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.
Hebrews 11 is filled with stories about people whose faith helped them through difficult situations and trials. Consider for a moment:
-Abel brought a better sacrifice.
-Enoch walked with God.
-Noah built a ship that had never been seen before in preparation for rain that had never been experienced before.
-Abraham followed God to a foreign land, though he had no idea where he was going or what God was going to do for him.
-Abraham, again, prepared to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command.
-Moses found his roots and was God’s leader, sent to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
-The Israelites had faith to pass through the Red Sea on dry ground.
-Rahab protected the spies in Jericho.
And there are other stories.
It wasn’t mountains that were moved. It was faith, though, that healed, delivered, rewarded those who placed that faith in God above.
(The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Two: 2 (p. 195). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.)
William Barclay, in his commentary on Matthew writes about Jesus’ words in Matthew 17:20: “We see here the central need of faith, without which nothing can happen. When Jesus spoke about removing mountains, he was using a phrase which the Jews knew well. A great teacher, who could really expound and interpret Scripture and who could explain and resolve difficulties, was regularly known as an uprooter, or even a pulverizer, of mountains. To tear up, to uproot, to pulverize mountains were all regular phrases for removing difficulties. Jesus never meant this to be taken physically and literally. After all, ordinary people seldom find any necessity to remove a physical mountain.
What Jesus meant was: ‘If you have faith enough, all difficulties can be solved, and even the hardest task can be accomplished.’ Faith in God is the instrument which enables men and women to remove the hills of difficulty which block their path.”
It was faith that taught those in the stories I mentioned that God was all they needed.
Faith, you see, is accepting that our life needs nothing more that Jesus himself.
In Hebrews 11, the writer states emphatically:
6 … [W]ithout 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. (Hebrews 11, NIV)
Learning to trust Him completely. We cannot serve God without faith.
Church, it’s time to wake up!
Paul directs us in Romans 13:
11 …[U]nderstanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. (Romans 13, NIV)
Church, it’s time to wake up! It’s time to be a beacon of light and an example of faith to the world around us that is earnestly seeking someone or something they can trust.
We have the answer. The answer is Jesus.
So today, let’s take a look at a few ideas to help awaken our faith.
1. First, we need to be with other Christians.
We need to be going to church, going to fellowship gatherings, being around each other.
Part of the loss of faith, I believe, in our world today has stemmed from a loss of fellowship — a loss of a sense of community. That’s why even during times of the pandemic driving to church and sitting in the parking lot, visually physically seeing each other, was better than any video conference, Facebook stream, or any other non-personal method of gathering.
We’ve got our faces too focused on devices today and have failed to be face to face with each other.
We need each other. Being together makes a difference.
We need to be together even if there are some strange old laws about church still on the books around our country:
(Odd Laws Still on the Books
By A. Todd Coget
From Robert W. Pelton in The Door. Christian Reader, Vol. 33, no. 5.
Copied from Sermon Central)
For example, young girls are never allowed to walk a tightrope in Wheeler, Mississippi, unless it’s in a church.
In Blackwater, Kentucky, tickling a woman under her chin with a feather duster while she’s in church service carries a penalty of $10.00 and one day in jail.
No one can eat unshelled, roasted peanuts while attending church in Idanha, Oregon.
In Honey Creek, Iowa, no one is permitted to carry a slingshot to church except police.
No citizen in Leecreek, Arkansas, is allowed to attend church in any red-colored garment.
Swinging a yo-yo in church or anywhere in public on the Sabbath is prohibited in Studley, Virginia.
Turtle races are not permitted within 100 yards of a local church at any time in Slaughter, Louisiana.
(Should Christians Attend Church?
By Sermon Central
(From a sermon by Mark Schaeufele, New Life On Purpose: Worship, 1/22/2010)
Copied from Sermon Central)
It’s an old question: "Can I be a Christian without joining the church or attending worship?"
Someone once wrote this to answer the question:
"Yes, it is possible. But it is something like being:
A student who will not go to school;
A soldier who will not join the army;
A citizen who does not pay taxes or vote;
A salesman with no customers;
An explorer with no base camp;
A seaman in a ship without a crew;
A businessman on a deserted island;
An author without readers;
A football player without a team;
A politician who is a hermit;
A scientist who does not share his findings;
A bee without a hive."
Why should we go to church? Why should we be in fellowship with each other? The importance of assembling is both subjective and objective. It benefits the individual with spiritual stability and growth, and it benefits objectively by its positive effect on others. The church meeting is far more than a place for one to be entertained or just to hear some expounding on the Bible. As we have seen over the last year and a half, these things can be done through radio, television, or even Internet streaming. The purpose for the assembling is for participation in worship and fellowship and with one another.
Being in church renews our faith. Why? Because we see that we are not alone.
We see that others struggle.
Yes, we hear stories of loss and our hearts break.
But we also see that others, through God’s strength, have been able to overcome.
We gain encouragement from each other.
We hear stories of modern day victories.
I think that’s why each week it is so important to hear about the praises and blessings from the last week. It’s so important to share ways we have seen God move and work in our lives.
It gives us an opportunity to count our own blessings.
It reminds us that God really is working in our lives each and every day.
2. Second, we need to read the Bible.
The Bible is our source of all things about God. The Bible is God’s very word sent down to us. The Bible is our source of truth. The Bible is God’s instruction manual for life.
But it’s so much more than that. It is a collection of the stories that God chose — that God deemed important — to help us through our lives each day.
If you have a problem, I guarantee there’s something in the Bible to help out — something to guide and direct our paths.
I know what you’re thinking — OK, smarty pants. What’s the Bible say about iPhones?
Well, I’m glad you asked. You will not find, for example, the word iPhone, cell phone, mobile device or anything else like that in the Bible.
But what you will find is how we should behave when using our cell phones and mobile devices. The Bible guides us with what we should view, what we should say, and how we should treat each other.
The Bible is timeless, and many forget or discount this.
So guess what we ought to be doing…. We must be studying and learning God’s word.
We must be committing God’s word to memory.
We can find encouragement from the stories, like many of the ones I mentioned earlier.
If you want to know whether you can put your faith and trust in God, read the stories of those who did.
And for that matter, read the stories of those who didn’t. Take warning from what happened to them. As the Hebrew writer said, without faith, it is impossible to please God!
3. Third, this morning, get rid of the negative in our lives.
We need to be like the owners of a Philadelphia restaurant.
(In An April Associated Press Story From 1996, …
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-05-05-mn-682-story.html
By Sermon Central
News of the Weird
Copied from Sermon Central)
In an Associated Press story, Levent Yueksel’s and wife Sherri Kane’s 32-seat Dardanelles restaurant in Philadelphia was profiled, not for its food but for its attitude: According to a sign in the window, the restaurant refuses to serve "negative people”. The sign uses a common, earthy term for part of the human anatomy to describe the “negative people” they’d just as soon see turn around and leave.
According to the owners, that includes people who smoke, who are rude, who demand their food in a hurry, or who want the music turned down. Yueksel said, “There are two kinds of people you don’t disrespect. The people who heal you and the people who feed you.”
Negative people suck everything out of our lives. Negative people drain us of all our energy.
Negative people cause us to question our faith, cause us to doubt our faith. Negative people are infections in our lives that we must remedy or we will become one of them.
We spend so much time trying to offset the negative they bring to our lives that we do not have the time or energy to dedicate to our faith.
Yes, we do need to be an example of faith to them. However, we cannot continually be drawn down by the lack of faith that they demonstrate.
Once we have made the decision to do some housecleaning in our lives, once we’ve eliminated the people bringing us down, we will find that our spirit will feel replenished — we will be more inclined to devote our time and effort toward our faith.
4. Finally, this morning, talk to God.
Seems obvious doesn’t it. We need to spend time in prayer.
(Spiritual Health Checks
By Terry Laughlin
Copied from Sermon Central)
There are four signs that show that the child of God is a healthy Christian and has a strong faith. One is a heart hungry for God's Word, second is his desire to be involved in Christian fellowship, third he observes "Communion," and four he is devoted to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
Without the power of God there can be no lasting work done for Jesus. A healthy Christian knows that if the church is too busy to pray there will be a great amount of activity with little accomplished, many services but few conversions, many programs with little life changing results. This is why the apostle Paul wrote, "I urge your brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me ..." (Romans 15:30)
Christians faces many trials, many obstacles and even spiritual perils as we walks with God down here on earth.
Watchman Nee wrote, "Our prayers lay the track on which God's power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, His power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails."
Corrie Ten Boon expressed the life of being a vibrant Christian and she asks, "Is prayer a steering wheel or your spare tire?"
Prayer is like art or music. It can only be enjoyed by and through those who have disciplined themselves to actually spend time in prayer. An artist or musician cannot fully reach his full potential unless he learns about and spends time developing his gift. Most people enjoy the benefits of looking at art work that has had much time and hard work put into it. All mature adults appreciate the benefits of listening to a musician that has put a great deal of time and energy into their music.
So it is with prayer. It is those who spend time in prayer individually, corporately and continually, who bless those for whom they have been praying.
Consider the Scriptures:
"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." (Colossians 4:2) "...be faithful in prayer..." (Romans 12:12) "...Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and request..." (Ephesians 6:18)
And there is God's promise about prayer, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16b)
How is your Prayer life? The strength of your prayer life is an indication of the strength of your faith.
We need to spend time in prayer, but not just talking all the time. We need to spend time meditating — listening — waiting on God.
Talking to God helps us get to know God.
Talking to God helps us to feel more comfortable trusting God.
The more we communicate with God, the more we read His word, the more we work on our relationship with Him, the deeper our faith will grow.
Conclusion
This morning, we need to awaken our faith. We’ve outlined ways to help strengthen and rekindle our faith.
It takes focus. It takes effort. It takes dedication.
Once we commit to putting our faith and trust in God, we must begin to live the faith we have. Only then has our faith been awakened.
The easiest way is to start being mindful of God’s presence in our lives.
Though it may seem like God is far away at times, He is not. He does not ever leave our side.
We see Him when we read our Bibles, or go to church, but we overlook His presence in the small details of our days. It’s so easy to get caught up in the happenings of the world that we forget to look for God’s presence in our lives every day.
A few years back, we took a mission trip to an Indian reservation in Arizona. After we had been out each day ministering to the children and families on the reservation, we would come back to the church where we would stay for supper and devotions. I remember one thing that my father-in-law, who was our minister at the time, did every evening that has stuck with me ever since. Each evening, he would ask the question, “Where did you see God today?” In his way, my father-in-law was trying to make sure that we did not forget to look for God in the work we were doing. It put the focus on God, not on the works of our hands.
It was a perfect way to drive us to consider and look for what God was doing in our lives as we were ministering and serving Him on that reservation.
But know this: God is always present with us. When we put our faith in Jesus, God gives us His Spirit, who dwells with us and in us. Jesus said in John 14:
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14, NIV)
In the stress and rush of our lives, it can be a challenge to recognize that He is with us. It is in these moments where we should try to be grateful and aware of how much He has blessed us and continues to bless us each and every day.
Being humble and showing sincere love and respect for God can bring even the most deadened relationship with Him back to life.
Cherish our relationship with our Father in Heaven. He is the greatest ally and guardian we can have throughout our lives.
And don’t give up on God when we do not see things going the way we want.
Tauren Wells, Christian singer/songwriter, said, “I think the real test of our faith is not just believing God can perform a miracle, but continuing to believe He is good when He doesn’t.”
This morning, the church needs to wake up!
Our faith needs to wake up!
It’s time today to begin living each and every day in trust and faith.
The world is floundering around, losing its faith in people, and companies, in the government. The world is looking for something or someone in whom to put their trust. We have the answer — it is Jesus.
It’s time to awaken our faith and be a beacon of light and of life to the world that is so lost and wandering aimlessly.
Other Sources:
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/galleries/5-ways-you-can-rekindle-your-faith.aspx
https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/des_rel/ways-to-revive-your-relationship-with-god/article_30eeed8e-31cb-593f-be23-6da42b8ef934.html
https://www.calminggrace.com/awareness-of-gods-presence/
