Leon Fontaine - Know the Truth
Today, so many Christians we just kind of walk around, "Well, you know, golly gee. We hoping and praying about that one". That's not faith. And so I wanna dive into this topic for the next 19 minutes and if you've got a pen or a paper or get a hold of this because I wanna talk about faith. 1 John 5:4-5, says, "For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world". It doesn't say for whatsoever believeth. It's for whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory. It doesn't say, and this is how you go to get it, and this is how you work at this, and this is the process of victory. This is the victory that overcomes the world even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world? But he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God.
It's not believing whatever you want. This faith must be anchored in Jesus Christ. And when your faith is in Jesus Christ, there is a faith and you begin to get God's Word on the inside of you. The Bible says promises guarantees miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle in your life. And yet you talk to Christians today, "You know, we're hoping and praying and believing God for some stuff. But, you know, we really haven't had any miracles". Well, then maybe we need to get back into the Word and ask ourselves because one of the greatest enemies, a great speaker years ago almost 70 to 80 years ago said, "There's a counterfeit that has come to North America when it comes to faith". And that is mental assent. Mental assent is not faith. Mental assent believes things, but it never goes deeper than mind.
There's lots of religions out there, new age stuff. That's mind over matter and it's psychology today instead of spirituality today. We bought into so much stuff that our whole faith has been rewritten by our own little new age-y kind of things. "Oh, I kind of believe that". I don't care what you believe. You know, you electricians, if you gonna go wire a great big thing on, you say, "Hey, it's the power off"? I believe so. I don't care what you believe. You go guarantee me the power is off before I get my fingers on those bare wires. That you, you know, no. And that's where Christians are today, "Well, I believe so". The devil believes and trembles. It doesn't make him a Christian. There's something about faith that is been missed. It's been forgotten. They're don't even know where of it today.
There are people who are sitting here in church right now, you think you're Christian because you believed the four or five things I just told you. And you've never gone and chosen and accepted and confessed and believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Like, these powerful principles, it's for whatever is born of God. If you're not overcoming everything that is at you in this world. Maybe we should look at what do you believe? Psalm 27:1, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid"? This one verse is something you ought to confess every day. It is so complete. The Lord is my light. He shines light on every dark area of your life, business, relationship. He would guide you and your wife, you and your kids.
You know, where do I go in my decisions for buying homes, doing business? You know, the Lord is my light. Anytime you say the word Lord, it will be also His Word is my light. It's my salvation. Whom am I gonna fear now if God's guiding me? Who's gonna lead me astray? Who's gonna say I've got you going in the wrong? God is my light. He's a flashlight. He's a laser beam. He's a spotlight so big it's blasting in front of me going, "Here's the way Leon. Come follow Me". He is my light. And then it says, "He is my strength". You know, there are so many times I do not feel like doing the things God has called me to do. You know, most of the times, you know, I get up and it's Sunday and whichever city I'm preaching in. And you get up and you get yourself ready and you work on your body. You try to get your hair in place. You try to get your teeth done up and try to get the whiskers off and try to find something that matches and gets together.
I mean, you look after all that physical thing and then you get up there. And if your mind's been busy solving problems on running organizations and hiring staff and training and equipping and all the other things. You got your family and your kids and your wife and your grandkids. There's so much stuff going on. Then you get up to preach the Word of God. If I cannot switch that, if I cannot flip that switch from the soul's realm, the mental realm, the physical realm, my feelings realm. If I cannot and get in the things of the spirit, then I'm not giving you nothing. It is the presence of God. It has been spiritually minded. It's making sure that the Word is being spoken. That Holy Spirit is here today and that is gonna change lives.
Today, we live by so much emotion. Emotion is king in today's world and we've got psychology. And by the way, we have doctors and psychiatrist and counselors all attending our church who are incredible people. But they'll agree with me on the statements I'm gonna make. People who just buy into psychology because we can call something a name, we think got it figured out. Well, they've called it depression for almost a hundred years and still they haven't figured that one out. Let alone all the other psychos that are out there. Psychology believes in a mind and matter. They have no belief in spiritual things. Yet that is what the Bible says is the foremost, the most important, the most incredible, is the thing that goes on in your spirit and the things that go on in the spirit realm. The soul is an onboard computer and the body is just a space suit to help you walk on this planet.
We must understand this thing called faith. Because by faith the worlds were formed, by faith the continents came into existence. By faith, you know, God is a faith God. When you take to look at what you've gotta believe, we have to focus. Let me finish on the emotional thing. You know, in James 3:3, it says there that we put bits in a horses' mouths and that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body. Leave that on there for a minute. I come from a ranch. My grandpa, my uncle, had a ranch and then they also had a logging operation. And so summer after summer, Christmas after Christmas, I go out there as a little boy. I love horses. Interesting thing about horses. You know, when you get a horse laying down and you go lay on its head he can't get up. A horse cannot get up until he gets his head up first. And so you just lay on top of a horse's head, he's staying down. Did you know that, the horse wants to buck and go up, he has to put his head up first. And so if you've got a horse who's always bucking? Keep his head down. If you're not strong enough, then get a little rope on there and keep his head down. So if he can't get his head up, he can't rear up. If you want a horse and a horse is bad, he wants to...
One of my friends had a horse rolled on him and crushed his pelvis. If you wanna stop a horse from rolling, keep his head up. Don't let his head down. He can't get on the ground unless his head goes down. Horses are interesting. And so you put a bit on the horse's mouth. You control his head. You control everything about where he's going, what he can do, what he can't do. You as a, I've watched 90-pound soaking wet girls completely control that 1.000-pound animal. Why? They understood. And this is talking about our tongue. It's talking about our attitudes. You know, I haven't got the time to talk about this. But if you can't control your emotions, that's a faith issue.
What do you believe? Well, I believed that I should express myself. Oh, where's that in the Bible? Give me a verse. Well, you know, it's hormonal. Oh, give me another verse. But, you know, He loves me. She loves me, so I can just be myself. Oh, this is you. So many lies destroying marriages, destroying relationships. When the Bible says He will keep in perfect peace whose mind stayed on Him. What you gonna believe? What you believe is controlling your relationship right now, controlling your health, controlling your money, controlling everything. It is faith that is crucial. It's just that we don't know what it is, how to get it, and how to release it. We just kind of meander off and forget about these crucial principles that bring God's power into our lives. When you take a look at Jesus, someone said, "Everyone's gotta believe something". No, no. You're wrong. Oh, I believe I can be anything and do anything. No, no. That's not Bible either.
You don't make up the truth. You discover the truth. Faith doesn't create and initiate your life. Faith responds to the initiator. God who created you made a way, gave you promises, and gave you a way to be free, to be clear, to be righteous, to be clean. You don't take your faith like you God and you go create your world. Faith responds to the most glorious incredible message that is ever come to this planet. It's the message of Jesus. None of us wants to talk about Jesus. You can talk about God. Give Jesus a hand. You can talk about God. God could be Allah. God could be one of the million Hindu Gods. God could be God. God could be your Camaro for all we know because idolatry is everywhere. But the Bible, the gospel is not the good news about God. The Bible's not the good news about just believe. The Bible is the gospel about Jesus.
Let me read you some verse. I'm gonna go fast and so write them down and go over them. The Bible says, Jesus says in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst". He didn't say have a belief system. Gosh golly gee, you know, the Bible's a little bit harsh. Let's just water the thing down. No, it says that anybody that changes the Bible and tries to rewrite it, his name will be stricken from the book of Life. I don't even wanna mess with that. John 8:12, Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life".
Yeah, Leon, you know, God's God. Religions all become together. Everything's gonna be cool. No. I love and accept and hang out with lots of different beliefs and people. Our tolerance and our laughter and our love and our business, great! But now what do I believe is so crucial. That it's going to either get me miracles, either gonna help me build relationship or I'm gonna get so watered down. And that's where the world is going with this explosion of knowledge. And you think the guy is an expert on the Bible and so he starts, you know, puffing away. No, Jesus said these things. He didn't say believing is the light. He said, I am the light. John 10:9 says, "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved". He doesn't say pick a trip, pick a path. He's in love with you be good to people. You're gonna be okay.
Oh, then Jesus was pretty crazy when He said I am the door. Anyone who enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. Jesus is so clear. This is the gospel folks. It's great news. It's exciting. Jesus said in John 11:25, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this"? What do you believe? John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me". This is either true or we gotta just strike Jesus name out. I believe Jesus was a good guy, someone told me. I said, "A good guy? Then He must be crazy because He said He was the only way. He said He was the only truth. He said He was the only way to life. He said He was the only to forget this. He said He was the only way, Well, you know, I don't know if I believe that.
That's the difference between heaven or hell. It's not what you believed. It what you have taken your faith and chosen and accepted and believed on Him. It's not just a matter what do you believe in a broad sense. He, Jesus said, no one comes to Father except through Me. Someone said to me, "Leon, you know, we're not really gonna get anywhere if we just keep excluding everybody". No, you're wrong. We're not gonna get anywhere if we keep including everybody. And then, you know, and someone was going in their deathbed and they have a loved one that they knew. And they said, "Yeah, he's probably gonna go home in the next day or so". I said, "Have you gotten him saved yet? "Well, you know. I don't know". I said, "You don't know. You don't know he knows Christ and he's going into eternity sometime today. "Well, yeah. But, you know, I don't really wanna be pushy or turn him off". I said: Sweetie, he's as off as he's ever gonna be. And if he doesn't know Jesus, are you gonna take the chance? Could you get a little bit of guts? Could you get a little bit of jam? Could your love provoke you to a faith that says I'm gonna sit by that bed till his eyeballs pop open. I'm gonna share with him before he goes into eternity. The only way Jesus.
We think our kids, you know, they talk. You know, sometimes with our teenagers. I'm gonna be doing an evening on parenting teens. Don't miss that thing even if you're a grandparent. Because I'm just flabbergasted on how parents are raising teens today. And we need to understand that teenager they'll say to you, "Well, you know, I just don't know if I want to come to church anymore because we don't like. We hate this". And they start listing all these sins. No, it's not true at all, not at Springs anyway. We talk all the time about loving, accepting, and forgiving, and we do. But now, what do you believe and how you gonna live your life is a crucial issue. That we must teach as a church, teach as parents, and we cannot compromise.
We cannot have a forward mouth, have a crooked doctrine that just goes well. No. Yes, we love. Yes, we accept people. Yes, we forgive people. We can hug their neck and water ski and work and do business with whatever they believe. But don't let their beliefs creep into yours when you've got the truth. That's why Spirit Contemporary is so powerful. Be spiritually alive but be contemporary to every person you talk to. You're like Jesus who love them from the adulterous to the thief and the liar to the drunkard. He just loved them and accepted them. But He also want to present truth and a way that would go through their sense of rejection. Most people can't hear you share the gospel because of your attitude of rejecting them. Jesus didn't reject people. He accepted people and out of that loving relationship truth could come. Speak truth in love.
John 15:5, He says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me, lives in Me and I live in him. He's the one who bears much fruit". People often talk to me, "Leon, I just can't get this working in my life. I can't get that working in my life". And everything for them is transactional. Give one of the three steps to this, two steps to that. Why didn't I get that? Why had this happened? Why did I lose that? It's not about transactions with God. It's about a relationship with God. He said, "I am the vine, you are the branches". He's saying, "I am the trunk of this tree right down to the roots. You are the branches coming off. When you abide in Me, he says, and I in you. You are going to bear fruit. Means you're, the word "bear fruit" means you're gonna produce results.
What kind of results? Well, I don't need results everybody else can get. I want supernatural results. I want spiritual results. I want the results of peace. His peace, His joy, His health, His healing. All of it. His future, His joy. This comes from abiding. We sang this old song when I was a kid. Abiding in the vine, Abiding in the vine. Love, joy, health, peace. He has made them mine. I have prosperity. And it goes on listing the promises of God by abiding in the vine. Has your faith just become transactional? Where, I need this. Give me a couple of verses so I can get that done. It's like going to a store and pulling out your credit card. It's about two or three steps, its yours. Have we treated God that way? You know, it's a relationship and out of this relationship everything in your world will begin to grow.
In John 20:31, it says, "But these are written that you may believe". It doesn't stop there. It's not just about believing. We gotta be a believing person. Everybody is a believing person. Some believe in negative. Some believe in positive. Some believe in life as garbage. Some believe life is good. Some believe that there's nothing they can do about it, so they just give up. No. Everybody, you are a believing machine. You were designed to be this believing thing. Your health, every cell in your body is attached to what you believed. Every, and you radiate what you believed and every person you attracted to your world is gonna come because of what you believed about them and what you believed about friends and what you believed about money and sex and people.
We are this thing designed around believing so the world can make some of that work. But here He says what's written in the Bible is there so that you and I could believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that by this believing you may have life in His name. What kind of life? A Jesus life. Jesus health. Jesus relationships. Your faith, and when it's saying believing here, it means a going in there and believing. It means making this decision, speaking forth God's Word. This thing called the Christian faith. This thing called being born again, is a born again. You know, birthing is quite an experience. I love and respected Sally, I thought, until she had our first baby. I'm going, "Jesus. Oh, man. Jesus". Like, that's one tough woman. I'm so in love with her. Then she had two, three.
There's something about the birthing of something. That it's not this. Oh, yeah, yeah. Couple of seconds we had another baby. No. It is something you get aside, and I'm not supposed to talking about walking in the curse. I just mean that what you could not see except for a baby bump became a living being that you held and you hugged. To be birth, anything that is birth is phenomenal incredible. It brings great joy and beauty and excitement. This thing about being born again. This thing about giving Jesus your life. This being, this new birth is phenomenal, have we forgotten? Have we forgotten the salvation and what we believe to become saved? And how it changed our lives? And that same faith that you made you reach out and put a hand up and declare and get out to church and read the Bible and get the courses and start giving to something different. It just changed your whole world. But when you stop believing, okay, then you just kind of plateau off. This thing called faith.
I'm out of time so I deal with this in the second service. But what's the definition of faith? Because its so forgotten. How do you get faith? Because people have forgotten. How do you lose it and get it going and working for you? And people have forgotten. Have you forgotten faith? Have you, maybe not even realized that the selfish side of me just went to God for a few transactions. I need some peace my brain is going crazy. I need some money because we're not going where we want. I need some healing because my body is just, I need you to help me with my kids, help with my spouse, and it's just a transaction. Will He do that? Of course, He will. But whatever you get to work once or twice, can't compare to knowing Him, to being with Him, to abiding in Him, to believing in Him.