husband, your girlfriend, your guy, trust or perfection?  Well, you’ve just given the best definition of what’s God’s been trying to get from day one from His people—and the root activity of Christianity, once you cross those threshold points that we’ve been covering the last 2 weeks as the basis of Faith: God’s looking for ‘faithers.’

        I’m sorry, He’s got a host of them He made—angels that never miss a beat.  They’re perfect enough Jimmy Swaggart couldn’t make one even close.  God can provide most of the things that the Church is trying to do and say “Here God, look what we did for you.”  The one thing God can’t make, which is the derivative of that freedom that He gave that unloosed or unleashed sin, the root of which is misuse of freedom, is freely given trust and devotion.  And the whole searching look of God through history has been to find that man or woman that will trust Him. 

       All you gotta do is go back to the Garden.  I don’t care whether you believe it’s a myth encompassing deeper truths or whether it is genuine fact of history.  The fundamental problem was God spoke of life and warned of death.  Lucifer, whatever he may be, came and said “He doesn’t mean it; God won’t do it,” and they believed the ‘father of lies’ and doubted God.  And from that day until now God’s been looking for children that’ll trust Him, who when they find His Word won’t just crank it up here in a databank, will hang their body in action and belief sustained by confidence that He who spoke and nothing became everything will back His Word.  That’s why this Church exists.  I don’t have any other purpose on these Sundays than trying to inspire Faith on the premise that “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” like seed that is planted, said Word demonstrating God’s Faithfulness to His Word and His ability to carry it out.

God’s looking for faithers—people who will trust Him.  That doesn’t mean you have to take the cookie cutter of some institutional church.  It doesn’t mean you have to fit the image that Scott might project, but somewhere in your walk of Faith where you put on the glasses and decide to hang your body on something you can believe in....  God’s looking for those gems that will trust Him and believe when He says something He’ll do it.

Abram was His first developed product from the world gone awry after the flood, if you believe it.  But his Faith wasn’t perfect at the outset—he went part way.  I want you to see that so you don’t get the idea until you’re fully perfect you’re not even in the game.  He was to trust God and forsake family and city.  He only went halfway.  He halted, it’s said, at Haran.  He still wouldn’t separate from Lot and then when he finally got to the place and God said “This is the place,” and then a little famine came, he totally lost his Faith in that moment—‘little famine’: “well either God doesn’t know what he’s doing or this is not the place”—and he went down to Egypt.

Then I want you see what a crafty son-of-a-gun he was.  Abram, the hero of....  He’s out there in the foyer, painted, when he comes to mature faith and is tested to the maximum.  Abram was a scoundrel.  The famine came—“Don’t care if God said it; it’ll still be here when I get back.  Famine’s here; I’m leaving.”  I mean, the first Sunday we were here I was sure it was God’s will for us to be here, but when that crowd of 500,000 arrived last Sunday this building will still be here; I’m leaving.  Faith is tested.  And this scoundrel said “We’re going down to Egypt.”  But he looked over his wife Sarai and he says to her, “Honey, you’re so pretty.  When we get down there with those guys and they lay eyes on you and they find out you’re married to me, they’re gonna kill me, get me out of the way so they can have you.”