Faith is dependency on God.
Faith is practical. We exercise faith by acting on what we believe.
The FOUR Principles of Practical Faith (from Hebrews 11)
(1) FAITH IS BELIEVING WHEN YOU DON’T SEE IT (Heb 11:1,7)
• In a sense, you have to have faith that it is going to happen, FOR IT to happen.
• God responds always to faith, never unbelief. We must believe God enough for it.
(2) FAITH IS OBEYING WHEN YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND IT (Heb 11:8-10)
• We obey because we believe God will keep His promise.
• It is not so much how big your faith is, but how big God is.
We will learn from Moses what practical faith is – Heb 11:23-28
PRACTICAL FAITH IS…
(3) PERSEVERING WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT (Heb 11:8-10)
11:27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.
Faith needs perseverance because time is involved; waiting is involved, and this is a challenge to many.
• We don’t like to wait. We like things to be simple, quick and instant.
• The longer the wait, the more uneasy we become, the less we trust God.
Sarah couldn’t wait (Gen 16). God promised Abraham descendants but time was running out. She was getting too old.
• So she tried to jump start something that only time would reveal, and messed up God’s plan.
• She got her Egyptian maidservant Hagar to give Abraham a son – and now, up till today, their descendants (the Muslims) are always fighting against the Jews.
1 Sam 13 records an interesting situation - King Saul was about to fight the Philistines.
• They need to make a burnt offering to ask for God’s favour in battle, but prophet Samuel was nowhere in sight.
• So King Saul went ahead and did what he was not supposed to do – offered the burnt offering himself (1 Sam 13:9).
• 13:10-11 “Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. 11"What have you done?" asked Samuel.
• Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, 12I thought, `Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD’s favour.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."
(i) It is not easy to wait, but it is necessary to wait.
• We persevere because we want God’s will to be done; not our will.
• We choose to hold on to God’s Word, even when all signs around you tell us otherwise. We trust His faithfulness. We cling to that which is unchanging, i.e. God and His Word.
(ii) We want to do what is right, not what we like.
• The culture today is concern about what WE like (not what God likes).
• We do not want to do things based on how we feel but how God feels.
• We are not going to let our mood determines our course.
Faith in God means we do what God wants, even when we don’t feel like it.
(iii) This is a challenge to many because we don’t always feel good doing the right thing.
• I don’t. I don’t always have the mood to pray. Reading the Bible can be dry. Sometimes, even coming to church can becomes a drag.
• But the issue is not about how you feel. It is about what is right and good.
Moses was committed to doing God’s will and bringing his people out of Egypt.
• It wasn’t the best job on earth – he would probably be much happier tending to sheep than leading a group of ungrateful people through a desert.
• But he persevered, despite the hardship, because this is the call of God. It is God’s plan and will.
The world teaches perseverance as a virtue. All the more as Christians we must persevere.
• Studies have shown that one of the key reasons why successful people are so successful is because they do the necessary thing even when they don’t feel like it. In order words, they don’t give up easily.
• Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. At his 5000th failed attempt, he just said, “Oh, I’ve just identified and eliminated 5000 ways that do not work, which brings me 5000 steps closer to discovering the one way that will work."
Let me ask you –
• What is the thing you don’t like to do, but you know God has been telling you to do it?
• Is there something that you don’t feel like stopping, but God is asking you to?
Do what you already know (in your heart) is right.
Moses did that. He persevered, and he finished what God called him to do.
How did he manage to? 11:27 explains, “He persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.”
• He was motivated by God’s presence. God was in it with him, throughout the journey.
• This was his secret of success, and ours too. To persevere is difficult, so keep your eyes on Jesus. You will succeed when you keep your eyes on the invisible.
There are many things I will not know. Many things I do not understand (even if you explain to me). But I know who knows and who understands.
• We are called to trust the One who knows and understands all things.
We grow through perseverance. We grow because we persevere.
• “…the testings of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:3-4)
• Story of the man pushing the rock daily. The rock wasn’t moved, but he grew stronger over time. God is more interested in the process, than in the result.
• Do you feel that you are in this waiting room? Remember you are growing because of it.
Lastly, a practical faith in God involves…
(4) TRUSTING WHEN YOU DON’T GET IT (Heb 11:32-40)
Heb 11:32-40
32And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated – 38the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40God had planned something better for us so that only together with us
would they be made perfect.
I do not know if we can regard this conclusion to the chapter as a climax or anti-climax.
• Many of these servants of God did not live to see the fulfilment of God’s plan.
• They made great sacrifices; they suffered for their faith, and they see no immediate rewards.
• Yet God’s will is being fulfilled, in His way and time. But for these faithful ones, they can only see it by faith, not by sight.
I think the author wanted to end this chapter on faith in this dramatic way to emphasize a few things.
(i) Living by faith does not mean life will be easy.
It does not exempt us from problems. God does not always remove the difficulty. Instead, He gives us the strength to go through it.
• Why? God is more interested in your character than in your comfort.
• If He wants to give us comfort, He would have taken us home to heaven – there’s perfect peace and comfort in heaven.
• But God wants to mould us, to be like Christ. And that takes time. Perseverance is the key to our growing in Christ.
• 11:40 - God has planned something better for all of us (them included), and together we would be made perfect one day.
(ii) Waiting is never wasted time. God uses it.
• It is the process, the journey that God is interested in. He uses time to mould us, mature us, test us, and strengthen us.
• The wait has a purpose. The persevering has a purpose.
(iii) We can still TRUST HIM even if we did not get to see the result
• This was the faith demonstrated by Daniel’s friends in Dan 3:16-18
“16Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18But even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."
Level 1 faith is - God we serve is able to save us from it…
Level 2 faith is – And He will rescue us from your hand, O king.
Level 3 faith is (v.18) - But even if He does not, we want you to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold.
Anybody can trust God when things are going great. But real faith can only be found in the valleys of life, when everything doesn’t seem right and yet the faithful remained steadfast.
• We can and will still trust God, even when we do not get what we want.
• This is the kind of faith that glorifies God most. This is the faith we must grow in.
• He is still my God and my Lord, no matter what. And I still trust Him, whatever the results. You can have faith in God.
In summary – how can we grow in such faith? Choose to
1. Believe even when you don’t see it
2. Obey even when you don’t understand it
3. Persevere even when you don’t feel like it
4. Trust even when you don’t get what you want.
Gladys Aylward, missionary to China more than 50 years ago, was forced to flee when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng. But she couldn’t leave her work behind. With only one assistant, she led a 100+ orphans over the mountains toward Free China.
During Glaydy’s harrowing journey out of war-torn Yangcheng - she grappled with despair as never before. After passing a sleepless night, she faced the morning with no hope of reaching safety. A 13-year-old girl in the group reminded her of their much-loved story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
"But I am not Moses," Gladys cried in desperation.
"Of course you aren’t," the girl said, "but Jehovah is still God!"
Source: The Hidden Price of Greatness, By Besson and Hunsicker. as recounted in How to Start a Church Fire, Paul Powell published by Texas Baptist Leadership Center, Inc. Dallas TX.
