Do you remember the story when Jesus was walking on water and Peter did too? Jesus had been praying and a storm had come up - he walked out to where the disciples were - Peter said, “Lord if its you, tell me to come and I’ll come to you.” Jesus said come on - Peter gets out of the boat and he starts walking to Jesus, but then he sees a wave or two and he feels the wind and he begins to sink - Jesus says to him, “You have so little faith, why did you doubt me?”
If we are honest - most of us have had experiences much like Peter. I don’t find many people who say “I have great faith” Maybe its humility, but even those who in my eyes have great faith, still struggle to believe that God could use them, that he could do great things in their lives...
This morning I want to look at faith. But instead of talking about faith in terms of what we are familiar with, I want to look at the life of Moses.
In Hebrews 11 we have examples of people of faith - in vs 23-29 we have the life story of Moses. (Read)
So what is faith? Well...
Sometimes Faith means Letting Go - we’ve all heard the phrase, “Let Go and Let God” right? But think of it from the standpoint of Moses’ Mother... When Moses was born there was a new law from the Pharaoh - all the male children had to be killed. Moses was born and hidden away - I’m sure there were many others that were in hiding, but eventually the day came when that was no longer safe. She made a basket and placed him in the basket - can you imagine the prayer - See, faith is letting Go - it’s placing whatever it is in God’s hands...
Here’s a question - what do you need to let go of? We are very bad about trying to control things. We hold onto everything from sin to success - but imagine if you had the faith to let it go and trust that God knows what’s down the river...
Sometimes faith means Living Out the Truth - Moses grew up in the Pharoahs house. He grew up an Egyptian - but that wasn’t his real identity. There came a time when he had to choose. Was he going to pretend, or was he going to embrace his real identity?
So let me ask you? Who are you? I think sometimes we give our life to Christ and we forget that we are his... We slip back into this idea that God expects things of us and that if I do what is needed - he’ll be happy. But when you give your life to Christ - he becomes your Lord - your master - you are made new... It takes real courage - real faith to live out of that new self. Paul talks about this struggle a lot!
Sometimes faith means Learning to see the invisible - we see that a lot in the life of Moses. He was the only one to see God on a lot of occasions.
Living by faith is about trusting that which you can’t always see. If we are honest though, we’d rather have things laid out for us in writing!! We’d much rather see it and then believe it. But the last time I checked the Holy Spirit was still a Spirit. If you want to develop eyes of faith then you have to start learning to listen and get in tune with the Spirit.
Sometimes faith means doing what you are told. Moses was told to do this and his people would be saved...
This is pretty basic, but don’t miss it. A big part of faith is doing what you’ve been told. I know that we want to go our own way and carve our own paths - but there are guidelines that God has given us. If you want to be used of him, the starting point is usually just going on what you’ve been told...
I know most of you guys are believers - but the way a person comes to Christ is by faith - by trusting in believing that what Jesus said is true... That by believing in him you can find life. I know often we want more proof - but if we had proof it wouldn’t be faith! Maybe today, you’ve been coming and you’ve been thinking about trusting - I say go for it...
Sometimes faith is taking those small first steps and just trusting. Moses led his people to the red Sea and he lifted his staff and the water parted - can you imagine being told to go first? “Hey you go, not me, you go - I’m not going, you go”
You want to develop your faith - start taking small steps. Maybe its to meet the new neighbor on your block - maybe its that you start prayer walking - maybe God wants you to share your faith with someone - maybe you need to go on a mission trip - ...just start somewhere - you never get to see the wall of water and cross on dry ground unless you take that first step...
