Walking by Faith

Avant begins with the phrase itself: for we walk by faith, not by sight. He emphasizes the word walk because it speaks of a lived pattern, not a one-time shout. A man walks when he makes daily decisions, orders his loves, directs his speech, chooses his response, and keeps moving in God through ordinary time. In that sense, faith is not merely agreement with doctrine. It is the atmosphere of obedience.

He applies that specifically to men by talking about calling in broad terms. Some are called to preach, some to teach, some to drive buses, plumb houses, practice medicine, lead worship, or serve in other ordinary vocations. Avant’s point is that every one of those callings can be inhabited apostolically. The Holy Ghost does not only sanctify church roles. It sanctifies whole lives. Walking by faith means a man learns to carry God into the daily path he has actually been given. Source moment: 48:00.

Source moment 48:00

Avant steps back into the wider context of 2 Corinthians 5. Paul is writing about the earthly house and the eternal house, about mortality and the hope of being present with the Lord. Avant says that “we walk by faith, not by sight” lands in the middle of future hope. In other words, Christian men are not only trying to survive the next week. They are living toward eternity. That future reference point is what keeps the present from swallowing the whole story.

This matters because immediate pressure has a way of shrinking a man’s field of vision. If all he can see is the current problem, then every problem feels final. Avant wants men to recover the long horizon of the gospel. God is preparing something beyond what natural sight can measure. The unseen world is not less real because it is presently hidden. It is the truer frame. When a man remembers that, he can endure, obey, and wait without making the present discomfort into the final verdict. Source moment: 50:16.

Source moment 50:16

Hebrews 11:1 gives Avant one of his key definitions: faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He presses the point by saying faith does not wait around for evidence to appear in order to start obeying. Faith itself is evidence. It trusts God’s word before the whole outcome is measurable. That idea is what lets Noah build before rain, Abraham leave before clarity, and the woman with the issue of blood press through before any crowd gave her hope.

This is the part of the teaching that confronts passivity. Many men say they are trusting God when what they really mean is that they are waiting for enough visible certainty to feel safe. Avant says faith often steps first. It leans on the character of God and the trustworthiness of His word while the rest of the picture is still forming. That does not mean recklessness. It means obedience before perfect visibility. Source moment: 51:44.

Source moment 51:44

Avant brings in Proverbs 3:5-6 and then shifts into a vivid illustration from his own life, telling the story of a power outage and the fear-filled assumptions that followed. A tree limb in the dark looked like a man with a gun. A bug on a forehead sounded like an emergency. The room laughs, but the teaching point lands cleanly: sight is limited, and feelings can rush ahead of truth. Men know this instinctively, yet they still keep surrendering judgment to their worst read of a moment.

He ties that illustration to spiritual life. A bank account, a medical report, a hard conversation, or a troubling delay can dominate what a man sees. Once sight becomes master, fear becomes loud. Avant is not minimizing actual danger or real grief. He is teaching that the first interpretation of a moment is not always the truest one. Faith learns to submit raw perception to the character of God. Source moment: 53:52.

Source moment 53:52

The Peter story is where the teaching gains holy aggression. Avant says Peter knew the safest place for a fisherman in a storm was the boat. Yet when Jesus said “Come,” the safest place changed. Safety was no longer defined by normal logic but by nearness to Christ. Peter steps out, walks on water, later notices the wind, and begins to sink, but does not go under. Avant loves that detail because it shows that a faltering step of faith still leaves room for a saving hand.

This becomes a word to men hesitating over obedience. Who stayed in the boat matters less than where Jesus is standing. If the Lord is out on the water, then the faithful response is movement toward Him, not clinging to the familiar. Avant also reminds the room that short prayers still matter. “Lord, save me” was enough to call forth immediate help. The lesson is not that faith feels fearless. It is that faith keeps moving toward the Lord even when the environment remains stormy. Source moment: 1:00:03.

Source moment 1:00:03

Romans 8 lets Avant say that hope seen is not hope. He then turns that into counsel for men who want every answer in advance. God does not show the whole picture at once. He leads step by step. He gives daily mercies, daily benefits, and enough light for the next act of obedience. A man may want a blueprint, but God often gives a promise and a next step instead. That is why waiting is such a proving ground for faith.

Avant keeps the application direct: chill, stop trying to figure everything out. That line may sound casual, but the theology underneath it is serious. If God really is the author and finisher, then a man can stop acting as though omniscience is part of his job description. Trust is not mental laziness. It is the refusal to usurp God’s role. A faithful man takes the next step and leaves the whole map in stronger hands. Source moment: 1:02:01.

Source moment 1:02:01

A long central section of the teaching is autobiographical. Avant tells of years of waiting for children, an adoption opportunity that failed after hope had already risen, the later adoption of a son, pregnancy loss, later children, and repeated seasons where the family had to trust God through uncertainty and grief. He presents these events as family testimony, not as a reproducible formula or roadmap for another family.

What makes the testimony fit the message is not merely that Avant says God eventually answered. It is that he kept returning to trust when sight gave him reasons to collapse. He admits anger, confusion, disappointment, and the sharp questions that rise in suffering. Yet each story circles back to the same conclusion: the duty of a man in the middle is still to trust Jesus. The fertility, pregnancy, birth, and health outcomes in this testimony were not independently verified in the source material, and the sermon does not present them as medical guidance. They are presented as witness while a family kept walking by faith. Source moments: 1:05:52, 1:14:42, 1:18:52, and 1:24:27.

Source moment 1:05:52

After the first altar movement and a stretch of worship, Avant returns without abandoning the message’s central line. He keeps pressing testimony, surrender, and endurance. The room has already been called to declare, “I’m going to make it,” and the post-altar exhortation insists that men must keep walking in what they just prayed. Faith is not a camp feeling that expires when the music fades. It is the next obedient step after God has already spoken.

That makes the later movement feel more pastoral than performative. Avant is still pushing men toward witness, consistency, and usable testimony, but he does it without leaving the service’s main burden behind. The issue is not learning every future detail. The issue is refusing to go back to sight-ruled living once a man has been called to walk by faith. Source moment: 1:43:58.

Source moment 1:43:58