Sunday February 17th, 2008
Series: the Fight part 7
Scripture: Mark 11:22-24
Sermon: Making Your Faith Visible
Speaker: Pastor Michael West
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.
I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ just ’Go, fall into the sea and it will happen.
If you have no doubts in your mind and believe that what you say will happen, God will do it for you. It will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours! believe that you have received the things you ask for in prayer, and God will give them to you.
Listen, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!!
God has called us to be prayer warriors. The Jesus in you lives to make intercession for you and all you have to do is open your heart to Him. Don’t just pray and expect God to do something, show God your serious in your prayer and give it all you got. Hang in there, get serious. Look around the landscape of life that surrounds you and your everyday living. It is continually changing and God wants you through prayer to release His future, what He desires, to meet every need.
Why do you thing you see things that are wrong? Through prayer they can be made right. What is crooked in your sight is crooked in God’s sight and He can make them straight again through you by prayer.
Stop criticizing what is wrong in life and put your prayers to work to change what’s wrong, to conquer what is out of place, to bind up what is running amuck. To loose those held in Satan’s grip—it’s done by our words, by the words in our prayers.
The Lord our God in the midst of us is mighty! He is powerful!
Our weapons are mighty to pull down strongholds. Stop thinking you’re unable to pray—that is a lie from hell—you are a warrior of the most High God—you are a prayer warrior!
Stop judging and pray. Stop trying to figure it all out and quit
praying what you think and pray what you know.
You might not start out strong, but you will finish strong.
We are the enemy hell was warned about. We scare the demon forces that dare to rise up against God. In this fight of faith, it’s time to make your faith visible. We need to ask ourselves; Does Jesus see my faith in action? Or am I all talk?
The real Jesus is our Savior, true, but He is also the perfecter of our faith. —Hebrews 12:2
Get a hold of this, the faith He started in you, He has been trying to
perfect it. It is because of this that when we move in prayer and spiritual authority, fearlessly continuing to persevere, moving forward-not back, with motives purified by love, backed by love, inspired by love, it is that power of faith that Jesus gave us and is working to perfect us, it is the power of faith that undergirds it all.
Like the little boy and girl, each had five pennies and they were counting them out… the girl said five, the boy said ten, she said no, I have five and you have five that makes ten, he said no, I have ten, little girl asked how could that be? The boy said that when his dad got home tonight, he was going to give him five more and that makes ten.
Sounds good for doctrine, but in the outworking of our lives, we tend to resist it, because we know full well that in order for us to be perfected we must be tested.
Now to speak of faith, I’m not talking about getting all the facts of the
Bible and memorizing every verse because our need for salvation, of course those are elements of our spirituality, but not the substance. To gain knowledge takes time, to possess true saving faith, takes courage. Jesus wants us to trust in Him, to obtain the trust in Him that can actually overcome terrible storms of life—faith that brings the reality of heaven to earth.
Faith is more than head knowledge. It is the thing what pleases God and locks us into the position of His goodness and power so that no matter what the circumstance reveals outwardly, we are not moved inwardly. It’s this faith that changes us. It is the source behind the power that will potentially transform any situation—faith.
My faith. Your faith. Our faith together. Hebrews 11 shows us and makes very clear, all those who possessed this faith changed the world around them.
The Bible is the accurate Book on the planet—scientifically, historically, prophetically and the best Book for everyday living, teaching and, instruction. It is revelation into the most awesome God alive—in fact, the only God alive and it is the only Book on the planet that hasn’t changed it’s method, nor direction, or the how to gain eternal life.
By faith we believe it because we know and see.
Let’s face it though, we are good at doctrine, how church should be, how a Christian should live, but do we really know the Jesus of the Bible?
So many want to know Jesus and want God’s help, but only for the moment or the next crisis. We want the comfort He offers but not the conviction. To heal us, but don’t inhabit us. We seek and want the Holy Spirit to help us find the American Dream.
Yet, what we have is a Holy Spirit who seeks to give us the dream of God: which is, man living in the image of Christ—Genesis 1:26
I guess that means God had a goal not to just save us, but to conform us into the image, not just a reflection, of Christ, to perfect us not just protect us. To perfect faith, God intentionally allows storms to come our way.
But what do we do? We see Jesus coming along, holding our hand, patting our backs, going: there, there now, it will alright, I’m with you.
That is not the echo of Jesus, it is the echo of your mother, God bless mothers, but Jesus is seeking to get us to stop being such big babies, He wants us to grow up. You know the Jesus who said:
“All things are possible to him who believes. Mark 9:23
If the Jesus you follow is not taking you into the realm of world changer, you are probably following the wrong Jesus.
Giving your life to the Lord didn’t mean He would keep you out of trouble, no, it meant that He would empower you to overcome your adversity. Yes, He will take care of you but not by putting you in a protective faith chamber that keeps you void of problems. No, He will perfect you. He will perfect virtue in you by developing your character and by requiring faith, in that method you have a spiritual shelter of a transformed life.
You have to get used to the idea that Jesus wants to perfect your faith. Sooner or later you will be in a position where you will have to look the impossible straight in the eye and believe God for His power.
Remember Peter on the water? —Matthew 14:22-33—
Here we see Jesus waits until this storm rolls in before He sets out to cross over to the other side. And, He had no real intentions in riding in a boat, but He comes near the disciples with something in mind-to teach a lesson in trust. He could have waited for the calm or the next ferry boat—but no, Jesus had a plan in the storm and it wasn’t water-walking 101.
There was no practice on frozen water, just a storm that came up. It was a natural phenomenon—the storm and Jesus is going to take the
opportunity to show the disciples something about faith. And on top of it all, He comes at night, not day, in the middle, not when they are close to shore. And lets add a degree of difficulty, the men are pooped out and scared.
Here comes Jesus—A ghost! And note, when we notice things that are ghostly or demonic—the Lord allows it to set the stage to teach us a lesson in faith.—Jesus said; take courage, it is I, be not afraid.
And bless his brave little heart, Peter says, If it is you, command me to come—not ask, not tell, but command. Peter was discovering fast that if the Lord commanded it, it will happen.
So you see, Peter isn’t walking out on water, he walks out on the command-Come. I don’t believe Peter got a surge of Holy Ghost bumps, or stomach churning butterflies, or any glory chills, Peter just threw one leg over the rail and then the other, right down into the stormy water, rises up and starts walking.
This is no short walk. Anyone can walk on water for the first step, it’s the second step that gets difficult. As we know, the storm gains Peter’s focus and He sinks, but do you think Jesus, after raising him up and walking back to the boat, getting in, says—Wow, that was great for your first try! No—He says; Why did you doubt?
Jesus saw greatness in Peter, but refused to allow it to be contaminated by pride or self-pity. Most of us want a medal or some recognition for what we do for God, but Jesus doesn’t want Peter or us to build a monument—I walked on water here—especially in the beginning.
Think about it. If any of us had that miracle happen, in two weeks we’d be on TV, giving tours, selling shirts and commemoratives. The President might give us a day in the calendar and a medal of honor. Jesus saw the greatness in Peter emerging and He wasn’t about to press Peter, any of the disciples or even us toward anything except toward the full conformity of His image and all to the glory of God.
Remember, God’s goal is we become Christ-like and that means you will move ahead into the realm of impossibilities and make them possible. It means you will be called to do things you have never done before and most of the time don’t want to, but you will.
You can be Peter and get out of the boat now, or be like the other disciples and wait awhile longer, but you will get out of the boat. So back to the question: Does Jesus see your faith?
