Audacious Faith 2

Audacious Faith • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

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Last week we started a series called Audacious Faith. The dictionary defines audacious as extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless; extremely original; without restriction to prior ideas; highly inventive; recklessly bold in defiance of convention or the like; lively; unrestrained; or uninhibited. Merriam-Webster’s definition of audacious includes intrepidly daring, adventurous, recklessly bold, and marked by originality and verve (the spirit and enthusiasm animating artistic composition or performance; vivacity, energy, or vitality)

We found that Audacious People Don’t Give Up!; Audacious Faith Believes the Impossible!; Audacious Faith Believes Now!; Audacious Faith Doesn’t Only Believe What Was Said But Believes In Who Said It!; Audacious Faith Believes God’s Word and Character are Incontestable!

Today we are going to look at the reason we must audacious faith. The second part of audacious faith is this: We must make His mandate our mission! Because our heart matters foremost to God !

Acts 13:22–23 NIV

22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’ 23 “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised.

David had a Heart After God!

Think about David. He always, from a young shepherd boy, had a heart after God. He knew what God could and would do and he lived his life wholeheartedly pursuing God’s mandate. The word mandate means: an official order or commission to do something. When our heart is for God’s will, we move with audacious faith. We will take on the Goliaths in our lives knowing God will come through!

Deuteronomy 8:2–3 ESV

2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

God Wants Us to Know What’s in Our Heart!

God knows what’s in our hearts but we don’t always know. The Israelites had seen what God was capable of when He sent the plagues on Egypt. With all of the supernatural miracles God performed, they still walked by sight and not by faith. They did not have audacious faith, in fact I think they had audacious doubt. Instead of following God’s mandate to go into the promised land, they followed their own flesh and never made it. Because of their lack of faith, it took forty years of wandering aimlessly in the wilderness to complete a trip that they could have made in 11 days if they had the audacious faith to trust God no matter what and look forward to His mandate to reach the promised land.

Proverbs 27:19 NLT

19 As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.

We Must Check Our Hearts Regularly!

It doesn’t matter what we say. Words are really not that important. Nowadays with AI you don’t even know if it’s the real person saying something. It’s a crazy day we live in. What we do, how we react, what is our attitude, all reveal what’s in our heart. People can see how we handle tough situations. They can tell if what we say lines up with what we do. But the person that knows our heart the best is God. He knows what’s in there even more than we know ourselves. We what our “reflection” to be good so that our audacious faith will be pleasing to Him doing His mandate toward us.

1 Samuel 16:1–13 NKJV

1 Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.” 2 And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” But the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; you shall anoint for Me the one I name to you.” 4 So Samuel did what the Lord said, and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5 And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice. 6 So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him!” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 8 So Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 And Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all the young men here?” Then he said, “There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.

God Looks At Our Heart!

Audacious faith is only audacious when combined with a heart that is committed to God’s mandate. God doesn’t look at talent, experience, ability, and everything else we think is important to have great audacious faith. He looks at the heart’s commitment. Let’s continue to work on our heart to do His mandate and see just how audacious our faith becomes.