The Rock And The Hard Place Part 2 Series

The Rock and the Hard Place Part 2

Are You Satisfied With Your Faith Part 1?

Scriptures: Matt. 9:20-22, 27-29; 15:21-28; Mark 5:35-36; Luke 8:22-25; 17:11-19

Introduction:

In part one of this series “The Rock and the Hard Place” I shared with you that being between the rock and the hard place is not the issue. The issue is what we believe pertaining to God and our situation of being between the rock and hard place. I shared with you last week that we would be taking a look at our individual faith this morning. If you recall from last week’s message I told you that when I managed people I had to do year-end reviews which I am sure many of you have participated in. One thing that is consistent when delivering or receiving feedback during a year-end review is that everything goes fine while your discussing what the person is doing well, but the atmosphere often changes when you get to those “areas of development” that a person may have which requires improvement. All of a sudden the defenses come up and the comparisons to others begin. Well, this morning we will continue with our year-end review by looking at our faith individually. The subtitle for part two of this series is my question for you this morning and that question is “Are you satisfied with your faith?” I will do this message in two parts as it was too much to cover in one part and I want to ensure that I do not rush this.

Before I say anything else I want to tell you up front that I am not satisfied with my faith. I know there are things that I have prayed for and not received because of my faith level and some of you are probably in the same boat rowing away with me. This morning I want to show you scripturally that we must spend time “growing” our faith and that it will not happen without our doing something. If you are totally satisfied with your faith level then hopefully you’ll gleam something from this message that will enable you to help someone else. However, I am asking that all of us take a serious look at our faith and consider what our actions should be to increase it. As a baseline for your consideration of where you are in your faith walk, think about your responses to being between a rock and a hard place. Do you stress? Do you lose your appetite? Do you lose sleep? All of these things are considered “normal” by the world’s standard and most of you would look at me as if I had two heads if I told you that although this is a “normal” world response, it should not be ours. If you’re having “normal” world responses to between the rocks and hard places in your life, consider evaluating the strength of your faith. And please understand, as I said before, I am in this with you. We have been trained to not walk in faith so to un-train ourselves requires some work.

Some of you know that I have a personal Facebook account. For the most part, I may skim something and respond to family or close friends related posts but I generally don’t respond to what I read. However, it has become more and more apparent to me that a lot of Christians who post on Facebook about their faith, have a concept of faith and prayer that does not agree with what the Bible says. And I can tell you this morning that if what you believe about faith and prayer is wrong, your faith will not work and your prayers will not be answered. Let me share with you how a lot of people view “faith” issues as captured in a song I heard many years ago.

Some of you will recognize the song “Que Sera Sera”. The song (originally recorded by Doris Day) progresses through the life of the narrator from childhood, young adulthood and falling in love, to parenthood. In each stage of the narrator’s life a question was asked: “What will I be?” of “What lies ahead?” The chorus provides the answer to these questions, “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be, the future not ours to see, Que Sera Sera, what will be will be.” Although I like this song, I disagree with the premise that what will be will be. If that were the case there would be no reason for any of us to pray or have faith because what will be will be. Based on your faith, what will be will not be can be determined by your faith! Keep this in mind: what will be does not have to be according to our faith. I will reiterate this throughout this message. We are going to look at several passages this morning about what the Bible says about the role our faith plays in our getting answers to prayer. Notice the emphasis I’ve placed on “our faith.” You are about to see why.