March 8, 2009
Morning Worship
Text: Hebrews 11:6
Subject: Faith
Title: Exploring the Possibilities
We were over at church praying on Friday morning at our normal prayer time, Alice, Frances, Melanie and I were there, and even though it was our normal prayer time it was far from being a normal time of prayer. The Spirit of the Lord began to move in church and became so strong that His presence drove me to my knees and I had an Isaiah 6 moment. I began to see who God is and how insignificant I am in His presence and I began to weep. It was then that I began to ask, “Lord, who am I that You would use me”?
Have you ever asked that question?
When I do ask myself that question I always have to stop, take a breath and remember that it is not about who I am, but is about Who God is.
Today I want to take you through the scriptures to show you that even though we are less than perfect people, we are the ones who God has left here to do the work that Jesus began to do. Doing the work that Jesus began starts with prayer and is completed by faith in God. Mark 11:20-24, 20In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”
22“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Now, turn to Hebrews 11:6. What does it take for you to be everything that God has intended for you to be?
6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Open up your spirit to receive the seed that God wants to plant in you today.
I. PLEASING TO GOD …without faith it is impossible to please God… In order for us to get a good understanding of what this means we really need to break it down to its simplest forms. What is faith? According to Webster’s dictionary faith is, “trust, confidence; complete acceptance of a truth which cannot be demonstrated or proved by the process of logical thought; the virtue by which Christians believe in the revealed truths of God.” The Greek word is “pistis” and, according to Strong’s concordance it means, persuasion, that is, credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly constancy in such profession; by extension the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:—assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity. Simply put it means to be fully persuaded. The best definition of faith probably comes from the Bible itself. Hebrews 11:1, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Let’s do a word study on that whole sentence. Now – not or yesterday but right at this minute – faith – Being fully persuaded or having the utmost conviction in something - is being sure of – having confidence in the reality of something - what we hope for – hope is not some pie in the sky dream but the expectation of what you are sure of - and certain of – proof - what we do not see – that which is invisible. Let’s restructure the words and come up with a definition that goes deeper into the meaning. Right now, at any given time, faith (being fully persuaded) means having confidence of the things you are sure of and the proof of things that are invisible. If you could see those things then how much faith is required? Romans 1:18-20, I want you to get the extent of the concept of faith - 18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. What was made came about by God’s word – He spoke all of creation into existence. It is God’s word that is supposed to be the basis of our faith. What God says is a perfect reflection of who He is and it is in that fact that your faith is supposed to lie. Look at the last part of Romans 1:20. Most of us would look at that and say, “Well people don’t really have an excuse for not believing in God. He has revealed Himself through creation.” But it doesn’t say that the unsaved are without excuse, or that the world is without excuse. It says that men are without excuse. That includes the church as well. The God who spoke creation into being is the same God who has given His word concerning miracles – John 14:11-12, Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father – concerning healing - 1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases… - concerning spiritual authority – Luke 10:19, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you… - concerning your needs – Philippians 4:19, And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. God’s word is sure and true because of its source. Those who don’t trust God for salvation are destined to spend eternity in torment in hell. But to me it is scary to think that even Christians are not pleasing to God when it comes to trusting Him to be faithful in all His promises. without faith it is impossible to please God…
II. COMING TO GOD …because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists… If you try coming to God without faith what is going to happen? Nothing! No salvation, no healing, no provision, no deliverance, no power – nothing! What do you come to God for? What is the purpose of prayer? If you are just praying for the sake of praying and don’t believe that God hears and answers prayer, what are you expecting? Maybe you’ll just feel better about yourself. You don’t get healed. You don’t get saved. You don’t get blessed. You don’t get baptized in the Holy Spirit. But you feel good about yourself because of what you did. Or maybe you pray but you don’t hear an answer right away so you give up on God. Jeremiah 42:1-4, Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest approached 2Jeremiah the prophet and said to him, “Please hear our petition and pray to the LORD your God for this entire remnant. For as you now see, though we were once many, now only a few are left. 3Pray that the LORD your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.” 4“I have heard you,” replied Jeremiah the prophet. “I will certainly pray to the LORD your God as you have requested; I will tell you everything the LORD says and will keep nothing back from you.” Verse 7, Ten days later the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah. Why did it take 10 days for the answer to come to Jeremiah? I don’t know for sure but if you look at the book of Daniel we can see that he prayed for 21 days before the angel came to him with the answer because of the stronghold that the enemy had set up in Babylon. You see the fact that it takes a while to receive God’s promises doesn’t mean that God isn’t able. It means that you need to keep praying and believing. anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists… God told Moses that He was the I AM – the self-existent God. That can also be translated as “IWILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.” Psalm 34:10 says, those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. If you come to the Lord in prayer (seek the Lord) you will lack no good thing. God is good all the time!
III. EXPECTING FROM GOD 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists - and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. NKJV - 6But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. I want you to get the extent of what this is saying. Anyone who comes to God must believe that He exists – right? We’ve already established that. But that isn’t enough. You also MUST believe that if you come to Him that He will reward you if you earnestly or diligently seek Him. James 5:13-16, 13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Then James goes into a short narrative about the great prophet Elijah – referring to God’s miraculous power at work through him – and then says that Elijah was a man just like us. Do you see what happened with Elijah? He prayed for rain and it didn’t happen. He prayed again and again and again until the seventh time there was a cloud – the rain was coming. God reward him by answering his diligent prayer. So if we are supposed to pray for the sick how should we pray? With faith, diligently, expecting God to be true to His word, and pray until you receive His promise. Jeremiah 29:11-14, For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you,” declares the LORD… What does God want to do in your life? He plans to prosper you and not harm you… That’s God’s plan – something good. I can’t help but believe that with all the evil – the sickness and pain and death that has invaded our church – that something good is about to happen. I know in my spirit that we are about to see a spiritual breakthrough, a financial breakthrough, a healing breakthrough, and Holy Ghost revival and the enemy is trying to steal, kill, and destroy it right out from under us. He wants to get our attention off of faith in God and His word and focused on all the evil going on around us. If the church that once was devastated by the battle around it would now begin to just believe God and walk by faith and not by sight, and take your rightful position in the heavenly realms with Christ, and accept the power and authority that is at work in you the church, so that we can confess that nothing is impossible with God – through Him all things are possible. – the one who has come but to steal, kill and destroy has no recourse but to tuck his tail between his legs and go on off to deceive some other church.
Is that the kind of faith that you have in your God? I wonder what it is going to be like when we stand before God in heaven and He asks us, “Why didn’t you receive the healing I had for you? Why didn’t you get all the blessings I had stored up for you? Why didn’t you act in the authority that I gave you? Why didn’t you receive that baptism in the Holy Spirit that I promised you?”
Is your faith living or dead? Does it please God?
Dead faith is like this. Sometimes I get headaches – I used to get them a lot when I worked construction – when I bend over and then stand back up it feels like the top of my head is going to blow off. Now the doctor gives me some medicine for these headaches. I look at the bottle. I read the instructions. I am persuaded that the doctor knows what he is talking about. Then I take the bottle and put it up into the medicine without taking any of it saying, “well, I think I’m just supposed to have these headaches. I think God is trying to teach me something from it.” That is dead faith. Are you doing the same things with God’s words? Even though the prophet Jeremiah wrote, I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, you don’t do anything with God’s promises.
The kind of faith that pleases Him is the kind of faith that refuses to doubt – that rejects the need to understand in your minds before you can accept God’s promises in your hearts or spirits. That is living faith. And that pleases Him.
The video that you saw at the beginning of the sermon asked the question, “Who am I?”
If you are taking God at His word you are someone who is pleasing Him.
Why don’t you do that today?
