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The Way of Faith

“Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? ” (John 11:40

Someone says, “Pastor, why can’t you just preach some nice Bible stories and give some good moral lessons from them? All this teaching on faith is kinda boring to me and I can’t really get into it.”         

Well, the Bible is not a book of morals, neither is it just stories of people from Biblical history, like David and Goliath. The Bible teaches morals, of course (10 Commandments), but that is not its purpose. You can learn every heart-warming and exciting story in the Bible and still die and go to hell. Neither pastors nor Sunday School teachers are here just to teach the stories and give some interesting points from them. Our job is to get people to believe in Christ and be saved, and learn how to walk by faith and get their prayers answered, and live a holy life by faith in the gospel.

The Bible is a book about salvation. Period. And that comes by faith. Tell me, what can be more important than getting your prayers answered, assuming you are asking the will of God and not something against His will, like “Lord, kill my neighbor because I don’t like him.”

First we need to see the importance of faith as taught to us in the Bible. “So…. You’re one of those faith preachers.” Guilty as charged. When you see the importance of faith in the Bible you’ll be glad to hear a faith preacher. We cannot be saved without faith; we cannot please God without faith; the just live by faith. On and on I could go. The Bible is full of faith. It is a faith book. Faith is what connects us to God. It’s the hand that receives from God all His promises.

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February 1, 2026 Sunday evening service by Elder Dewey Williams

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Sunday, February 1, 2026

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The Reason for the Delays

Unless He has something greater in mind!!! Which He certainly did for Lazarus. There is such a thing as dying in faith. Heb.11:13 says, speaking of the heroes of faith, “These all died in faith.” And we also have “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Ps.115:16) But what about the unnecessary pain and suffering that people experience that is not unto death or until death comes? You think God wants that? If you do, you might need to rethink your idea of what is good and what the goodness of God is.

God delays answering our prayers because He has something greater in mind. That something greater that He delayed His answer to prayer for with Lazarus, and it could be for us, was the resurrection. As great as “I Am Healer” is, “I Am the Resurrection and Life” is greater. Read Jn.11:25-26. Wow!

All healed people are eventually going to die. All healthy people as well. It’s appointed for all men to die (Heb.9:27). We need to know this when someone we love dies. Everybody dies! We can’t get past the shock of their death if we don’t realize that’s just the way it is.  We need to realize He is the Resurrection even more than we realize His healership, if that’s a word.

God delays His answers to our prayers because He has something better for you or your loved one and that is a greater revelation of Himself and what He’s going to do for you: He is the Resurrection and Life and “He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” The first part of what Jesus said has to do with our bodies and the second part has to do with our spirits. If we believe in Him our bodies may indeed die, but they shall live again. And if we believe in Him, our spirits will never die, because we have eternal life. 

The bottom line is, God answers our prayers according to our faith, not according to anything else. Jesus told the disciples, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe.” (v.15) Then when He finally got there He told Mary and the rest who were listening, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” (v.40) Then we have Heb.11:6 where the inspired writer is explaining faith, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” The question is, are you diligently seeking Him? Are you searching the Scriptures to see if these things are so? Are you meditating on His word? Are you confident that what you have asked of Him you will receive? Because God always answers Yes … to those who pray His will (found in the Bible) with faith.

Notice the present tense used in Jesus’ name. He said, “I AM.” He is not I Was or I Will Be. He’s I Am. What He always has been and always will be (Heb.18:8). Faith believes that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Jesus is always present tense. 

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Sunday, January 18th John Brown brings the message.

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The Priority of Unity Seen in the Prayer of Jesus

The PATTERN

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”  (John 17:20-23)

Patterns are important if you hope to have the real thing come to reality. It is “a model proposed for imitation.” (Webster) My mother used to make clothes and she always bought a paper pattern and she would cut the cloth according to the pattern she had bought. Jesus gave us the model of unity in this prayer. We are to model our lives according to this divine pattern. No deviations are allowed, or the reality won’t fit the pattern, which is a divine pattern.

We were created and saved to bear the image of God, to be like Him. He has given us the pattern of unity that we should follow – His own nature that we see in the Trinity. “As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they may also be one in Us, that they may be one just as We are one.” Wow!

How can we possibly follow this perfect pattern and live in unity? First John 5:7 says, “Three bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; these three are one.” Notice, it does not use the word “Jesus.” Well, the Word is Jesus (Jn.1:1-3,14), but the inspired writer uses the word Word. The other two are with and agree with the Word. What else do we call the Word? The Holy Bible, which is the Word in print. They all agree with the word in print.

Now look at 1 Corinthians 1:10, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Paul pleads with us to be unified in what we say and the way we think. That’s amazing. How can we do that? God fully expects us to do this. How? When we have so many churches saying different things and so many Christians in each church thinking differently, how is it possible for us to have this kind of unity? The word of God. The Bible. This is the one thing we must agree on and if we do we can have unity. We all believe the same Bible. But it’s such a big Bible and some see one thing and others see another thing in the same Bible. Well, this does take some hammering out. I’ll show you how it’s done.

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January 14, 2026 Wednesday Night sermon series

“Lord, he whom You love is sick.” 

So, when Jesus heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.

 (John 11:1-16)

God never says No to our prayers! We’ve always heard that He doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want Him to, but that He answers one of three ways: 1. Yes, 2. No, or 3. Wait.  That teaching is found nowhere in the Bible. Read through the teachings of Jesus in particular and the New Testament in general and you will see. What we perceive as God’s No simply means we did not pray right, according to what the New Testament teaches on prayer. When we pray the way we are taught in the Bible the answer to our prayers is always Yes. When we pray the will of God in faith, God will answer that prayer with a resounding Yes! Read 1Jn.5:14-15, Mk.11:22-24, Jn.15:7, and any other place and you will see that is true.

1Jn.5:4-5 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

  Mk.11: 22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

  Jn.5:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you[a] will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

Most people don’t know how to pray and their lack of answers is interpreted as a No from God. But God never tells us He might say No to our prayers. We need to learn how to pray. This is the point of James 1:6-7 and Jas.4:3.

Jas.1: 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

Jas.4: 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

But there is sometimes a mysterious delay, what is called Wait. Why is that? We’ve all experienced these unexplained delays and would like to know, “Why is God delaying in answering my prayer?” That is exactly what happened in this story of Jesus and Lazarus. The sisters sent word to Jesus that their brother was sick, implying that they wanted Him to come and heal him. That’s what the wording of v.3 “sent to” and v.6-7 mean: “When He heard, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” Then in v.21 & 32 both sisters said, “Lord, if you had been here (if You had come when we called You) my brother would not have died.” Jesus obviously delayed His coming. Why? Why the delay? (What should we do during this delay I will address later.)

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Wednesday Evening Service in John 11

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Stay Connected with Grace Church!

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Disunity between man and God, and man and man, goes all the way back to the beginning. There was no disunity in the paradise God created for man and woman to live in until sin entered the human race. Sin is the cause of all disunity anywhere and everywhere. Somebody does something that’s not supposed to be done or doesn’t do something that’s supposed to be done. God authors unity because He loves it; Satan authors and loves disunity. God loves peacemakers.

The firstborn human killed his brother right off the bat (Gen.4). Before long we have this statement, “The earth was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence,” provoking God to destroy the earth with a flood (Gen.6-7). God created nations for a good reason (Acts 17:26-27). They had become unified against God so He gave them different languages to scatter them “that they should seek the Lord.”

There was disunity between the Father of Faith and his nephew Lot causing them to separate. Abraham went to war against the Canaanites who invaded his land and kidnapped Lot (Gen.14). There was conflict between Abe’s two sons, creating a home divided (Gen.21:8-21). There was disunity in Isaac’s family between his two sons, Jacob and Esau (Gen.27:41). Joseph’s brothers hated him and sold him into slavery (Gen.37:1-28). Israel was in constant conflict with its Canaanite neighbors (Joshua, Judges, Samuel). After King Solomon died Israel was divided into two nations and they were in constant disunity. Israel and Judah were in constant conflict against the nations around them. Assyria conquered Israel and then Babylon conquered Judah. After the remnant returned to Jerusalem there was disunity between them and the surrounding nations (Ezra & Nehemiah).

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