These are notes on the sermon, Speak by Faith Not by Sight, preached by Pastor Joseph Prince on Sunday, May 31, 2026, at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore. We hope these sermon notes will be an encouragement to you!
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Continuing from his previous message, How to Hear God’s Voice, Pastor Prince reminds us of our Lord Jesus’ words:
God is always speaking to His children, yet instead of listening to what He’s saying to them, believers often find themselves listening to other voices. Fear, condemnation, accusation, and voices of unbelief constantly compete for our attention and seek to shape what we believe.
Pastor Prince points out that we are in a battle, and the battlefield is often in the mind. The enemy’s goal is not merely to make us think negative thoughts but to influence the way we think and keep us from believing what God says.
In 2 Corinthians 10:3–5, Paul reminds us that the weapons of our warfare are not natural but spiritual. The strongholds he describes are not physical fortresses but entrenched patterns of thinking that are opposed to God’s truth.
The battle is ultimately about what we believe. Will we agree with the voices of fear, accusation, and unbelief, or will we agree with the voice of our Father who loves us? The voices we listen to will eventually shape how we live and speak.
One reason believers struggle in this battle of the mind is that we tend to place too much confidence in what we can see, touch, feel, and measure. We often assume that what is visible is the truest reality. As a result, we are inclined to live by sight rather than by faith.
However, just because something cannot be seen does not mean it is not real or doesn’t exist. There are invisible realities all around us—radio waves, television signals, wireless frequencies. In the same way, the spiritual realm exists even though it is not visible. Faith begins when we recognize that God’s unseen realities are no less real than the things we can see.
More importantly, the visible world itself came from the invisible world. God is a Spirit, and everything that can be seen originated from Him. The spiritual realm is therefore not secondary to the natural realm—it is actually the source.
Scripture tells us:
Everything that is visible is subject to change. Sickness can change. Lack can change. Weakness can change. Circumstances can change. Because they are temporal, they are not the final reality. God’s eternal realities are more substantial than what we can presently see.
To access God’s spiritual realm, we require faith. Faith is the key to looking beyond our present circumstances and laying hold of the eternal realities that God has already established in His Word.
Understanding this changes the way we view the challenges in life. Scripture shows us that there can be spiritual dimensions to natural problems. An example is the woman who was bowed down for eighteen years. In her case, the Bible tells us that she had a spirit of infirmity, and when the spiritual bondage was addressed, the physical manifestation was removed and “she was made straight” (Luke 13:11–13, 16).
Now, this is not to say that all illnesses or problems we face have a spiritual cause, but oftentimes, transformation begins in the spirit before it becomes visible in the natural. This is why we are called to live according to God’s unseen realities, for “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). What God has established in the spirit is often working long before it becomes visible in the natural.
One of the greatest misconceptions about faith is that faith is responsible for creating the miracle, producing the breakthrough, or generating God’s supply.
Faith does not create the supply. God’s supply is already there. Faith is what allows us to receive what our heavenly Father has already made available.
Pastor Prince illustrates this with the picture of a window. A window does not create sunlight. The sunlight is already there. The window simply lets the light in.
Similarly, God’s provision does not begin when we believe. God’s provision exists because of what Christ has accomplished at the cross. Healing, wisdom, peace, provision, strength, and every blessing we need already exist in the spirit realm. And faith is the window through which we receive God’s provision in our lives. It is what enables us to receive from a realm that we cannot perceive with our natural senses.
If we cannot perceive what’s in the spiritual realm, then how do we know what our heavenly Father has already made available for us? This is why it’s so important for us to hear and read His Word. The Bible tells us all the blessings and provisions God has already prepared for us, His children.
And Scripture also tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ (Rom. 10:17 NASB). Faith does not come merely by having heard once. It comes through continually hearing what God has said in His Word.
The apostle Peter also writes about stirring up our pure minds “by way of reminder” (2 Pet. 3:1). Often, we think we have just simply forgotten God’s promises, but the enemy is constantly seeking ways to steal the Word from our hearts and minds (Mark 4:14–15). So we need to keep hearing. As we continue hearing God’s Word, faith is strengthened, strongholds begin to lose their grip, and God’s truth becomes more real to us than our circumstances.
The more we hear God’s voice, the less we are governed by what we see in the natural. Faith begins to shape not only what we believe but also how we interpret our circumstances.
This does not mean we deny what is happening around us. Rather, we choose to acknowledge a higher reality, to believe that what God says is more real than what we can see and feel.
This is what Jesus demonstrated when He fed the 5,000. Faced with what appeared to be a lack of supply, He did not focus on what was lacking. Instead, He looked up and gave thanks. His focus was on heaven’s provision rather than on the earthly limitation (Matt. 14:13–21, John 6:1–13).
Thanksgiving acknowledges God’s supply before we see it manifest in the natural. It recognizes that God’s provision is already present, even when circumstances seem to say otherwise.
God’s heart has never been for His children to be in lack, scarcity, or limitation. His desire is that we would learn to live supplied by the abundance in His kingdom rather than from the limitations in our circumstances. As believers, we are called to receive what He has already provided and to allow His Word—not our thoughts or feelings—to define our reality.
If the battlefield is the mind, then every victory and every defeat begins with a thought.
A symptom appears, and immediately, fearful thoughts begin to arise. A difficult situation develops, and worry and anxiety begin to build. The enemy seeks to use these negative thoughts to draw us away from God’s truth and into unbelief.
This is why Paul tells us to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
At first glance, many believers read this verse as an instruction to make every thought obey Christ. Yet Pastor Prince points out that the Greek construction places the emphasis elsewhere.
The phrase is not referring to our obedience toward Christ but “the obedience of Christ.” This changes the entire focus of the passage.
When fearful, condemning, or accusing thoughts arise, God’s answer is not for us to look inward at our own performance. Instead, He calls us to look outward to what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.
That’s what it means for every thought to be brought into “captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
This understanding is reinforced in Romans 5:19:
Just as Adam’s disobedience affected all humanity, Christ’s obedience has secured righteousness for all who believe. Our standing before God is therefore not based on our obedience but on our Lord’s.
And Romans 8:32 further tells us that if God was willing to give us His greatest gift—His own Son—why would He withhold healing, provision, wisdom, strength, or any other blessing we need? The cross settled forever the question of God’s heart toward us.
So every thought must ultimately be brought back to this reality: Christ has already accomplished what was necessary for us to stand righteous before God.
And as our thoughts become more and more established in our Lord Jesus’ finished work, faith begins to rise above fear, condemnation, and what our natural circumstances appear to say. Instead of agreeing with the negative voices against us, we learn to agree with what Christ has accomplished and what God says is true.
Once our faith in what Christ accomplished for us has arisen, then what do we do? How do we respond?
God never intended for His truths to remain as mere theological concepts. He desires that they shape the way we think, the way we see ourselves, and even the way we speak.
Paul wrote:
Faith first believes and then speaks. It does not wait for circumstances to change before agreeing with God. It responds to His Word even when what’s in the natural appears to say otherwise.
This is how God Himself speaks throughout Scripture. God does not speak according to the present circumstances. He speaks according to what He sees in the spiritual realm.
When Gideon was hiding in fear, God called him a mighty man of valor (Judg. 6:12–16).
When Abraham had no children, God called him the father of many nations (Gen. 17:4–5).
God spoke according to His reality, not their circumstances. And as children of God, we can learn to do the same. Instead of speaking according to fear, lack, weakness, or what appears visible in the natural, we can speak in agreement with what God has said in His Word.
Please understand that we are not trying to create a new reality with our words or relying on the New Age belief that there’s power in words. We are simply agreeing with the reality that God Himself has already established in His Word.
David is a powerful example of this spirit of faith. Standing before Goliath, he did not speak in fear of the giant in front of him. He spoke in full confidence of the victory that God had promised His people (1 Sam. 17:45–47).
That is the spirit of faith that pleases God. It believes what God has said and speaks in agreement with His Word, even before the manifestation appears.
And if you feel you are lacking in faith, do not be discouraged. Jesus repeatedly encouraged His disciples even when their faith was small.
While calling them “you of little faith,” our Lord was simultaneously assuring them of the Father’s provision. The emphasis was not on the inadequacy of their faith but on the sufficiency of their Father. If God faithfully clothes the grass of the field, how much more will He care for His children?
This is why Jesus could also say that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains (Matt. 17:20). The issue is not the size of our faith but of the One upon whom our faith rests.
Even with little faith, we can receive from God because our confidence is not in our faith itself but in our Father’s provision.
Beloved, the same God who called Gideon a mighty man of valor and Abraham a father of many nations, and who gave David victory over Goliath, is the same God who speaks to us today.
He knows what we need. He has already provided for us in Christ. And He invites us to trust His heart, agree with His Word, and receive His provision.
When fear speaks, when circumstances seem contrary, and when what’s in the natural says otherwise, choose to speak by faith. We can agree with what our Father has said, knowing that His Word is more real than what we can presently see.
We hope these sermon notes blessed you! If they did, we encourage you to get the sermon and allow the Lord to speak to you personally as you watch or listen to it.
© Copyright JosephPrince.com 2026
These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.
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