Wake Up, Church! Awaken Our Faith Series

In America, we have lost faith in many things.

For example we have lost faith in our future.

(Americans' optimism about country's direction over next year drops nearly 20 points since May: POLL

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/americans-optimism-countrys-direction-year-drops-20-points/story?id=79036435

July 25, 2021)

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that Americans’ optimism about the future of our country has dropped nearly 20 points.

In May, the poll reflected that roughly one third of Americans were pessimistic about the future and direction of our country.

Now a majority of Americans polled, 55%, say they are not confident about the future direction of our country.

We’ve lost faith in our government in general.

(https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/05/17/public-trust-in-government-1958-2021/

Public Trust in Government: 1958 - 2021

May 17, 2021)

Pew Research reports that in 1958, the National Election Study began asking about Americans’ trust in our government. At that time, about 3/4 of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost or most of the time.

But that began to erode during the 1960s, partially due to the Vietnam War.

While there were boosts in the confidence of the government shortly after the attacks of 9/11, trust and faith in our federal government has not exceeded 30% since 2007.

During the Clinton era, the percentage of Americans feeling that the government would do the right thing for the right reasons fell to an all time low. Only 19% felt that the government would make the right choices.

Today, trust in government remains low. Only about one-quarter of Americans say they can trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (22%).

So who do we trust?

There’s still a high distrust in the media no matter which side you think is right.

You can’t trust social media any more.

So today, who do we trust? In whom do we put our faith? The world looks to Movie stars — sports players — even CEOs of businesses!

(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edelman-trust-barometer-2021-ceo-government/

Americans trust CEOs more than their own government, survey finds

January 13, 2021)

According to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer update, 61% of the 33,000 people surveyed in 28 different countries, indicated they trusted CEOs and businesses more than they trusted the government or media.

Richard Edelman, CEO of the company who completed the survey, said, “Trust has actually gone local,” when talking to CBS News about the survey results. “Business is the most trusted institution, but ‘my employer’ and ‘my employer CEO’ and even ‘my employer publication’ is more trusted than the media.”

72% of respondents indicated they trusted their employer to do what is right.

There’s a problem with all of these, though. Eventually all of these will fail us. There will be a mis-queue. There will be a misstep. There will be mistakes. There will be wrongdoings. After all, we are still human, no matter our status or prestige.

So who can we trust?

Ourselves? That’s not a good plan either.

We’ve lost our faith in our country, and we are looking for everything and anything in which to put our trust.

It is just as true that in our world today we have lost our faith in God. We live like the prayer leader in this short video clip.

Video Ill.: Umbrella - Onetimeblind

How many of us live like this skit today? We pray, but we don’t expect answers! We pray, seeking God’s answer, but don’t actually expect him to answer us.

In these times, many are questioning their faith, questioning where they can place their trust.

It’s not just those out in the world. It’s those right here in these pews too.

We are seeing this lack of faith play out in our country — people are turning away from the church, from the Bible, and ultimately away from God.

Faith. It seems so basic, yet today it is getting harder and harder to find those who are willing to profess faith in God, let alone live a life of faith.

But as with all things, this is nothing new!

When the disciples asked why they couldn’t heal a boy, Jesus told His disciples, His very followers, that they lacked the faith to do it.

20 “… Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17, NIV)

There are stories after stories in the Bible that show us examples of what it means to have faith.

Look up Matthew 9 later. Three here come to Jesus with limited faith, limited theology, limited vision — and they all found that Jesus was all they needed.

In Matthew 17, just before Jesus commented about the disciples’ lack of faith, an epileptic child’s father comes in faith to Jesus, begging for his son to be healed. And Jesus healed the boy.