Matt Hagee - Faith, Your Access to Heaven's Power Here and Now
The currency of the kingdom is love, and faith and hope are how you access that currency. Whenever you read in the Word of God faith, hope, and love, they're always working together. And it works together so that you will have the opportunity to operate according to what the Bible says you can operate in this life. What good is the power of God if you have no place or way to access it? Most of the time when people start to talk about God's promises and God's power and they don't receive them in their life, they don't say that it's something they're doing, they just say it's something that God didn't want me to have. But you can't read the Word of God and come to that conclusion.
Just take one section of scripture from Romans 8. Paul asks a very important question in that chapter. He says, "What shall we say of these things? Since God did not spare his own son, how will he not with him freely give us all things"? Paul is saying to us that God loves us so much and has already given his son, how would he withhold anything from us? So, the Bible tells us very clearly that God wants to desperately give you the things that you want to have him do in your life, but you need to know how to access it. Paul is so emphatic about this point. He says, "Just look at what he's already done. He already loved us so much, he gave us Jesus.
And Jesus loved us so much that he gave his life. How will he not freely with him give us all things"? And then he brings it to a crescendo when he says, "If God be for us, who can be against us"? Church, that's something that you should say to yourself on a daily basis. Before you brush your teeth, look in the mirror and say, "If God be for me, who can be against me"? And then, think about what that means. God, the Creator of heaven and earth, if he's for you, then no weapon formed against you would prosper. God, a refuge and a strength and an ever-present help in a time of trouble, because he's on your side, no weapon, no enemy, no accuser, no army can come against you. God, the Lord your healer. God, Jehovah Shammah. God the one who promised to always be your supply.
If he's on your side, no plague shall come near your dwelling, no need shall overtake you. Because El Shaddai, the all sufficient one will supply all of your needs. The question is not, is God the Creator of heaven and earth? Is God, the mighty God Almighty and supreme, is God for us? Does God love us? That's not the question. He proved it when he gave Jesus Christ. And this morning he wants you to know he's on your side. So, since he's given us Christ to prove his love, and Christ has given himself to make his power and his promises real in our life, how do we access it? In the Kingdom of God, there is an account with your name on it and there's provision and there's healing and there's miracle power and there's all of these things in heavenly places.
How do you get to it? Here on this earth, you have your money in a bank, hopefully. Some of you may have it in your mattress. Don't raise your hand, they'll follow you home. But wherever you keep your currency on this earth, you have to know how to access it in order for it to benefit you. If you have it in a bank and you want to access that account, you probably have to have two forms of id, an eight to eighteen character password utilizing no less than one special symbol, three lowercase letters, four uppercase letters, dual verification, your father's high school, your mother's favorite pet, your grandmother's maiden name and the house that you grew up in with the color of the door.
Just to keep your money safe, they make it hard for you to get to it. But wherever that currency is, you have to be able to utilize access to that account before it can benefit you. Well, faith, according to what the Word of God says, is how you access the account in your heavenly places. You can't get anything from God without faith. This is what the writer of Hebrews is saying. He's quoting the prophet of old, and he gives the word that the Lord gave to the prophet. And it starts in verse 38, "The just shall live," how? "By faith". And then, the Lord says, "If anyone draws back from faith, God has no pleasure in him".
If anyone chooses to believe in God and then start to doubt God, God does not have any pleasure in that. And then, it says, "But we are not of those who draw back, but we are of those who believe to the saving of our soul". And then, in the next chapter, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen". How do you receive God's promises in your life? Faith. You don't beg for God's promises. Some people think that that's how you get a request in heaven. The Bible doesn't say, "Come before his gates with begging". It says, "Come before his gates with thanksgiving and with praise". You don't barter into God's promises.
Some people like to barter with God. "God, if you do this, I'll do that". Have you ever seen somebody pray one of those prayers? "Help me with this and I'll serve you in Africa". If everybody who prayed that prayer actually kept their promise, we wouldn't need anybody to go to Africa. You don't barter with God, you don't beg God and you don't borrow faith from others. Oftentimes, people want you to use your faith to believe for them. There's a problem with that. God didn't say, "Let Bubba believe for you". You can work together in intercession, but you have to believe for yourself.
That's why Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith it is impossible," say that with me. "Without faith, it is impossible to please him". Who's him? God. Everything that you receive, everything that you access in heavenly places, everything that God wants to exchange with you, every promise that he has for you, you get it by faith. Faith is how you protect your life from the attack of the enemy. In Ephesians 6:16, you read about the whole armor of God and it says, "And take up the shield of faith". What is the shield of faith able to do? According to scripture, it is able to quench all the fiery darts. How many of the fiery darts? All.
Now, what is this fiery dart issue? In ancient warfare, armies used to wrap their arrows with cloth and then set them on fire and shoot them into the enemy camp. Why? Because if the enemy was distracted fighting a fire, then they wouldn't be able to focus on the fight. So, when the enemy uses a fiery dart, when satan uses a fiery dart, he's wanting to distract you from your purpose. So, what happens in your life when the enemy wants to shoot fiery darts at you, when he wants to distract you, when he wants to take you off of the focus that you're supposed to have? You have a shield, the Bible says of what? "Faith". Say it with me, "A shield of faith".
Now, where does that shield come from? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So, here comes the distraction from the enemy. He wants to distract you by throwing accusations at you and telling you you're not worthy of God's love. He wants to tell you that your past is too painful, or your past is too stained for you to be able to receive God's goodness and his mercy. And here's what the shield of faith says, "Though your sins were as scarlet, because of Jesus, they're now white as snow".
Romans 8:1 says that, "There is now therefore no condemnation unto those who are in Christ Jesus". So, he shoots a fiery dart of fear. He wants you to be afraid of the economy. He wants you to be afraid of this world. He wants you to be afraid of the future. He wants you to be afraid of what the doctor's gonna say when the test results come in. Listen to what Psalms 34 says. It doesn't matter what he wants you to be afraid of because Psalms 34 says, "I sought the Lord and he heard me and he delivered me from all of my fears".
I don't have to fear a storm because my God is the master of the wind. I don't have to fear failure because I can do all things through Christ. I don't have to have any kind of lack or need because God has promised he would open up the windows of heaven and he would pour out upon me blessings that I cannot contain. Where does those promises come from?
From my shield of faith that's found in his word. I don't fear death because he's conquered death and he's given me the keys. I don't fear man because the Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom shall I fear? I don't fear today because he's given his angels charge over me. I don't fear tomorrow because I know the God who holds tomorrow. I don't fear the past because it's forgiven, it's forgotten, it's under the blood, it's bathed in his grace, it's showered with his mercies. Church, have faith in God. Have faith in God! He is the great God who has overcome the world.
Faith is real. It's a substance. It's not figurative. And the Bible tells us in Hebrews 11 that, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence," say that word with me, "The evidence of things not seen". Evidence are the clues. When you go into a court and the jury is supposed to come to a conviction, a decision, the judge wants the jury to make the decision beyond a reasonable what? Doubt. And they're asking for this conviction, and they present what? Evidence. The investigator sits on the witness stand and he says, "Here are the details and here are the clues and here's what we've discovered and here's what we found out".
And then, they take all of that information, and they combine all of that evidence, and they come to the conclusion which is called a conviction. What does it mean for you to live with conviction in your life? It means that you've looked at all of the evidence that you can find, and you've taken all of that data and all of those details, and you've compiled it up and you've come to the conclusion that beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt, this word is true, and God is alive. The author of Hebrews 11 says, "Allow me to give you the evidence that these guys used before you got here". And the first thing that he uses as evidence is the world.
Hebrews 11:3, he says, "By faith we understand that the world that we see around us was formed by the unseen hand of God". He's basically saying, "How can you look at the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the leaves, the grass, the fields, the mountains, all of these things, and for a moment not think that there is a God"? He's basically saying, "Anybody who can see all of that and deny God is dumb". At least that's how it's read in my version. And then, he starts talking about individuals. That, "By faith Abel, and by faith Enoch, and by faith Noah, and by faith Abraham, and by faith Sarah".
They didn't all live perfect and flawless lives, but they all lived with faith. Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice to a God that he had never seen. Enoch lived so faithfully for God and believed so strongly in a God that he was only told about that one day God said, "Hey Enoch, you're too valuable to me up here. Why don't you just come up and spend the rest of eternity with me"? Noah spent 150 years building a boat by faith. He'd never heard of rain, he'd never seen a flood. He built the boat in the mountains. You don't have to be an aquatic engineer to know that's the wrong place to build a boat. But he did it by faith and he saved his whole family.
Abraham dwelt in a land of promise, believing for a city whose builder and maker was God. Sarah, by faith received strength in her womb after it was dead, and she was in her nineties, and she bore a child. And God by faith gave to Sarah and Abraham, a genealogy that's now numbered like the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea. The writer of Hebrews is giving us all of this evidence and he says "They lived and they died in faith". And then, in verse 16, he says something that should grip your heart when you hear it. It says, "Because they lived and they died in faith, God was not ashamed to be called their God". Think about that. God wasn't ashamed to be called their God. He looked over the balconies of heaven and he said, "That one's mine".
Are you living in that kind of faith? Are you living in the kind of faith that when God looks at you, he says, "That one belongs to me. I'm not ashamed of that one". Or are you living the kind of life that when you get outta bed, God goes, "Uh-oh". He goes on life after life, line after line, testimony after testimony, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Jericho, Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel. He says, "There's so much evidence in so many lives that time would fail me. And all of these, they received a good testimony. How did they do it? They did it by faith".
He's made such a case, he's presented so much evidence that he says, "It's time for us to come to a verdict". Has God shown us enough of who he is that beyond a reasonable doubt we can live a life of conviction? Has God given us enough evidence that we can draw the conclusion based on this case that he is a faithful God from generation to generation? If all of those heroes of the faith could live and die with just the promise of Jesus, and you and I are here after Jesus, how much more should we be convinced? How much more should we be convicted? How much more should we be willing to live this life of faith? In verse 39, he says, "They all lived and died believing in a promise but not receiving it".
Church, they believed in it and didn't receive it. We have received it. They believed what they heard from the word in Genesis 3, that he would be the seed of the woman that would crush the head of the serpent. Noah believed what he heard from the word that the ark was going to be a source of salvation. Abraham believed in Genesis 22 that the ram that was caught in a thicket was a symbol and a type and a shadow of the spotless lamb who would come later and die on a place called Calvary.
Chapter after chapter, line after line, book after book in the Old Testament, you get glimpses of Jesus until it's like Paul said in Galatians 4, "In the fullness of time he brought forth his only begotten son born under the law so that those who were in the law could be redeemed". He brought him forth and we beheld his glory. He brought him forth and he was the one who fulfilled every prophecy right down to the line and to the letter. Christ in his earthly life accomplished every mission that redemption would require. And when he died and rose again, it calls him in Hebrews, the author and the finisher of our faith.
If that's not enough evidence, may I encourage you to go find the drunk who put down the bottle and ask them who set them free? Go find the addict who stopped taking the drug and ask them what brought them victory. Go find the broken hearted that now lives a life filled with joy and ask them where that joy comes from. Go find the sick who have been healed and set free and ask them who set them free. Go find the forgiven, go find the redeemed, go find the delivered, go find the restored and let them tell you who did it, who set them free, who made a way, who bought them with a price. His name is Jesus.
Jesus the lamb for sinners slain. Jesus, the redeemer who's faithful and true. Jesus, the gentle shepherd who guides and provides. Jesus the deliverer. Jesus, the healer. Jesus, the way maker. Jesus, the faithful and true, the soon coming king, the Lord above Lords. His name is above every name. His name is Jesus. And you think it's unreasonable to believe in that after all that he's shown you? "Well, I need my senses". Oh, trust me, you can touch, you can taste, you can smell, you can feel Jesus. You don't need much faith to do great things when you've got Jesus.
That's why he said, "Faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain". You just need a little bit of him, and it goes a long way. But there was a problem with those who were around Jesus then, and there's a problem with those who are around Jesus now. Just like he told the ruler last week, "You are close to the kingdom". There's many people in this space today who are close to Jesus, but you're not living with even a mustard seed of faith. And the reason you are living the life you're living is because you're trying to mix faith with doubt, and it doesn't work. When you read what the Bible says about doubt, it says, "The one who doubts shall receive nothing". And Jesus says, "Just a little bit of faith, just a mustard seed of it and I'll do some mountain moving miracles in your life".
Now, where does this doubt come from? I would propose to you that the doubt comes from a lack of evidence. I mean, there's lots of juries that they let the criminal go. Why? Because even though they felt like it was good to convict, they didn't have enough what? Evidence. Jesus, whenever he was dealing with his disciples, he often said to them, "Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt"? And what he was saying to them is, "I have given you enough evidence that you should know who I am and what I can do". I'll prove it to you in one story. Matthew 14:31, Jesus is talking to Peter. Peter and Jesus have just taken a walk on the water. And Jesus is pulling Peter out of the water. And he says to him, "Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt"? He scolded the guy.
And the reason he was upset about this is because in Matthew 8, they were in another storm. And in this particular storm, the winds and the waves were beating on the side of the boat and Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat. And while he's asleep in the back of the boat, Peter yells at Jesus, "Do you not care? We're gonna die". And Jesus stands up and he says, "Peace be still". He calmed the winds and the waves. And the Bible says in that chapter that they were amazed at what Jesus did.
What just happened? Jesus gave them evidence. He gave them enough that they could draw from that the next time they were in a storm, they shouldn't worry about the storm. Because if he can calm that storm, then there's not a storm that he can't talk to and make it quit. And instead of having enough faith to walk on the water and look at the waves and go, "You can't touch me. I have Jesus". And tell the wind, "You can blow as hard as you want. It's not gonna affect me. I've got Jesus. I'm working with somebody who can do more than I can ask, think or imagine. And there isn't anything that you can do about it. Go ahead and blow, wind. Go ahead and rock, waves. I'm walking on the water because of Jesus".
But instead, he let the circumstance dictate the feeling, and it distracted him from what his faith was focused on, and he started to drown. And I would propose to you that there's just as many people drowning in a storm of circumstances here today and watching by television, that even though Jesus has been faithful to you in your past, you're worrying right now if he can do it again. Church, he's a faithful God. He's a faithful God. So, how do you access that promise? Have faith in God. Say it with me, "Have faith in God".
I want you to stand to your feet. And there's some place in your life today where you're going through a storm. There's some need that you have. God already knows all about it. But rather than use the Word of God and faith, you're standing here drowning in doubt, wondering if he's gonna come through again. Well, today we're gonna do what the Bible says. In faith, believing we're gonna join our faith together and pray. And I believe that God is going to make a way in your circumstance as he has in many times before. And I want you to pray with me, doubting nothing and believing that God can and God will keep his promise in your life. So, raise your hands and repeat this prayer with me:
Lord, Jesus Christ today I come to you filled with faith based upon your word and I am asking you in Jesus' name.
Now, I want you to start filling in the blanks of what it is that you are asking God to do for you in faith. God already knows it and God already has provision for it, and it is your faith that is going to access it right now in the mighty name of Jesus.
Father, in the name of Jesus, these requests are being lifted before your throne in heavenly places today. And I am asking you to do what you do, move mountains. Make a way. Show yourself faithful to those who are asking in faith believing today. Cause them to have their head lifted and rejoice filled with hope, knowing that God has heard their prayer and God has met their need and God has answered them in this place today. Father, restore relationships. Move mountains in businesses. Give them peace that surpasses all understanding. Give them hope and confidence that you are the God that you have promised to be ever faithful, ever true, all powerful in all things, always. In Jesus' name we pray and ask. And all of God's children said, "Praise the Lord".