Facing The Giants: What Does It Mean To Live By Faith? Series

Sherwood Baptist Church has one of the most dynamic media ministries of any church in America. They have produced Facing the Giants, arguably the best feature-length movie ever made by a local church. It’s a God-glorifying, excellently created sports film in the tradition of Hoosiers, Remember the Titans, and Friday Night Lights. Facing the Giants is being released by Sony/Goodwyn and will be in theaters on September 29th.

Accompanying the movie are numerous sermons by such leaders at Johnny Hunt of Woodstock Baptist Church, Michael Catt, Pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church, and Dr. Jay Strack of the Student Leadership Network. You may copy and paste the following links to access these sermons:

1. Evidence of Christian Growth (Johnny Hunt)

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94258&ContributorID=15171

2. Overcoming The Grasshopper Syndrome (Dr. Jay Strack)

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94257&ContributorID=15170

3. Faith to Face Your Impossibilities (Michael Catt)

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94256&ContributorID=15169

4. Hearing God When You’re Hurting (Michael Catt)

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94255&ContributorID=15169

5. It’s Always Too Soon to Quit (Michael Catt) URL:

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94254&ContributorID=15169

6. What Does It Mean to Live By Faith? (Ron Dunn)

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94253&ContributorID=15167

7. Will a Man Serve God for Nothing? (Ron Dunn)

URL: http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=94252&ContributorID=15167

Also, a study curriculum that accompanies the movie may be downloaded at:

http://www.facingthegiants.com/resources.php

What Does It Mean to Live By Faith?

Genesis 12:1-3

Ron Dunn

I read a story about a little boy who, on his first day in the first grade, desperately wanted to impress his parents. So on his first day in the first grade, he had one of the upperclassmen teach him part of the multiplication tables. After supper that night, the little boy stood up and said, “Two times two equals four.” And his mother and father were so amazed and surprised—here was their little darling on his first day in the first grade, and he was already multiplying. What they had always suspected was now made true—their little darling was a budding genius. While they were standing there, beaming with pride, thinking they have a genius on their hands, the little boy looked up at them and said, “What’s a two?”

Have you ever been in that situation? I have. I’ve found out that you can sound like you know a lot more than you really do. I think that’s true especially in the church, especially for those of us who have grown up in the church. We hear phrases and words and become familiar with them, and we naturally use them. However, we’re not always certain what those words and phrases mean.

One of those words, I think, is the word faith. I don’t know of any other thing in the Christian life that has such an air of mystery about it as does this concept of faith. I can remember from the earliest days of my ministry when I was in awe of people who were men or women of great faith. I remember reading biographies of men like Praying Hyde and George Mueller, those who were well-known for their faith. There was some special aura about those people who lived by faith.

I learned those words and phrases just like you did. I knew I was “saved by faith,” and I knew I was supposed to “live by faith.” People would tell me, “You just need to trust God”—so I would trust God. And people would say, “You’re just going to have to believe God for this”—and so I would believe God for that. But the truth of the matter is, many times I wanted to say, “What does it mean to believe God? What does it mean to trust God? I know the word and the phrase. I know that I’m supposed to do it, but when you get right down to it, what is involved?”

What does it mean to walk with God? What does it mean to live by faith? What does it mean to step out and trust God in a situation? I think many of us, like that little boy, would like to know what belief is. What do you do when you’re trusting God—do you dress differently, wear sackcloth and ashes, fast, pray?

When I was in school, I was never good at math, and I’m still not. I find math, algebra, fractions, geometry and all that to be a foreign language. I really had a hard time because it’s always been hard for me to follow abstract directions. I’m a concrete person, an image person, and I don’t do well looking at abstract directions. When it came to math, I had a hard time understanding. But if the teacher would turn to the blackboard and work out a problem step-by-step so I could see it, then I could begin to understand it. When she took the abstract and put it in a concrete form, then I began to understand it better.