Active Faith

Faith without works is dead. It's time to get into action and trust that He will walk with us every step of the way. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a while. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. We're glad you're here. We're happy to see you virtually because I can see you. Gabe can see you. But before we get into today's topic, um, if you guys could do us a favor, hit that like button, share, subscribe, leave comments, let us know what you guys think. If you guys want to hear about future um episodes, you know, certain topics you guys want to hear about, we want to hear from you guys. Okay? Follow us on social media. We're on all platforms, including TikTok. But it's been a while, so we got a lot of catching up to do. I haven't seen Gabe in a while. He hasn't seen me in a while. Um, Gabe, how you been, man? What's what's what's new? What's been going on? We we we have our conversations behind the camera about our hobbies and sports, but you know, what's been going on, man? What's what's what's been going on, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Man, stay most staying busy. I think that's that's the name of the game. It's just it's just uh life is lifing. Yeah, yeah, that's a true statement. Life is life. Life is life. No, man, I mean, we're good. I mean, um, staying busy, coaching kids, baseball season's kind of coming to closure here now. So um wrapping that up, probably might be going back into it in the fall sometime, but we're just we're working all that out. But you know, keeping the kids busy, uh school's almost done, so we're preparing for that. So, you know, a lot kids trying to figure out what we're gonna do with them in the summer, our plans. Um, I mean, church has been churching, churching, busy, uh, planning, getting things done. Um, you know, I've been doing a lot of work in in my yard, trying to get the backyard the way my wife would love it. Of course, you know, because I wanted to come out and be like, oh my god, is my yard? I'm happy. So we've been working hard, we've been adding some things and and moving some things. So it's been a lot of fun. It's been uh a lot of hard work, like we talked about, a lot of a lot of long days. Um, but you know, we're getting it done. And I think that's you know, happy wife, happy life at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah, it's uh it almost makes you think like you kind of reminisce and miss those days where you had no responsibilities. You just go out, have fun, come home, eat dinner, and go to sleep with no worries. But that's part of being the.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

I get to I still get to do the things that you know I enjoy. Yeah, you know, we're still uh big on, you know, I'm I'm I love to collect things, so I'm still always dabbling to that, you know, still trying to stay active, um, still playing baseball here and there. So just trying to, especially with this good weather, because it's been so up and down, especially this winter and in spring and all this stuff. So like now with this weather, it's like I just want to be outside.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah, I just want to be outside. That's a beau that's a beautiful thing about this weather, is that it just drives you to go out. Um, I got the mountain bike sitting out there in the patio, and it's like put some air in the tire. Yes. There's air in the tires, but um Jolly wanted to go the other day, and I was like, I didn't feel like lifting up the bikes. I was like, I gotta grab my bike. If for those of you that don't know, I'm on the second floor, so I gotta go down a flight 714 steps, drop off the bike, then come back up and grab the other one. But that's besides the point. The weather's beautiful. Yeah. Um, I I could say for myself, I'm in that same vibe. I've been I've been trying to um stay a little bit more active. Work has been talking about work, kicking my butt, but it wouldn't be called work if it wasn't tough. Yeah. Um, church has been um incredible. I mean, um been into the book, you know, with with Bible studies, just so many different things, and it's incredible how every single time you open the Bible, you find something new, right? And um that the truth. And it's something beautiful. And despite what we go through, and this might alter the the topic of today, but we're gonna talk a little bit about everything, right? Um, but despite whatever we go through in life, because life can be, let's be real, life can be so rough. Like it can get you can have a good week, and you have one bad day. Yeah, and it it can really drive you like crazy. And I saw a video um the other day where there was a young man speaking to an older gentleman, you know, because the older gentleman is is um uh a lot more wiser. He's lived his life, you know, he's twice his age, so he's lived, you know, double the years. So he went up to him and and the old guy's like, Hey, young man, like you you seem like, how are you doing? You seem kind of down. And he said, Um, well, I'm I'm having a bad day. The old man said, It's alright to have a bad day. It's alright to have two bad days. And he goes, Do you watch baseball? And the young guy says, Um, what does baseball have to do with me having a bad day? And he goes, Do you watch baseball? Yes, I watch baseball. So you know that at the end there's something called two teams, right? The two best teams come together and have a what? It's it's a World Series. And he goes, and the series is how many games? He goes, seven games. He goes, the winning team only's got to win four. And he's like, Oh, what are you trying to get at? He goes, There's seven days a week, you only got to win four. So my mentality changed now. I only got to win four days. But nevertheless, um life has its ups and downs, right? You only got to win four days, right? Monday's a loss, but the weekend, there's three days a week. Three days on the weekend. They're they're wins. You just gotta win one during the week. What? But um, I had to bring a um a sermon about the story of Ruth, and uh in particular chapter four, and there was I I titled the sermon From Emptiness to Legacy, because if you see the story of Ruth, how she entered into um Bethlehem, she had she was a widow, she had no kids, she was um a Moabite, which the Israelites didn't like mess with. Yeah, and basically she was like down and out, completely empty. But she followed Naomi, told Naomi, I will serve the Elohim that you serve. She was obedient, she was humble, and when you look all the way at chapter 4, she gets married, and through her lineage comes King David and Yeshua. So I I brought the parallel that even though you think you might be empty, you might have a bad day, or whatever, as long as you stay obedient, you trust in Yahweh, like look at the outcome of how she started to how she finished her story. It was a beautiful ending. And I'm like, even if I have a bad day, I must still remain obedient, still remain humble, and still put my faith in him, my trust in him, because if there's one thing that Yahweh specializes, is that he writes beautiful endings. He writes beautiful endings, and which leads me to the topic is um having an active faith and what that looks like today, right? Because it's easy for me to say, like, if you're going through a rough time, a rough patch in your life, and I say, Gabe, you have to have faith. And you're like, I have faith. It's easy to say with your mouth, but to apply it in your life in modern in in like a modern modern times, what does that look like? I feel like for me, as like for me, the example that I bring is when those days seem really rough, you're at work and the thoughts start coming to your air, like, I'm gonna quit my job. It's that bad. And then you leave and something else might happen. You might have gotten bad news or something happens to your car, and it just feels like you keep stacking on top, stacking on top. What you do in those moments is crucial. When you say, I have faith, and sometimes you might have to pull the car over. You might have to pull over, take a breather, and say, You know what, Yahweh? You're still good. You're still great. I'm still gonna praise you. That despite everything that's you feel like it's crumbling around you, that you can sit there and say, and still give glory and honor to him. I feel like that is from my perspective, is saying that I'm putting my trust in you, and just because I'm down and out, I'm not gonna quit. I'm still gonna push.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah, push through. It's crazy because I did recently a preaching that something to similar to do with it, and I spoke about the the hare and the tortoise. And we know the story of the hair and the tortoise, right? And and they're in a race, and and the hair is what speeding down, trying to finish fast, and and the tortoise is just steady, constant, and what continuing to move forward and not backwards. And I think for me that's the definition, especially nowadays, of faith. We have we have a different generation now that it's so easy to quit. It's so easy to be like, Well, I can't do it. All right, keep moving. It's so easy, and it and you know in the times of our grandparents and all these people, it was a different mentality than you know, you speak to a lot of the generation now, and it's just like, well, whatever. Like it's like there's no care to it, you know. And I think for me, especially nowadays, to have a faith is is to be constantly moving forward. I don't, you know, the word doesn't say you have to be done the race fast, it just says finish the race, finish the race, that's it. Right? Everyone goes at their own pace. But if we are like the hair and we want to finish quick, failure will come sooner than maybe was planned. Because failure is always gonna come. That's inevitable. You know, we are gonna fail in life. There's gonna be times where we feel like we have the answers and we don't have the answers, right? But if we're just consistently moving, you know, consistently doing, like you said, what we say we're gonna do. Because a lot of us, like you said, say stuff, yeah, but then when it comes down to it, easier said than done. You know, same thing we've talked about many times. Like, you know, when you make a decision, hey, I want to start getting back into shape, I want to start, but then my schedule's crazy, and the only time that I can go is five o'clock in the morning, and you so hey, and that first week, you're all in. Come week two, eight starts coming in, you start the alarm comes on. I'll snooze it for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I'll double up.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Uh I'll snooze, yeah, yeah, we'll just finish it, we'll go harder tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, yeah, yeah. No, no, we can we can figure it out. Like, and then right, we start to sway our decisions of hey, we had a goal, this is what our goal was. But because now in week two, we get lacked, uh, we we get not lazy, but we just we get back to our comfortability, yeah. That's what it is, and sometimes you're like, Well, that's too early, man. I'm so tired, right? Instead of going, you know what, this is what my schedule allows, you know, we have to make things work. Same thing with me and my wife, like our schedules are different, and we have to make things work, you know. Hey, I can only do this this day, I can do this day, I record this day, I'm coaching this day, I'm I'm in church this day, I'm doing this, but we're still gonna plan and we have a game plan of how we're gonna accomplish these things, and we know we have to stick to it. We can't switch it up, we can't do it because this is our schedule. The same thing in life is like we have goals, we have aspirations, we say we want big things, we say we want the Heavenly Father to use us, we say we want healing, we say we want freedom, we say we want um a better understanding of the scripture, but when it's our time to do our part, we're nowhere to be found.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, and and I and I want to bring this up. I was gonna bring it up earlier, but Hebrews 11, chapter 11, verse 1, where it speaks about faith. It says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So it's like using that same analogy about uh um working out, a lot of people do what the hair does, they go crazy week one, maybe for week two, and they go, I don't see a result. Right, not knowing that their vision, they're gonna achieve that vision six months from now if they continue to go, continue to go. And the same is sometimes in in our lives. You know, how many times do you have told you, Gabe, I'm gonna give you this, or I'm gonna bless you with this, I'm gonna give you these new talents, and you're like, okay, Father, and you start and and you're praying, you're doing what you gotta do, right? And a month goes by and you're like, Father, um I don't want to question you. Forget about me. I don't want to question you, but um, when is that blessing coming? I I'm I'm again I don't I don't wanna I don't want to bother you, and then you start to think like, well, I should I even really pray it, still continue praying about it now to say faith is like no no no hold on hold on Yahweh told me it four years have gone by, Gabe, but he told me, but he told me, and other people will tell you, Gabe, it's already it's going on five years, but Yahweh told me, but he told me, but he told me and and and and the fact that you can continue continue, right, despite of you know you knowing that you can already see it, like I see it in my dreams. He told me, and I can see it. I could like in my dream, I feel like I can touch it, but in your in your life, it seems the contrary.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

And Abraham because it I think it goes hand in hand with obedience at the end of the day. You know, you know, when you read the story of Abraham, well, I mean, obedience is off the chart because you're talking about um someone who was given a promise you're gonna have a child, and him and his wife looked at each other like crazy, we were going, huh?

SPEAKER_01 15:01

We're old.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

There's no way, right? Because again, as humans, sometimes we're just that makes no sense. I'm trying to calculate it, I'm trying to put it together, I'm trying to figure it out, but but it's just not making sense to me. And then to be able to see that miracle and that blessing, and then for him to be like, all right, I need you to give him back to me now. Like, think about like I I want you to put it into perspective. It's like he he gives us a promise. We as humans go, How's that gonna happen? That's crazy. Ain't no way that's happening, yeah. To then go, I saw it and I received it, and it's mine now.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Finally got it.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

To then go, you gotta sacrifice this now back to me. Yeah, and not one time the scripture says he was like, but why? Yeah, right? He walked with obedience. Now, I can only guess the thoughts as a father that was going through his head, and that must have been one of the hardest walks going up that mountain when his child's asking him all these questions, and you see here he says, Where's the sacrifice? I don't see it. What are we gonna like? What are we doing here? Like, what's going on? And as a father, you know what's happening, and not one time did he derail, not one time did he stop, not one time did he go back or turn around, he kept going forward, right? Now, the Bible doesn't say that Abraham was going expecting something up there, right? You know, and I and I spoke about this in our preaching recently, you know, sometimes the provision is not at the bottom, the provision is at the top, but the issue with a lot of us is sometimes we don't reach our provision because we stop and we don't continue forward because we stop, like you said, we stop and lose hope. We stop and lose it because it's been like you said, it's been years. I don't see it, I don't understand it in the state in the in the problems that I'm in now. There's no way I don't see a way out, and and we start to stumble and we start to go, well, you know what? This ain't worth it. And instead of continuing forward without question in obedience, when our provision is waiting for us, we tend to stop, yeah, and we tend to to prolong our blessings in our lives, and like Abraham, he didn't know there was gonna be provision up top. But what happened was he stood obedient because he understood the same Elohim that gave me this miracle and I saw it, right? This belongs to him, and I for me again as a father is like you know, and again, the Bible states that the only man in the Bible that he called him a friend, yeah, you know, and to have that kind of relationship to go your trust is in him so much, again, as I can only this is just me, you know, thinking as a human that in his heart and his mind there was some way out for him, but there was gonna be something. Now, again, the Bible doesn't specify that he was like, I know there's gonna be something up there. No, the Bible says he was gonna, he almost followed through with it. It it wasn't he didn't stop him when he got up there, when he laid him down. No, no, it was when he was taking the action, right? Not just saying, Father, I did this whole trip, I walked, you saw that I'm about it, you saw that I'm gonna go through with it. Bro, that's crazy. You think about it, right? That's why and it's not until he brought it and was making a motion down, is where he got stopped. And he goes, Now I know, right? Now I know the obedience that you have for me. You could, you could, but he could have said it the whole time because not one time did Abraham go, Father, why? I don't get it, I don't understand nothing. He was in obedience the whole time, yo, but it took to that moment.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

And for first thing, I I would like to enter into his thing. And then, like in the spiritual realm, yeah, I could have just imagined all these angels like, uh, should we stop him? Let's correct. Let's see how far he goes. He's going up the mountain. Let's see how far he goes. His son is asking him, where's the sacrifice? And they're like, dude, you do you want me to stop it? Let's see how far he goes. Uh he has the knife in his hand. He's lifting. Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, stop it. Yeah. That's crazy. It just that he that, but that's literally what faith with action, right? Because the scripture says faith without works is what is dead. Dead. Yeah. You have to act on it. And I I I'm gonna keep bringing up the the analogy of the working out. Um, that you don't see the results week one, you don't see it week two, you don't see it week three, and you're like, should I even keep going? You you bypass that thought and you keep pushing, right? And then all of a sudden you start noticing people like, Kid, you look, you're looking, you're looking swole, dude. And you're like, what? What are you what are you talking about? It goes, no, you look, you look good, man. You look like you've been lifting weights. I'm like, really? Yeah. Then the next person, like, yeah, have you been working out? Like, you like you look nice, dude. Other people start to notice, right? In the analogy of the Heavenly Father telling you something, whether he told you something in your youth, right? Where you're gonna one day you're gonna be pastor. The years go by, like, Father, when am I gonna be pastor? When and all of a sudden, people start to see you and goes, You would be a good pastor. People you don't even know, and you're like, What? People start to see it in you already. And you're like, What'd you say? I'm sorry, what'd you say? I don't know, you would you would be a really good pastor. Where'd that come from? I don't know. You just there's something about you, you'd be a great pastor, or you might do a uh a preaching or or a Bible study, and you're like, Wow, you did really good. You preach like a like a pastor, you don't I don't know, they it's different. People start to notice it in you, and it's the same, it's the same way with faith that you have that thing that you're holding on to that the heavenly father told you, and again, you could be praying for it days, months, years. You have to continue, have to continue.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Faith without works is dead, and it's crazy because I'm gonna leave you with this, because as you were speaking, I don't know, I received something for somebody that's listening, right? And there's a lot of us that especially working out, we are so infatuated with the number on the scale, and we start to focus on that number, and if we don't see change in that number, we think there's failure, right? And what you know, you were talking, I was like, Five, what you've been, you know, and there's a lot. Of us, you know, whoever's listening, whoever needs to hear this, you know, you're focusing on your situation too much, right? And because you don't see change in your situation, you think he is not listening, you think he is not there. But at the same time, those that if you look and bypass the number, you're gonna start to understand that hey, my clothes are a little bigger now. I fit into these clothes that I didn't fit into, but yet the number hasn't changed. But what's now when we work out, we need to understand that it's not about a number on a scale. Because now when we work out, what are we doing? We're toning body parts, we're gaining muscle. Muscle is mass. So numbers can be slightly off, slightly losing. You're like, wow, I'm only losing two, three pounds. So why am I seeing a difference? That's what he's doing because he's still working, even though your situation has not changed, he's still moving, even though you don't see a difference. What he's doing is he's preparing you, like you said, to now be seen when you it's in places that you feel you are unseen. And that's what's crazy because he spoke to me because we're so focused on things that are out of our controls. Like I can't control, I can only do so much to try to lose weight, to try to do these things where I can do my part. But at the end of the day, I gotta put trust in the process. I have to put trust in that hey, if I go, if I show up every day, if I do what I gotta do, it's gonna get, I'm gonna see a difference, even though on the scale, yeah, it's not the numbers that I want it to be. A lot of us want things to happen the way we want it to happen. And what he wants to do is prepare us for the provision that's been waiting the whole time. The fact, but the issue is we can't see it, right? We can't see it because what our focus is somewhere else. We don't notice the change, but others do, and that's the difference. So, whoever this was for, it might have been just for me, and if it's for me, I receive it, right? You know, let's stop focusing on things that are not important, and I'm not saying that your situation is not important, I'm not saying what you're feeling is not important, I'm not saying the tears that you cry are not important, but what I'm saying is when you continue forward and you continue to show up every single day. You know, you're asking many things, you're saying, Father, I want this, I want this, but now you need to put your part and show up every day. It's not about just him showing up for us, it's us showing up to do his will every single day. When we do that, people will see the difference. It's not about you sometimes. We get selfish and because we don't see it. It's the same way me and my wife. I know probably you and your wife the same way is like I notice things, and she's like, No, I can't. It's like you don't understand the power that you have. You don't like because you get to know someone so much and you see things that other people don't because we see them every single day in the good, in the bad, in the crazy. And I know the person that my wife is, even though others may think something else. And sometimes it's just that reassurance going, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

You got this.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Like you can do this. You were built for this, you were created for this. We were created for something greater. Now it's our job to get it done.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

It's putting your faith in action, activated. Okay, it needs to be activated. While you were saying that, I was uh I could hear um, like the trainer saying, the number is still the same, but you have lost fat and but gained the muscle. Yeah. So there's change happening in the process, even though you might stay stuck on that, but it hasn't changed. Like, yes, but the fat now has converted into muscle. It's not the change that we want, right? So it's important that we we stay consistent, we we stay we stay uh um prayed up, holding on to his promises. Because again, this uh uh um you know we can all sit here and say, you know, the Heavenly Father has promised me this, he has told me this, and time goes on. But when he speaks his word, A does not come back void, and we have to think that when he said it, it was for an appointed time. Yeah. Okay, it's not when we say it. Like, Gabe, you're gonna travel the world. You're gonna travel the world, and you're like, hold on. I'm gonna travel across the world. You know how much tickets are going for right now? Hey, who said you were paying for it? Who's saying you were paying for it? Right? Nothing is impossible for our Heavenly Father. Nothing. So if he told, if he said it, if he spoke over your life and you're still waiting on it, continue to trust in him. Continue to hold on to his promise, continue to have faith, but put it into action. Despite whatever you're going through, listen, you're still gonna bend your knees and go before him in prayer. Listen, you might have to fast. Fast. Do what you gotta do, but continue. Don't let life knock you down, right? And if it does knock you down, get back up, dust yourself off, and continue doing what you were doing. Okay? We hope that, you know, and this is the goal for this podcast, is to encourage one of you guys out there, right? To to tell you, listen, if you needed someone to tell you, listen, get up and do what you gotta do, let this be a sign for you. Okay. We hope that you guys um enjoyed this. Um, if you could help us share this video with a friend, if it will benefit one of your friends, coworkers, uh, family members, hit that like button, share, subscribe. You guys know the deal. Follow us on social media. We love you guys, and um, we hope again that this was an encouragement to your life. So we love you. We're praying for you guys. We hope that you're praying for us. And again, my name is Zeke, and I'm Gabe, and we're just two dudes from church.