. Do things that make a difference. Get purpose in your life for the kingdom of God. Be plugged into eternity. Because that's what's going to be around. That's why these guys could do whatever they did. Some of them were successful, some of them died while they're doing it, but they all did it in faith.

Let that be our story. And everybody said, Amen. All right, we're going to go to our time of communion this morning. This is when we focus on what Jesus Christ did for us and why we are here. We are here to worship God and we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who died on that cross 2,000 years ago for the sins of the world. His body was broken so we could be made whole. His blood was shed so we could have forgiveness.

of our sins. But the Bible says before we do this we should pause and reflect, examine ourselves. So I'm gonna ask you all to bow your heads and uh reflect. How you doing? Where you at in your life. You got things you need to straighten out with God, do it right now. Let me pray a prayer of forgiveness over all of us. Heavenly Father, while everyone is uh Gather together here, and before we partake of the bread and the cup this morning, we pause to examine ourselves.

If we have sinned against you in any way, thought, word, or deed, something we did that we should not have done, something that we didn't do that we should have done, if we haven't loved you with our whole heart, if we haven't loved others as we love ourselves, For the sake of your beloved son Jesus, who gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins. We pray, have mercy on us. all of our sins.

While people's heads are bowed and people are reflecting maybe here this morning and you say you know i i've never really experienced any of this uh you can Just right now, if you're sitting in this church or you're watching. Just in your own words, ask Jesus to come into your life and to forgive. And he will do it. And you can take your first this morning.