How Does Having Daring Faith Prepare You For Miracles?

James Greer: [00:00:00] All right. Journey Church. Good morning. Talk about stretching your faith. Amen? Did you notice the ones that had the Journey on the Go box? One. Just saying. Just saying. Well, we got Daring Faith part two. And I'll tell you, your outline goes like this. It's number one. It's going to say stretch your faith. Number two, it's going to say faith is seen from God's point of view. But we're really going to say, number two, what faith is not. And number three is going to be what faith is. So if you kind of want to know what the outline is, that's what it's going to be. It's going to be stretch your faith, what faith is not, and what faith is. And then next week, we'll finally finish the outline. So it'll be the same thing. So this morning, I want you to know that daring faith is to stretch your faith. And when you're don't stretch your faith, you drain your faith. And we're talking about it in Hebrews 12:6. It says this. But without faith, it is what? Impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. As we learn to stretch our faith, we get rewarded by God. And we'll learn how to do that. So that one verse says, We want to please God, and we want to be rewarded by God.

James Greer: [00:01:26] Now we talked last week about a couple of ways. There's stretch your faith like Noah. God told Noah, Go build a boat. Noah went and built a boat. Amen? That stretched his faith. He told Abraham, You got to leave where you're at and go someplace that you've never been. That's stretching your faith. I'm also going to teach you about another type of stretching your faith that maybe you haven't learned before. But we did learn something very important, that faith has substance. And you have to understand that substance is God's Word. Now, Hebrews 11:1 says, now faith is the substance. Faith is what? The substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. See, that's the most important thing that people really most of their life, they come to church and they never learn. They learn about the substance, which is God's Word. You come to church and you hear God's Word. Amen? But the rewards, the miracles don't take place until the action or the obedience on your part. And so what you want to do is you want the action and obedience. See, Noah and Abraham took action, and God rewarded them. Now, I'm going to tell you four simple ways, I'm going to say it every Sunday for about four Sundays because it takes our church a little while to get it. I'm going to dare you to do four things.

James Greer: [00:03:04] Number one, invite somebody to come to church. Don't we have these cool invite cards inside your bulletin? Have you seen those? Josh did that. He designed that. That's cool. So you take those out and you invite somebody. Man, this week, it was so easy. My wife was in the hospital and they come in and they say, Man, those are pretty flowers. My wife said they came from the church. You want to come to church? That's pretty cool. So she gave them all that at one time. And then pray for somebody that's lost. I know y'all know somebody that's lost. Amen? It can be in your family, somebody you work for. And there's a green wordless book in there. And in that wordless book, you got a CR code, and that CR code, it shows me going through the wordless book. Now I want to dare you this week to do something different. Last week, I dared you to invite somebody. This week, I dare you to invite somebody. I dare you to take that wordless book and go through it with somebody. Now this is how you do it. You say, my pastor this week, he gave us this green book and he dared us to go through it. So can I go through it with you? Amen? There's another reason. Lost two very, very close friends this week. And then this morning, right before I was preaching, somebody else called, an active member of our church.

James Greer: [00:04:22] I'm not going to say who yet because they hadn't even left their house. 47 years old, just passed away. See, you don't know when your time is. And you don't know when your friend's time is. You don't know when your family's time is. And so wouldn't it be something if at least if you went through that and somebody accepted Christ? So pray for the lost. Use your wordless book. Third, third. Pray for a miracle. Pray God, put a miracle in my life. That's so cool. This week, I got to see several miracles. One of the miracles, for a long time I was so angry I missed the miracle. I didn't know you could be angry and miss the miracle. But you can. You can be angry and God's doing a miracle. And you're angry instead of seeing the miracle God did. But you can. So pray that God does a miracle. Amen? And then I saw the second miracle was just unbelievable. It's undeniable. So I knew what it was. Fourth. Fourth. Journey on the Go. If you're not in a small group, you need to be Journey on the Go. Jesus was kind of a Journey on the Go type guy. Twelve guys, they traveled around and they prayed and they discussed the Bible and they fellowshipped together and they found their purpose and their mission good enough to change the world.

James Greer: [00:05:39] That was pretty good. And in this box, there's a cup and there's a brochure that tells you kind of how to do Journey on the Go. And it'll say, basically, it tells you, you can get some friends together and you can do it at your home. You can do it at a library. It doesn't matter where you do it. And I know that our church, everybody has the Journey app. And if you don't have the Journey app, download it. If you don't know how to download it, Josh is in the back, and he would be so excited to show you how to download it. And with this app, it's so cool because like - and she was here last service, it was cool. I didn't know it. But we've been in the hospital and Debbie's checking out. And you know, you can't wait for them to get a wheelchair or you'll be there all day. So I went and got a wheelchair before they checked out and I put her in there. I had everything packed. I just said, Bring the paperwork, bring the paperwork. They signed it, and we took off. And I'm taking off down the hall. And this nurse comes and said, Hey, hey, hey, hey. I was going to be one of the nurses, but you already left. I said, That's cool, baby. We rocking. She said, But I was at your church last Sunday.

James Greer: [00:06:54] I said, Oh, you are cool. She said, I even got one of those boxes. I said, Man, you the girl. I said, what are you going to do with it? She said, I've been a travel nurse and we've been trying to figure out how to stay in touch with each other. And so I got one of the boxes, and we're going to use the Journey Church app. And you know, you can go in here and find the devotion or you can find outlines and they're going to do that. And once a week, some of them are in different timelines. And what they're going to do is get together and not only talk, but instead we're going to make a commitment to talk about spiritual things and we're going to keep ourselves accountable. Is that cool? We have one that's just families, and they're going to do it as a family. We had another one that's taking that, I don't know what it's called, but it's a marriage thing for life. And they're doing the marriage. And once a week, they're getting together and the brothers are getting together. They both have wives, and they're all coming together once a week and they're going through the marriage app. So there's all kinds of ways to do it. You can do it at your home. There's other people that are going through it, they're doing it at their home. They're going through the same thing we're doing.

James Greer: [00:08:08] There's a thumb drive in there, right? And you can take that thumb drive and you can be going through Daring Faith just like we are. So, man, it's just all kinds of ways. There is another one - I got to get to preaching. There was another one. A lady and her daughter came in. They came out and I said, I'm so excited. She said, Yeah, I'm not from here. Said, I'm really excited now. She said, but I'm going to take it. Me and my daughters decided, even if the rest of the family don't, I'm out of town and once a week, we've got a Journey church app and we're going to get together instead of just talking. We're going to talk about spiritual things and we're going to be Journey on the Go. So there's all kinds of ways you can do it. So if you didn't get a box last week, at the end of the service, you can come up and get a box called Journey on the Go. Amen? So let's talk about what faith is. All right. First of all, faith is, without faith, it is impossible to please God. How come? For he who comes to God must believe that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. This verse alone should make us want to please God and enjoy His Word. Amen? And so I want to tell you, first of all, kind of what faith is not.

James Greer: [00:09:27] All right. Faith is not. This is cool. Faith is not a desire. It's not a wish. It's not a hope. It's not praying. It's not sincere desire. When I was young going to high school, I drove a Fairlane Falcon. That was not cool where I went to school. I desired a new car. I even asked God, God, would you give me a new car? I didn't get a new car. That was not faith. That was a fantasy. And if I had gotten a new car, it wouldn't have brought honor to God. I guarantee you with what I did with that car. Faith is not pretending that something is true that's not true. We've got a lot of people and even some denominations, they just pretend it's not true. You know, they pretend that they're never going to get sick, but they get sick. They pretend they're wealthy, healthy, and wise, but they're not always healthy and they're not always wealthy and they're not always wise. So it's not pretending. It's not pretending. When I first started preaching, I wanted to be Billy Graham. I'd come and I'd say, Y'all come. But y'all didn't come. So today, at the end of service when I say, y'all come, y'all just come. Just come for the heck of it. I want to be Billy Graham one time.

James Greer: [00:10:56] Everybody just come. I can pretend I'm going to go home and eat steak. But I promise you, if Debbie cooked chicken, I'm eating chicken. Faith is pretending. Faith is not feeling. Ooh, feelings will get you hurt. This is really important. You don't need to make decisions on how you feel. Dangerous. Just printed. 80% of the people are making decisions on how they feel instead of facts, instead of faith. See, what you need to do, you need to move ahead in spite of your feelings. Faith will say yes. Many times your feelings say no. I understand that. I understand that. You're not going to believe this. Y'all ready? I really didn't feel like preaching today. But face it. Yeah, man. Now, I'm so glad once I get here. Oh, that's a different thing. Say, why did you not feel like that? Well, you know, I had a friend die week before last. I had a friend died last week. They put my wife in the hospital. I had a call about another friend that just died, and I had a call about a friend down the street that died. That's all this week. That's a pretty heavy duty week. Amen? And not counting the idiot that called me and said something stupid and I hung up on him. I think I said some other things too. Forgive me, Jesus. But anyway. So faith's not feeling. Amen? Your feelings will get you in trouble, and your faith will always reward you. Sometimes your feeling hurts, your faith even hurts.

James Greer: [00:12:36] But the reward is always worth it. Amen? So it's not a feeling. It's not bargaining with God. It's not God, if you'll do this, I'll get that. God's not a gambler. Now, I've tried it before. I bargained with God. I said, God, you heal my granddaughter, I'll do this. Didn't help. Can't bargain with God. No, no, no. I want to tell you what I learned about what faith is this week. This is the danger for a pastor. When you preach on the series, God often lets you personally experience it. After this series, no, no, no. We're going to preach on finding the favor of God. After that, we're going to preach on the blessed life. We're going to preach on something good. Amen? Like I told you, faith has substance, right? Faith has substance, which is God's Word. But it's only as you add action or obedience do you receive the reward. Faith is seeing things from God's point of view. Faith is believing something is so when it's not so until it is so. But let me tell you a simple way of what I found out what faith is. Faith in the simplest form is just believing what God says and then acting on it. That's what faith is. It's just simply believing what God says and then acting on it. That's what faith is. You got to learn to stretch your faith or we will strain our faith. Let me give you some.

James Greer: [00:14:21] When you're straining your faith, you're draining your faith. You can be saved. This is a concern I have. There's people that are really saved, but they're not believing and acting on God. So they're not seeing their prayers answered, not getting rewards, and it's unbelievable. Because I'm going to tell you, if you're saved, if you're not saved. Oh, precious Jesus. At the end of the service, let me tell you how to get saved. Amen? But if you are saved, Jesus said you are the light of the world. Not that you might be. He says you are to be the light of the world. And because you're the light of the world, don't take a light or don't take a lamp or don't take a candle and put it under a basket. Amen? Yes or no? Now, let me ask you a question. Did you know if you take a candle and you put it under a basket, it's strains to get air. It struggles. It struggles and struggles and struggles and struggles to get air. Because it's not supposed to be under the basket. You ready? You get saved, God gives you faith. You're to be the light of the world. And when you're not the light of the world, you have created the strain that drains you on your own life. That's good, Brother James. Just like I'm going to tell you what happened. This week, my wife's in the hospital. Sarah Fuller just lost her husband, Robert.

James Greer: [00:15:53] Sarah stayed with my wife at night. That's light. Amen? The next night, Randy and Courtney, Randy Rawlins just lost his wife. They're coming up to check on us. See, they're saying when I'm hurting and I need, I need to go let my light shine. I need to be doing for somebody else. And they knew what it is. They knew what it meant. See, way back in the beginning, in Genesis 1, God told us this. God said, I'll bless them, talking about us. And God said to them, He said, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But He also said, subdue it, have dominion over it. And then He said over every living thing. You're supposed to be having dominion. You're supposed to be subduing. You're not supposed to be hiding. You're not supposed to be putting your light under a basket. So we're saved, but we're drained. God didn't want you to. Instead, God said, You're saved. But I want to stretch your faith. Let me give you a couple of examples. All right. Number one, 1 Corinthians 12:1. It's in the amplified version. I love this. But now about the spiritual gifts, the super endowment of supernatural energy, Brethren. I don't want you to be ignorant or misinformed. See, that's the great thing about preaching when you don't think you feel like preaching, but you get to preach, and that's my spiritual gift. So instead I get supernatural energy, and I'm glad to be here. Amen? But guess what? Every one of you have a gift too.

James Greer: [00:17:20] Everyone, every single one. If you're saved, you've got at least one gift and when you use it, you get the same supernatural energy that I get. It's more exciting than anything else you can do in the world. Let me give you another example. Colossians, I like this. For this I labor, striving with all the superhuman energy which He so mightily sets me on fire works within me. Enkindles. Man, is that not something? He said, man, Let me tell you. I not only give you supernatural energy, I give you superhuman energy. I give you so mightily works that I set you on fire to do it. Man, he said, when you're really doing what you're supposed to and I give you the supernatural energy, I put you on fire to do what God called you do. I mean, are you on fire to do what God called you to do? Or are you sitting sour and soaking? I don't know. Just asking. And then, Sampson. When you think of Sampson, most people think, oh, Sampson and women. Sampson did have a problem with women. But Sampson was also called by God, right? Sampson, he was very thirsty. And then he prayed. What did he do? Say prayed. He prayed to the Lord. He said, Oh, Lord, you have to give me this great deliverance by the hand of your servants, and now I shall die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised.

James Greer: [00:18:52] He said, man. Y'all why he's thirsty? He had taken the jawbone of a donkey, and he just killed a thousand men by himself. He ought to be thirsty. Amen? He said, God, I've been doing what you said. I've been killing the Philistines, but I'm thirsty. And if you don't give me something to drink, I'm going to die. And he prayed. What did God d? He said, Man, I'll just split open a piece of rock and the water is going to come out. You're going to drink it and your spirit will return. Go back and kill some more. That's pretty powerful. Amen? Let me give you a set of ideas. All right? When your faith is stretched and you're doing what God called you to do, when you take the substance, which is God's Word, and then you act on it and be in obedience, you get to do at least three things. It's not in your notes. I had to write them down. That's because it's pretty powerful. Three things. Y'all ready? Number one, you get to experience supernatural energy. Some of y'all have never experienced it. Man, it's cool. I'm experiencing it right now. You get to experience supernatural power that sets you on fire to do what God called you do. That's fantastic. If you've never done it, you ought to try it, man. Then you get supernatural answer to prayer. Three things. That's a result of your faith being stretched. Man, you ought to want your faith stretched.

James Greer: [00:20:09] It hurts, but it helps. It hurts, but it's worth it. It hurts, but you can't experience these type of results. Now, let me give you some personal examples of how God stretches your faith. Like I said, it's been a tough week. And Janice passed away and Robert had just passed away and Debbie's in the hospital and we had all these problems going on. Went to the hospital on Friday and they did this thing called Doppler or something. They put it on her leg. And the doctor said, Go do that and do a CT on her lungs. And we did this Doppler and asked the girl what it is. She said, I'm not going to tell you. That always irritates me. But anyway, next minute she comes in and puts her in a wheelchair and brings her to ER. And they said, Hey, man, you got a blood clot in your leg and you got to see the doctor. And you know how fast they are. You know, four or 5 hours later, the doctor comes in and he gives her a blood thinner. And I said, What do we do? He said, Look, you sit here for a while, I'm giving you blood thinners by the mouth, then go on home, do what you want to do. And I said. I said the doctor told me to tell you to do CT scans on her lungs. He said, nope. I said, The doctor told me to tell you to do a CT. Nope. I said, Are you sure? The doctor told me to tell you to do a CT.

James Greer: [00:21:25] He said, Do you understand I'm not doing them? You get ready in a few minutes, take this, and y'all get out of here. Now used to. I tried to be obedient. I didn't know that you can say that you want to see somebody else like I know now. So we left. Sunday, our regular Dr. Sloan called Debbie at 2:00. Said, How you doing? Said, We went and do what you said and we got a blood clot in her legs. Said, I know, and how about your lungs? And she said, they didn't do it. She said, but I told them to do it. And she said, But they didn't do it. She said, Monday morning, I want you to be back at the hospital. So we went back to the hospital and did what she said and they did the CT contrast of her lungs. Now she's got blood clots scattered through her lungs. And one of them on the part right there by the pad or lap right before heart. So now she had them all over her heart. Now I'm ticked. Instead of saying, thank God that the blood clot didn't kill her, instead of saying thank God it didn't go into her heart or her head, I am PO'd. So I didn't see the miracle because I was so mad. Amen? And so I just kind of, I kind of missed it. And so now by all these other things that are going on, you know, we did the funeral, did all this and that, and I'm mad and I'm wanting to cuss this guy out and kill him and everything else.

James Greer: [00:22:45] You know? I didn't do all that, but if I could seen him, I would have. But anyway. So that's how I felt. Amen? So I'm missing the miracle. I mean, man, she's alive. Amen? It could have been worse. I should have said, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus. So anyway, I got this guy. He's kind of like a sponsor. It's not that kind of sponsor, but he's kind of a guy I really respect. And so I call him and I tell him how ticked I am. I tell him what all happened. I'm just raising Cain and griping and everything. He said, that's good, that's good, that's good. And now it's my turn. True story. He said, First of all, I'm going to give you the Cajun version of Exodus 14:14. I said, Oh, man, you're not in the Bible that much. I don't tell him that, but I'm thinking he's not. I said, Well, what is it? He said, Sit down and shut up. I said, What? He said, Sit down and shut up. That's my translation to you. So I get the version. I can't wait. So I look at my Bible and I go find an amplified version. It said, And the Lord will fight for you and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest.

James Greer: [00:23:47] Now you got to laugh. So you go from being mad to laughing. But he said, I got something else for you. I said, What is it? He said, Practice what you preach. I said, What? He said, Practice what you preach. I said, But it's easier to preach than to practice. He said, I know. Practice what you preach. Now it's after nine. But thank God, by now I'm laughing. So I've gone from being unbelievably angry to laughing. And God's stretching my faith. And I had another impossible situation that I had to face. But God was now starting to take care of them. Friday, I got to go home. She's on blood thinner, but she's alive. Amen? There was another situation that absolutely was impossible that God took care of completely. So sometimes God stretches our faith like Noah and says, Go build a boat. Sometimes like Abraham, leave to a place you don't know. But sometimes, sometimes, you ready? Sometimes those are physical stretches. Sometimes they're spiritual ones, like just shut up and sit down. Sometimes, like the Lord, he'll fight for you and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest. That's still God's Word, substance. And that's still an action. The Psalmist said in Psalms 46:10 and 11, he has another verse for me after he said that one. I said, I might as well do this one. Calm down. Learned that I'm God, God of all nations, all earth will honor me. Then it says this. It said, and the Lord, all-powerful one, is with us. Kind of changes perspective on things, doesn't it? I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that if God stretches your faith, it gives you substance. If you act on the substance and you're obedient, you can experience rewards like never before.

James Greer: [00:26:02] Sometimes those are physical actions. Sometimes they're spiritual actions. But I want more than anything for our church, whether you're here or downstairs, upstairs or online, I don't want you just to come to church. I want you all to start to experience the rewards. Some of mine were what I would call miracles. One of them that I can't share, it was personal and private, that God just did a miraculous thing. I just cannot even believe. But He handled it. I know He's doing it. But don't let anger cause you to miss what He's doing. I'd like to say this. If you don't know what God's Word says about your situation, if you don't know what it says about your problem, if you don't know, you can't take the action or you can't be obedient to it. Today, when we give the invitation, we're going to have people down front and go to them and say, this is my situation and I don't know what God's Word says about it. But if you can help me find what God's Word says, I'll obey and I'll take the action. That's faith. That's saying, I'll do what God's Word says before you know what it says. That's faith. And you take the action, it's guaranteed you'll get the reward. See, because you're not depending on what I say. I'm depending on what God said. God cannot lie. Can't do it. So you do that. If they can't find it, we'll get you the answer today or by Monday, we'll all get together.

James Greer: [00:27:44] We will answer you, though. I dare you, if you're not sure that you're saved, today is the day. If you're not sure you'd go to Heaven, don't wait. Because just like the guy today, right before I preached, they called me. He's 47 years old. They found him dead. Just like the guy that I'm going to preach the service Monday, just like the other two I preach. You just don't know that. It's not an age thing necessarily. So if you're not sure, today is the day. If you've got a friend, y'all, that you're not sure that they know the Lord Jesus Christ, take the Word of this book. It's your responsibility to share it with them. It's not your responsibility what they do with it. Use it. Do it. But if that's you today, come. Maybe it's something simple like you've never really been baptized. Maybe you were sprinkled or dunked as a baby. It's okay as a way of dedication. But now you want to be baptized. The death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And today you want to come. I dare you, I dare you. I dare you when I give the invitation to take your card out if you haven't done this yet and make a commitment to invite, to pray for the loss, pray for a miracle, get a Journey on the Go. If you're not in a small group, get you one. They're free. If you want to go skydiving, every time you come, you can put your name in there.

James Greer: [00:29:10] You can put your cards in there, your prayer request in there. You can do it. Some of the action is like me and Exodus 14:14, is quit worrying and quit being upset. Let God fight for you and you be at peace and you be at rest. But wouldn't it be a waste to come and have this whole service and you go home the same way you came? So would you stand and let me pray with you and pray for you? God, you're an awesome God. I thank you so much for your Word. It's powerful. I thank you for your principles. I pray today that individuals would take this substance, which is your Word, and they would put it into action or obedience, and they could receive the reward or the miracles that you want to work in their life. I pray for those that know, that they say, God, you are the light, but yet they put it under a basket. And so they've been strained and they've been struggling. And they understand now. They blamed it on other things. They blamed it on other people, blamed it on the situation. They blamed it on circumstance. They blamed it on finance. And the real truth, till you take the basket off, you can't shine. And now God has pressed upon your heart the real truth and you're going to repent and you're going to change your life. Maybe God's called you to join the church. Whatever God's called you do, I pray to Jesus, let Him have His will and His way. And I pray it in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.


Recorded in Pineville, Louisiana.