Living Between The Promise And The Proof || Victory Church [Book of John #17]

The Bible tells us to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever. Come on, if you believe in the mercy of God, you ought to do a little bit better than that. I know some of us were worshiping God during the worship time, but some people thought they just walked themselves in here today. Can we say, thank you, Jesus, for your mercy? One more time. Give God praise if you're excited to be in church today. Hallelujah, hallelujah. What's up, family? How y'all doing today? Well, listen, speaking of family, we have the entire Victory family joining with us today. So North Cross, can we take some time and welcome North Cobb, Hamilton Mill, the Midtown Campus, and everybody joining us online. We're excited for what God is doing. Listen, if I have not had the privilege of meeting you, I'm Mo, and my wife, Kendra, and I have the distinct pleasure of serving and leading some of the most amazing people in the state of Georgia and the world, the Midtown Campus. And so we're excited to be here today to be able to bring the word and continue to see what God is doing. I want to do something as we kind of have been navigating through a series over the last several months. If you are new with us, we've been in the book of John for a few months, and we're going to be in the book of John for the rest of the year. And what we've been doing is we've been really paying attention to see what is God trying to show us about who Jesus is. Because if you've been paying attention to the scriptures and paying attention to the messages, what we know is that John is not just trying to teach us nice little Bible stories. What he's actually trying to do, and I believe he's being successful in it, is that he is building something in us. How many of us feel like we've been being built up over the last several months? I know I have. And so what we're doing as we take another step is we see that he's been teaching us who Jesus is, what real faith really looks like. In fact, when you really look at commentaries and study about the book of John, many theologians would actually say that the book of John is the gospel of belief. The gospel of belief. Why? Because John tells us very explicitly why he's writing this book. He is not trying to hide it. He's being very overt. He's saying, I'm trying to convert you. I'm coming after you. I'm not allowing you to stay in darkness, but I want to bring you into the light. And so I want to read a quick scripture that sets the tone that he actually speaks of later in the book, but it really tells us about why he wrote this book. In John chapter 20, verse 31, it says this, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

How many people want to have life in his name? I know I do. Come on. He said, I'm writing this so that you might have life in his name, so that you walk in a way that you know you don't live as people that don't have hope. And so what we know here is that John is not just trying to inform us. He's not just trying to give us information. As a matter of fact, he's trying to give us a revelation. He's really trying to bring us to a verdict about Jesus. What do I mean by that? He's given us a verdict because he said, this world will judge you. This world will actually expose what you believe and what you don't. And so here's a question that I want to start off with that's not in your notes, but you might want to write it down because it's going to be pretty much the core of what we're building from. Here's the question. What are you going to do with Jesus? What are you going to do with Jesus? Not secondhand information, not what the world talks about, but what are you going to do with Jesus? And so as we think about this, we have to ask ourselves the question, will we believe him? Will we trust him? Will we follow him? Or will we just be people who have a form of godliness, but we deny the very power therein? Look at your neighbor real quick and ask them, what are you going to do with Jesus? Come on, don't act shy. Look at the person on the other side because they didn't really talk back to you. Come on, at every campus, look at the other person and say, what are you going to do with Jesus? Hear this. Over the last five weeks, we've been standing in this setting where we've been beside a well in Samaria watching this unfold, seeing a woman who had been discarded, seeing a woman who had been abused, seeing a woman who was broken, that was thirsty in every area of her life. And what we found over the last five weeks is that Jesus always shows up on time even when we least expect him. What we saw is that Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah. He quenched her thirst and then she was actually saved. She went and told everybody else about him. And when they heard about him, now we see that they made this great statement that we ended off with last week. They said, now we believe for we have heard for ourselves. What we really harped on last week is we said that now their faith became their own. I made this statement at Midtown, and I believe Pastor Johnson said a similar thing here. What we learned is that there's a big difference between being very good at church and knowing Jesus. You know, there's a whole lot of professional Christians out here that don't actually believe in the power of Jesus.

Now we're going to take another step, and John, he changes the scene. What he does is he shows us that Jesus leaves Samaria, he returns to Galilee, and now, for the first time, we're now seeing what we think is a brand new story, but it's not. What John is actually doing, he's really asking the same question that he asked before, but he's just saying it a different way. What he's asking this time, hear this, is what does real belief look like? What does real belief that you know, that you know, that you know that Jesus is real look like? Because I would venture to say that it's one thing to say you believe, but it's another thing to have your faith tested. Can I make it real real? It's one thing to say that he's Jehovah Jireh when gas is $2, but it's a whole other thing to say that he's Jehovah Jireh when it's $4 and some change. Some of y'all have been staying home over the last several weeks, say, God, come now. But I want to say this before we go another step further, I want to define what I'm talking about today. I want to define biblical belief, biblical belief, because what we need to be very clear about is that biblical belief is more than just agreement. The reason I'm saying that and I'm making it clear is because even demons believe in Jesus. Even people that actually don't believe and have faith in Jesus believe that he lived and he walked the earth. And so when we look at what biblical belief is, I want to look at the Greek word for belief that's used right here in John. It's the word pisteo, pisteo. It means reliance, trust. It means that I'm fully giving myself to the belief that I know who Jesus is. Somebody yell out, say trust. Come on to every campus, say it with your chest, say trust. When we say the word trust, what we are reminded of is a very popular scripture that sometimes

we just say as Christian rhetoric. In Hebrews chapter 11, it says, now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Now I want to say it again because if you've been in church for any period of time, you've grown up in Sunday school, you know people can wake up out of their sleep. Faith is a substantive thing to hope for and evidence of things not seen. Ask them what that really means when life is actually breaking out around them. They don't even know what to tell you. And so that's why when it says here, faith is confidence, say confidence. It's confidence in what we hope for and it's an assurance that you have evidence of God's outcome before it even comes. And so as we look through this, hear this, you may want to write this down. Faith is trusting in the character of God when you cannot yet see the hand of God. Faith is trusting in the character of God when you cannot yet see the hand of God. Here's our working definition of faith today. I want them to put it on the screen. Here it is. Faith is confidence in God's character before you have evidence of God's outcome. I want that to sit there for a minute because I'm not trying to hype you today. I want to lay a foundation to equip us today. Many times people are trying to get us excited and then the excitement wanes once we leave the church building. But if we can get this deep down in our spirit, we'll build as a strong spiritual foundation. Amen. So here's a question that we are going to see today that the scripture, the text that we're walking through is going to actually illuminate for us. Here it is. Is faith, really faith, if it's only that I trust God after he gives me what I want? Is the faith that I say that I have really faith if I only say I trust you after you give me my desire from you?

Because if we're honest, most of us have no problem trusting God when we get our prayers answered. But the question is, what happens when he doesn't? What happens when he tells you, wait? What happens when he tells you, I'm going to take you the long way to answer this and you might not like it, but I need you to trust me. What happens then? What happens when God says no to what you prayed for? So as we look at this, all these questions that we're answering leads to what I call a diagnostic thesis. Every week at Midtown over this series, I've been giving us a diagnostic thesis. which is simply the core statement of the issue that we're dealing with in the text. And so today, our diagnostic thesis is simply this. I introduced it last week to Midtown, but it's this. Here it is. A faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted. Hold that right there. A faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted. Because real faith is not proven just because a miracle happens. See, there's a whole lot of people who love to see the hand of God, but don't want to go after the heart of God. There's a whole lot of people who have, what I would say, even artificial conversions because they've been converted because God did something in their lives.

But what does it look like to really trust him just for who he is? And so when we're talking about real faith, what we're saying is that real faith, hear me very carefully, real faith is proven between the space of a promise and the proof. Real faith is when you can actually hold on to what God is saying. And I would venture to say this, every single believer, myself included, we have to learn how to live between the promise and the proof. Every campus, do me a favor, lift your hand if you have ever heard a promise from God. We all have in some way, form, or fashion. And I think it's very fitting that we are here all together as one church, as one body, because this is not a word for individuals. This is a word to build a foundation of who we say we are, that we're not just Victory Church by name, but we walk in victory, walking in everything that God has for us, amen? And so hear this, as we get ready to walk through it, I want us to read the scripture and the text that we're gonna really learn from today. Turn in your Bibles to John chapter four. John chapter four, verse 43 through 54. If you have your physical Bibles, go ahead and take those out.

Because if you were here last week, you know that we might just pull an okey-doke on you to make sure you know that you're actually reading the scripture. John chapter four, verses 43 through 54. Here it is, after the two days he left for Galilee, now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country. While I was reading this, the Lord just nudged me because my brain kind of thinks vividly. I was saying, I could hear some of them now saying, oh, that's just little Gigi. That's just little Jesus, the carpenter's son. What is he doing? We're not gonna listen to him. But it continues to say, when he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, for they also had been there. Once more, he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man had heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. Underline this part in your Bible if you have your physical Bible. Unless you people see signs and wonders, Jesus told him,

you will never believe. Jesus was kind of checking him right here. The royal official said, sir, come down before my child dies. Go, Jesus replied, your son will live. The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on his way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as of the time when his son got better, they said to him, yesterday at one in the afternoon, the fever left him. Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, your son will live. Underline this one. So he and his whole household believed this was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee. Now, I wanna say something. At first glance, this looks like a healing story, and it is. There's a father that's desperate, there's a son that's dying, and I wanna challenge us not just to hear this as some old historical document, but I wanna challenge us to put ourselves in the shoes of this man. As a father myself, if my son is not doing well, I'm not doing well. If my son is sick, I will move everything to try to get him well. And so we see that his son was sick, his son was dying, and Jesus speaks, and a miracle happens.

Somebody say glory. Glory. But what we have to look at is that this is not only a healing story, because if we're not careful, we'll miss what John is actually trying to teach us. What is he trying to teach us? He's trying to teach us that the miracle is not really the point here. Faith is. The miracle is not really what's being highlighted, but so many times we live only on a surface level. what the word is saying. What we need to look at here is that I would argue that the greatest miracle that's in this story isn't that the boy is healed. The greatest miracle is that the father trusted Jesus before he even had proof. He had faith in Jesus. Somebody say faith in Jesus. Notice what happens. Jesus gives him a promise. The man starts walking, and now the proof came later. But if we're not careful, what we'll do is we'll only harp on the fact of how the end happened. But what we need to see is that we see that the proof is going to come, but that didn't stop the man. So watch this. This is where many of us are living right now, just like this man was. Many of us are living in one place where God, through Jesus, has given us a promise. But way over here, this is where the proof is. What we need to be built up in is how do we live in the in-between? How do we live in the tension point? How do we live and not lose our faith when God is saying, hold on to my unchanging hand? We are today looking at how do I live between the promise and the proof. I want to give us a couple of things because John actually lays out three anchors that allow us to walk through that. The three anchors are this. Hold, walk, and trust. Repeat this after me. Say hold, walk, and trust. One more time. Say it with your chest. Say hold, walk, and trust. We're going to start with hold. Here it is. We need to start with hold because before faith can be tested, it has to have something to hold on to. Because before the father ever received the miracle, Jesus gave him a word. He gave him a promise because that's often how God works. He'll give you something to hold on to.

When all hell starts to break out in your life, you're like, okay, I know what you said, God. I know I'm tempted to fall out, but I know what you said. Here's what we need to know. Here's a major key. Write this down. What you hold on to when life gets hard will determine whether your faith survives the journey. I'm going to say it again. What you hold on to when life gets hard, when the cancer sprouts up, when the job lets you go, when the divorce is pending, when the sickness is eating at your body… What you hold on to when life gets hard determines if and how you'll survive the journey. In verse 36, what we see here is that John tells us that this royal official comes to Jesus because his son was at the point of death. This man is desperate, y'all. Let's be honest. Can we be real today? Can we be real? Let's be honest. Nothing exposes our faith faster than desperation. Nothing exposes our faith more than when we really need something. Have you ever been in a situation where you say, God, if you just get me out of this one thing? If you give me a breakthrough, God, I will serve you the rest of my life. The rest of our lives is three weeks after the breakthrough comes. After he has done that thing that we pleaded for, now we get comfortable again because we didn't need his hand anymore, or so we thought. When life is good, everybody says they trust God. But when life starts to hit you a little bit, now that's when you get tested on if you're going to fall apart or if you're going to press in. Hear me. At every single campus, we need to hear this. There's nothing wrong with bringing your needs to Jesus. Let me say that very clearly. He wants you. He says, Call on me, and I will answer. This Father did that, and we've all done it. We say, God, heal this. God, fix this. God, provide for this. The question isn't whether you'll ask. Here it is. The question is, what happens when God doesn't answer how you think he should? What happens when he leaves you in the waiting? What happens when you start to grow weary in well-doing but you know the word that says, in due season you will reap if you faint not? Somebody said, Let the due season come now. See, we all are looking for some level of relief. I'm not here to try to make us super saints and super spiritual that we act like the world is not happening in front of us. I love what Dr. Gary Burge, who taught us before we actually started this series… He's one of Pastor Johnson's seminary professors. He taught us that as we look at this commentary here, this man that we're actually focusing on did not actually come to Jesus for discipleship. He came… for relief. We have to be very careful when we come to God, only seeking how he can actually

relieve us of the pressure versus being a disciple that actually is being formed. Right here, what we see is that the relief was the issue. This is what was stressing him out. This is what was threatening his life right now. Before we judge him with revisionist history, let's think about our own lives. Have we all been there before? I know I have. Notice something else that we see here. This is a very major key. He's a royal official. You'll be like, Pastor Mo, what does that mean? Okay, that's cute. He's a royal official, which means he's a man that's used to giving other people orders. He's a man that's used to having things happen on his terms. He's a man that's used to when he says, jump, they say, how high? He's a man that he can actually move things and he never has anything out of his reach. But in this moment, his own will could not change his son's circumstance. But watch what John is actually showing us right here. Essentially, this man was telling God what to do. Notice in the script he says, come now, do it like this. My son is getting ready to die. We look at him and we'll judge him. But how many times have we yelled out and got mad at God because he didn't move how we thought he was going to move? We said, Jesus, here's what needs to happen. I need money and I need it now. I need companionship. It's a hot boy, hot girl summer out here. I need to do something. We say, Jesus, here's my timeline. I'm tired of being alone. I'm so tired of being alone. What we'll say is that, oh, we'll justify it and say, my biological clock is running, God. Send them now, Lord, and send them quickly. We'll say, here's how you need to fix this. Here's how you need to answer this. But here's what we do. We give God conditions. We say, here's my list of requirements. Here's the way I want it to be made up. See, let me say this. Some of us have missed the move of God because it didn't come in a package and you expect it. Let me make it real plain. You've got your list. You've got to be 6'2", brown eyes, good physique. You've got to be about five or so. I don't want to look up at a woman. We laugh about it, but how many times have we aborted what God sent because we didn't recognize when it came? But let me ask you this harder question. How many times have we wanted Jesus more for what he could do than for who he is? Because desperation has a way of turning devotion into negotiation. We negotiate with God. God, I'm only going to do this if… We won't say that out loud, but that's what we do in our prayer closet. I heard KB, the Christian artist, say this. He said,

too many Christians… Let me just go ahead and give a caveat. Not you, but your neighbor. He said, too many Christians treat God like a consultant instead of a father. Right. We treat God like a consultant. We say, God, here's my plan. Bless it. Here's my dream. Fund it. Here's my timeline. Do it and do it now. But God is not a consultant. He's a father. Hear me. A father has the right to tell you no. A father has a right to tell you, you might think you want it that way, but I need you to do it this way. As a good father, if our son Maximus, as he does oftentimes, wants to have ice cream at breakfast, at lunch, and dinner, if I gave that to him, I'll be irresponsible. But some of us, we might not want physical ice cream, but we want all the sweet treats of life. All we're asking God to do is just bless me with this, bless me with that, bless me with this. He's saying, stop it. Stop trying to just get off on sweets of life and dig into what my heart is trying to form in you. Here it is. Let me ask you this even harder question. What would your prayers look like if you were to remove everything you were asking God for? What would your prayer time look like? Would it still have devotion? Would it still have worship? Would it still have surrender? Or is your prayer time just filled with requests? I would venture to say that a whole lot of Christians have prayer lists and not prayer lives. A whole lot of Christians, if you were to take away and strip away all of the things you want God to check, you wouldn't even have a relationship with God. We settle for things to ask for and not a father we long for. Here to just level set something across all of our campuses is that we don't want to be a people who just want the sweet treats of life. We are not just seeking after God's hand. We are building a strong foundation. This is why I love the scripture in Psalm 73, 25. It says, Whom have I in heaven but you, God? I desire you more than anything on earth. What this is saying is that we need to have mature faith. That we're not just wanting what God can give us, but we're wanting God himself. Somebody yell out, say, God, I want you. Come on, say it with your chest at Hamilton Mills. Say, God, I just want you. This is why Jesus says in verse 48, he says, Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe. Unless I appease your appetite, you won't believe me. Unless I give you the breakthrough, you won't believe me. Unless I show you very plainly, if I flick the light two times, you won't believe me. But hear me clearly. Jesus is not against

miracles, but what he's doing right here is he's exposing shallow faith, because signs were never the destination. The signs that we see all through the book of John were only to point us to Jesus so that we can see his character and that we can believe in his name. Jesus is not looking for people who merely want to eat from miracles. He's looking for people who will believe in him. One more time. Say, God, I believe in you. Hear this, because the reality is this. Miracles can impress people, but only Jesus can transform them. Only a devotion to Jesus can actually work on your heart and change things and take you out of your comfort zone and stop letting you just be a Sunday morning only Christian. He's saying, are you actually holding me to a standard that you hold people to? Are you looking at me as if I'm a man? The Bible says, I am not a man that I should lie. I'm the son of man that I have to repent. But here's a real question that we need to interrogate ourselves with. I want to put it on the screen. I want to give you time to answer it. Here it is. If God didn't fill in the blank, would you still trust him? Take a moment. Take about 15 to 20 seconds. I want you to really think about that. If God didn't do that one thing, is your faith contingent on him moving where you can see it? This is a classroom of faith. Someone needs to write it down and actually say this, because we will think things, but when we say it, it becomes real. If God didn't heal, will we still trust him? If God didn't restore my marriage, would he still be one I trust? If he doesn't answer in a way that I hope for, would I still trust him? This is what we have to settle if we're going to be people that go more after his heart than his hand. Please hear me from the depths of my spirit. Faith is not believing that God can. We know he can. Faith is trusting God when he doesn't do what we expect him to do. I literally talk to people who have turned away from the faith because they started well because God was blessing them, blessing them, blessing them. But as soon as it got a little challenging, they're like, I don't know about this Jesus thing. I can do bad all by myself. Now I understand. Let me give you a little life hack. Sometimes God will bless you overtly when you first come into a relationship with him just to grab you, but how you sustain him is to stop eating just from the crumbs of things you can see and say, God, now my devotion to you is actually growing. Why? Because a faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted. Pastor Johnson and I were talking earlier this week, and one of the reasons why we even said

we wanted to stream this message across all the campuses is because we want to build a firm foundation in victory. Here's a principle that we talked about that I want to put on the screen that I think we all need to get. Here it is. Hold tightly to what God said, but hold loosely to your interpretation of what God said. How many times have you had your own desire, but you put God bless it on it? Let me give you a little example. See, some of us, be careful women, when a man comes up to you and says out of the blue, God told me you're my wife. Women, I'm not letting y'all off the hook. Fellas, be careful when a woman comes to you and just says out of the blue, God told me that you're my husband. Now, while that has happened in some small cases, what we have to know is that God will actually confirm through character before he actually reveals something that you're just… pulling out of the air. We have to be careful that we're not putting our own interpretation on things, saying, God, you said this. He said, I said that I would provide for you, but I didn't say that I would do it like that. That's what happens. Sometimes what shakes our faith is not actually that God didn't move, that he failed in the promise. It's that he didn't fulfill our interpretation of the promise. When we look back to the Scriptures here, what we see is that Jesus gave the father a promise, but he still doesn't have proof, and this is where faith begins. I don't want to stand up here just as some preacher that's just saying this, because if we're honest, this is where it gets hard. If we're honest, this is where the battle comes. If we're honest, this is where people fall off, because the question now becomes, what do you do when all you have to hold on to is a word from God? I'm going to tell you what you do. You have to walk. Say walk. Here it is. We have to walk by faith. I like how the ESV version translates John 4.50. It says this. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went on his way, meaning he didn't just sit there and contemplate. He didn't operate in the paralysis of analysis. Think about it. Jesus didn't go with him. He said, Here's the word. He said, I'm performing something. So, he has to exemplify some faith, and he has to start moving out of that place of being stagnant. Before the outcome, before the miracle, he walked. Write this statement down. Faith is what you do between what Jesus said and what you see. It's not just wishful thinking. Faith without words is dead. Some of us have been praying for things that God said just start moving. You wonder why he hasn't moved. It's not that he hasn't moved. You haven't caught up to

where he said he was going to be. Here it is. I want to introduce something that we have to employ to us as a principle for all of our campuses. It's called spiritual grit. What is spiritual grit, Pastor Mo? It's refusing to let your circumstances have the final word when God has already spoken. It's the God-given resolve to keep obeying, to keep trusting, and to keep moving forward when nothing around you is telling you to do so. In short, it's not just standing here. It's you choosing to keep on walking even when you don't understand it. Now I know what y'all are thinking, because I'm going to put on my prophetic gift right now. Some of y'all are thinking, Pastor Mo, you're a pastor. You're supposed to say that. But I want to say this. This is not theory. This is a testimony for me. I believe that sometimes we have to start sharing our testimony more because some people think you're just making something up or just reading a fly-by-night story. Many people see myself and my wife… We post about our family on social media. We post about our son Maximus because he was a miracle coming into the earth. That's our son right there. He just turned five, going on 30. But we see this, and we celebrate, and we take the nice family pictures, but some people don't know that before there was ever a Maximus, there was an Emmanuel, a son who did not make it into the earth. I want to tell you this because sometimes, if we're not careful, we will judge people from afar, thinking, Oh, they don't know what I've been through. As I go back several years… It was back around 2014. Kendra and I had been married for a couple years. In that moment, after being married, we talked about having kids. We were not trying, but we weren't not trying, if y'all know what I mean. We had the license. We were having a good time, walking in the covenant of marriage. Hallelujah. Marriage is great, y'all. Marriage is great. It has a lot of benefits, including that one. But here it is. We weren't necessarily fully trying at the time, but then we actually started trying. When we started trying, we actually operated in a little bit of a struggle with that. I was in a very high-stress environment. I was traveling all the time. I remember even going to the doctor and the doctor telling us, Hey, the reason why you're having a little challenge is because your sperm count is a little low. Some of y'all are like, Bruh. You're getting real intimate right now. Tell the truth. Shame the devil. I'm sharing this because sometimes people are ashamed to

really let the light into their testimony, and you think you're the only one going through something. But I remember when he told me that. I'm just going to tell you. I was looking at him. I was like, Do you see me? I'm no beast. What do you mean I'm low? But that's what happened. And so we went through a little struggle and then what happened, we kept on trying and we conceived. Praise God. And so many of us that have had kids, we know that when you conceive, the thing that people say is don't tell people right away until you get out of the danger zone. Don't tell them at least after the first trimester. I did not listen. I threw caution to the wind. I was excited. I told everybody, everybody that will listen and Kendra will look at me like, stop telling everybody. And I was like, I'm proud. And so here it is. We had the who's who of Christianity, uh, pray over her and pray over our son. We received prophetic words over our promised child. And so with all this happening, I remember we went to what was supposed to be a routine doctor's visit and I want to give you some free game for something that you never want to hear when you go to a routine doctor's visit. You never want to hear the nurse say, let me go get the doctor. You would rather them just go through the checkup and let you go on your way. So the doctor comes in and I remember bracing myself cause I'm still full of faith. I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, you know, want to show us that we haven't twins. Maybe we're trying to show us. Okay. And the doctor says to us, your child, your son, as a matter of fact, he's not making

it. And in that moment, I'm trying to hold it together. I'm still full of faith. I'm, I don't know whether to pray into it so God can change something. I don't know whether to accept this or I can get through it quicker, but I remember they sent us over to the hospital and my wonderful, beautiful, strong wife had to deliver a child with no life. And in that moment, I'm still walking in faith. I'm still believing God. I'm still being strong for us. And then we get home and she's in the living room. I go to the bathroom and I vividly remember it. I remember going to the bathroom and I remember kind of kneeling and sitting on the floor in my bathroom and my father called me and he asked me, how was I doing? Because nobody really had asked me that yet. And I vividly remember in that moment, my response, why, what's going on? I prayed for this. I served you, Lord. I've done all these things in your name. Why is this happening to us? What did I do wrong? Where did I miss it? What's happening? Should I still have faith in you? And I vividly remember in that moment that I had all the feelings. I had all the doubts. And I want to help somebody in this room and across all of our campuses and let you know that faith does not mean you don't feel it. Faith does not mean you're not going through the agony of trying to figure out and rationalize what's happening.

What faith means is that you don't let what you feel have the final word. And in that moment, I had a decision to make. In that moment, I said, I can either pull back from God or I can lean into God. As a matter of fact, I think that's where I got the lean in from because I said, I will not fall back, God. I will press into you, God. I will still serve you, God. I will still love you, God. I'm not loving you based on what you did for me. I'm loving you because of who you are. I'm not going to sit back here and curse you and die. I'm going to press in and I'm going to keep going because I know you are the one who is the deliverer. Because in that moment, I had to start thinking about it and when I realized that if my faith only worked when life made sense, it's not faith at all. And I want to say that to somebody today because you might not be going through the death of a child, but maybe you're going through the death of a dream. Maybe you're going through the death of a marriage. Maybe you're going through the death of something that you hope for. And I need you to know that God's faith is still real in your life. There will be temptations that come in your life that try to take you off course. But here's what I learned. I need y'all to lean in on this one. Come on. Across every campus. Come on. At Midtown, at Hamilton Mill, at North College. I need you to hear this because this is a truth that you can take to the bank. Here it is. What I learned in that moment is that true strength of your faith is revealed when your

expectations and God's plans collide. True strength of your faith is when everything looks like it's breaking down, but you still saying, God, I trust you. When you look at the devil and say, I will not curse God. When you look at the devil and say, you are a liar, everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie. So if you're talking to me right now, shut up. We got to get a little undignified with the devil and stop letting him talk us out of the plan of God. Too many of us have started to see our lives break down and we start to fall back and believe the devil. Every single thing he said is a lie. He's there to steal, kill, and destroy. Stop believing the devil and believe in Jesus. This is why I love the story in Daniel 3 with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. What they said is that I know I'm in this fire. I know that God is able to deliver me, but even if he doesn't, I'll bless him. That even if he doesn't, I'll still serve him. Even if he doesn't, I will burn up right here before I turn my back on God. Even if he doesn't move the mountain, I'm still going to keep walking. Even if he doesn't heal my body, if I die, I'm healed in heaven. Even if he doesn't provide for my life, if I have to go on the street, I'll go on the street. I'll be the best street preacher that you ever saw, because I know that he is Jehovah Jireh. Somebody needs to get on your feet right now and thank God, because he will never leave you. He will never leave you alone, but you can't just go off what you see. I walk by faith and not by sight. Greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. He is my provider. He is my deliverer. Some of y'all are getting a little too cute. You need to move around a little bit and say, "'Devil, get off me! Devil, get off me! Devil, get off me!" Somebody at North Cobb right now needs to say, "'Even if he doesn't send my Boaz, I'll still trust him.'" Somebody at Midtown right now needs to say, "'Even if he doesn't give me the contract and build my business, I'll still trust him.'" Somebody at Hamilton Mill right now needs to say, "'Even if he doesn't actually fix my spouse, if he doesn't give me a greater quality of life, I will still bless him.'" Somebody right here at North Cross needs to say, "'My parents are sick, but if he doesn't heal them, I still believe.'" Somebody yell out, "'I trust you, God!' Stand on your feet right now. If you need to trust from God right now, just lift your hands right now. Lift your hands right now.

At every campus right now, there's a grace in the house to understand that God has not left you." He's saying, "'Trust in who my character is, not what you see.'" Some of us are quitting too early, because we're basing our lives and the promise of God based on the in-between instead of understanding there's an in-between between the promise and the proof. I don't know what you're going through, but right now you need to put your prayer into the air right now. You need to say, "'I know I'm right in the middle. I know that I can't even see the end, but God, I trust you. God, I trust you. God, I trust you.'" Come on. Just put that in the atmosphere. "'God, I trust you at Hamilton Mill. God, I trust you at Midtown. God, I trust you at NoCo. God, I trust you right now.'" Cry out to the Lord with a voice of triumph. Father, I thank you right now that with our hands lifted, what we're saying right now is that we trust you, that we trust your heart even when we can't trace your hand, that there are things going on that I cannot fathom right now, but you know it all. Father, I thank you that your grace is sufficient for us all. There is nothing too big, and there is nothing too small, because we say in concert, say it. Say, "'God, I trust you.'" Put your hands together if you really believe that right now. Come on. Come on. Come on. I'm not trying to hype you. You're going to need this a little later in the week. Say, "'God, I trust you.'" God, I trust you. The reason why I'm speaking from my testimony is because even though that doctor looked at me in the beginning and said, "'Hey, your sperm count is a little low at this time.'" About eight years later, I remember going back to the doctor and him looking at me saying, "'Hey, now you've got millions, billions, trillions.'" My wife had to tell me, "'You cannot put this report on the refrigerator.'" But I'm so thankful. that I didn't give up in the middle. Y'all got to excuse me for a minute, because I just thank God. I thank God for who he is, that he's never left me, that he's never left me alone. We got to trust him.

This is why the old saints would always say, I'm going to run home and see what the end is going to be. Because they live long enough to say, it may be a little halt for a moment, but God has not stopped being faithful, amen? This is why number three is so important. Here it is. If we're going to live between the promise and the proof, we have to trust his character. Say trust his character. See, eventually this father arrives home and before he even gets there, his fellow comrades, they come around him and they yell and they say, your son is living. Again, don't just look at this as a Bible story. Think about you showing up on the scene and you're on your way home praying probably the whole way and someone meets you and say, the prayer that you've been praying has been answered. He asked him, when did it happen? He said, yesterday at about one in the afternoon. He had an epiphany. He realized that this was the exact moment, John says, that Jesus actually declared that he was living and that he was healed. Don't miss what John says next in John chapter four, verse 53, he says, so he and his whole household believed. Now wait a minute, because didn't he believe before? Didn't he believe that even got him to start walking? Yes, he believed, but what we're seeing that John is teaching us is that now his faith is deeper. God had taken him on a journey where now John shows us that this man first believed in what Jesus could do, but as he went on his way, he started to be convicted and convinced that he now believes in who Jesus is. I want to impart in us the gift of faith right now to start understanding that we have to stop just looking at things based on what we think is happening, but really look at him for who he is and his character.

That is our goal. That is what we're building here at Victory Church. We are not building dependents on preachers. We are building disciples of Jesus Christ, amen? Because our faith that we're building on is not simply about what you want, it's about our trust in who God is. Somebody say, God, I trust you. Here's what he discovered that we need to discover, that our circumstances might change, but God's character doesn't, that our feelings might change. They might come and go, but God's character doesn't. That's why I love in Malachi 3.6, it says, I, the Lord, do not change. I know the people in your group chat, they might switch up, but God says, I do not change because we know who he is. But here's one of the last things I want to say today before I get out of your way. One of the greatest things that I have learned in my life, you want to take this to the bank. I have learned that some of the greatest gifts that God has ever given me was a no. Some of y'all can testify. Ask yourself, where would I be if God answered everything I ever wanted? Some of us would have taken the wrong job. Huh? Some of us would have moved to the wrong place. Some of us would have married the wrong person. If that happened, we have marriage help for you. It's too late. You already said yes. But hear this. Sometimes the most loving thing God the Father can do is tell you no. And so I want to pause for the cause. And can we take about 10 seconds to praise God for every unanswered prayer? Somebody needs to say, thank you, God.

That if you would have gave me what I wanted, I would be up the creek without a paddle or a boat. That if you would have blessed me like I thought I wanted to be blessed, that that person would have abused me. They would have put me off of my course. And so we have to look at this because we have to trust that God is a good father. And fathers see what children cannot see. That's why I love this very old ingrained scripture into my life that I learned back in vacation Bible school. And some of y'all know it too. It's Proverbs 3 verses 5 through 6. And I want us to read this across all of our campuses right now out loud on three. Let's read it. One, two, three. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. come on give God praise right there hear this hear this notice what the verse doesn't say it doesn't say understand and then trust it says trust and follow trust then follow that's exactly what this father did that we need to do he walked by faith and he learned that he could trust the character of Jesus across all of our campuses here in this room I want you to bow your heads for a second so I want to pose a question that only you can answer here's the question what are you waiting on God to do right now what are you still praying for that you haven't told anybody about what promise are you still holding let's make it more real what disappointment are you still carrying because I am convinced that the greatest miracle that God wants to do today is probably not in around you and circumstantial it's not him giving you something or getting you out of a situation the greatest miracle is him getting in your heart that he's building a faith on the inside of you that's not dependent on outcomes a faith that says God I know you can God I believe you're able but even if you don't do it the way that I hoped I still trust you I still worship you I still believe because my face is not built on the outcome it's

built on the one who holds the outcome put your heads bowed victories family I want to make a promise to you that there's still gonna be other times you don't understand what's happening but my prayer for all of us is that we find ourselves living between the promise and the proof and that we will hold that we will walk and then we will trust settling that our faith is built on Christ on who you are not merely what you do in this moment with your heads bowed there are some people that I know have made their way into any one of our rooms across our campuses and maybe you're curious about God maybe you thought about serving God but life hasn't been going how you thought it was gonna be and you thought well does God really care does Jesus really care yes he cares so much that he sent his son Jesus to die for you and the greatest miracle that we could ever experience is your life changing from a path of darkness to coming into the light and so if you're in this room just me looking right now because I want to see who I'm praying for and you want to give your life to Jesus you want to start going after his heart not just his hand you want to be sure that when you die because we all are gonna die that you're going to heaven as your eternal home but before you even die you want the peace of God to be with you and you want him to be your strength as you live if I'm talking to any of you at any campus lift your hand very high without delay I see hands going up all over the room at Midtown at Hamilton Mill at North Cobb lift those hands high we want to be able to see you so we can pray for you in this moment victory family what we're gonna do is that as brothers and sisters in Christ we're gonna say a prayer but we're not gonna just say it as a repeat after me we're gonna say it with conviction and strength as we usher our brothers and sisters into the kingdom repeat this after me say Jesus I believe you are God and you died on the cross for me right now I admit that I'm a sinner that needs saving and I repent which means I turn away from my way of living from my ideology from my way of thinking and I turn towards you and I follow your path say God I accept the gift of grace and right now I call Jesus my Lord and my Savior and I am a child of God hallelujah you can lift your

heads I want to do one last thing if you are in this place and you can be honest enough to say Pastor Ma I heard the message but I am standing in the middle of a promise and proof and I need breakthrough just stand on your feet right now across all of our rooms come on I see you thank you for being honest thank you it's not a lack of faith to acknowledge that you need to press through lift your hands lift your hands lift your hands lift your hands all over the rooms every campus father I thank you right now that we are honest people saying we need you I pray right now God that we will not grow weary in well-doing I pray father there are lessons that you're teaching us we're in the in-between but right now we say our faith will not fail father in the name of Jesus allow us to have stick-to-it-ness allow us to have spiritual grit in this season that when people see our lives they will glorify not what we do but the father in whom we serve who we depend on your character father I declare right now there's a grace there's a grace come on receive it there's a grace there's a grace to finish there's a grace to keep on there's a grace not to quit but to do everything you called us to do so that we see the proof at the end we plead the blood of Jesus now we declare God that you are our firm foundation and we put our faith in you and we know that you have never failed us yet in Jesus name we pray amen amen and then put your hands together listen put those hands together and thank God right now we're gonna declare across every campus that God is our firm foundation let's worship him thanks for being a part of Victory Church on the Pando app we hope this content was a blessing to you but we want you to know that you're not done yet because we want to hear from you so send us a letter and tell us things like what God is doing in your life how we can pray for you or even content that you would like to see us create in the future we just want you to know that we see you you're important to us and we'd love to continue to create some things in the future that will bless you so send us a letter and we hope to hear from you soon