There are others who attend football games and you wonder why they are there. Probably it is:
• Because someone invited them to attend
• Because they were bored and had nothing better to do
• Because some like to be part of large crowd
Illus: Did you hear they have new postage stamps depicting the University of South Carolina football team? The post office recalled them because the fans couldn’t figure out which side to spit on.
But one thing we all agree on is that football players are not known for their academics.
Illus: A reporter asked the coach, "Is there any truth to the rumor that your new quarterback is dumb?"
• The coach replies, "Well, he makes straight A's."
• The reporter, suitably impressed, says, "Wonderful!"
• "But," says the coach, "his B's are kind of crooked."
Illus: I am told that college football players are assigned numbers to wear on their shirts based on their SAT scores.
Generally, there are the two groups of people you find at a football game:
• Those who are there because they love football
• Those who are there for other reasons
You find the same thing in church:
• There are those who are there because they love the Lord
• There are those who are there for different reasons
But it is always exciting to find people in church because they have personally come to know the Lord Jesus, and they believe in what this Bible teaches.
Illus: Two gentlemen were traveling on a plane and were seated next to each other.
• One turned to the other and asked, “What do you do?” The gentleman replied: "I am a minister."
• "Oh," said the first man. “I don’t believe in this religious stuff. It’s for kids, you know. ‘Jesus Loves Me This I know, for the Bible tells me so....’"
• The minister politely laughed and asked the other man what he did for a living. "I am an astronomer." The minister said, “Oh I don’t believe in that stuff. It’s for kids, you know, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star...."
At the risk of sounding somewhat country, I want you to know I REALLY BELIEVE IN THE STUFF this Bible teaches! I literally eat, breathe and believe in this stuff! We call this belief in the Christian life FAITH. Either you have it or you do not!
HOW DO YOU RECEIVE FAITH? It is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and all the fruits of the Holy Spirit are given by the Holy Spirit. The more I allow the Holy Spirit to operate in my life, the more faith I will possess.
What is FAITH? Faith is a number of things. For example, there is -
I. SIMPLE FAITH
Faith is not wishful thinking. We all do a lot of wishful thinking!
Illus: A couple came upon a wishing well one day.
• The husband leaned over and made a wish and threw in a penny.
• The wife decided to make a wish, too! But she leaned over too far, fell into the well, and was yelling and screaming because she was all wet.
The husband was stunned for a while, but then smiled and said, "It really works!"
Illus: A wife went to the police station with her next-door neighbor to report that her husband was missing. The policeman asked for a description.
• She said, "He's 35 years old, 6 foot 4, has dark eyes, dark wavy hair, an athletic build, weighs 185 pounds, is soft-spoken, and is good to the children."
• The next-door neighbor was shocked by that description and said, "Your husband is 5 foot 4, chubby, has a big mouth, and is mean to your children."
The wife replied, "Yes, but who wants HIM back?"
Faith is not WISHFUL THINKING! What is faith?
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Someone else put it in these words; FAITH is, “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
Illus: My favorite preacher is Dr. Adrian Rogers. If I were to invite Dr. Rogers to come preach for me next Sunday, I MIGHT HOPE THAT HE WOULD COME. I MIGHT WISH HE WOULD COME.
But if I wrote him a letter and asked him if he would come, and he wrote back to me saying he would be honored to preach for me, then and only then, based on his promise, would I have faith that he would be here.
His promise would allow me to move from wishful thinking to faith. The bridge from wishful thinking to faith is the promise God has given us in His Word.
Here is faith in a nutshell: Faith is:
• Confidence that God is who He says He is
• Confidence that God will do all He has promised to do
Illus: John Wesley was once engaged in a very important conference with some of his leading associates.
The subject of discussion was faith. All these men of God were digging for theological words to describe faith.
No one was able to furnish a definition satisfactory to himself or to anyone present.
Since the clergymen could not come up with a definition, Mr. Wesley turned to a godly woman and said, “Tell us what faith is to you?”
Without hesitation said, "It is taking God at His word."
"That will do," exclaimed Mr. Wesley.
FAITH is simply taking God at His Word, that He will do what He has promised to do. But it takes the Holy Spirit of God in our lives to convince us of that truth. The more you allow the Holy Spirit to control your life and live within you, the GREATER YOUR FAITH WILL BECOME!
We have looked at SIMPLE FAITH, but let’s also look at-
II. SHATTERED FAITH
If we aren’t careful, there are things that take place in our life that can SHATTER OUR faith in almighty God.
Illus: We can all remember those horrible days when Jimmy Swygert and Jim Bakker were on television daily across this nation. Many had come to believe in these fellows so strongly that they sent them thousands of dollars. But once it was out about their private life, that SHATTERED THEIR FAITH!
Listen, there are things that we SEE and HEAR that can shatter our faith. If you talk to people they will tell you:
• I used to be a minister of the Gospel
• I used to teach Sunday School
• I used to sing in the choir
• I used to drive a church bus and bring hundreds to church every year
• I used to attend church every time the doors were open
• I used to read my Bible every day
• I used to pray throughout the day
Everything they talk about is in the past. They once faithfully served the Lord, but something happened that SHATTERED THEIR FAITH.
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger tells of a man that attended his church. He and his family attended every Sunday. His teenage son got involved with the wrong crowd at school and started taking drugs. One day, he took too much, and the drugs killed him. Dr. Belger preached his funeral and later he was talking with the dad who had been very quiet.
He finally spoke and said, “God took my son and I do not plan to ever put my foot back in church.”
And to this day he never has. Here is a man whose FAITH COMPLETELY SHATTERED.
But the problem with this man is that he is blaming God for something God was not the cause of. If anyone is to be blamed, the teenage boy is. He made the choice to take the drugs, NOT GOD!
But there are things that can happen to us that can SHATTER OUR FAITH if we aren’t careful. The Bible teaches this is something that can happen.
Look at Matthew 24:9-10, "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.”
There are two reasons a person’s faith will shatter.
(1) POOR CHOICES.
Every one of us is created as a free moral agent. That is, we can choose. A person can choose an action contrary to what the Bible teaches and they will have to suffer the consequences.
Illus: A Christian man married a woman he should have never married. He went against the scriptures and good counseling, but because she was nice looking he married her.
Within a couple of years, he realized it was one of the worst decisions he had ever made.
(2) UNEXPLAINABLE TRAGEDIES
One of the mysteries in life is why BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. We can understand why BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD PEOPLE. THEY ARE REAPING WHAT THEY SOWED.
But there are BAD THINGS that happen to GOOD PEOPLE and no one can explain why this happens.
Sometimes Christians will look at the circumstances that surround them and they allow these circumstances to SHATTER THEIR FAITH.
Life is like a puzzle; many times it does not make sense until all the pieces are put together.
Illus: I am sure that IT DID NOT MAKE SENSE TO JOSEPH AT ALL when, in the Old Testament, he was sold into slavery by his brothers!
But later, when he was highly exalted as a ruler in Egypt, he told his brothers that THEY MEANT IT FOR EVIL BUT GOD ALLOWED IT FOR GOOD.
The Holy Spirit of God can fill us with such faith that we can be like Job who lost:
• His Health
• His Children
• His Wealth
• His Respect
• His Friends
But he said, in Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…”
We have looked at SIMPLE FAITH and SHATTERED FAITH.
We also need to look at-
III. SHAPING FAITH
What is shaping faith? Every day of our life the Lord is carving and molding us into his image.
Illus: Have you ever seen that program on television that is called “Extreme Make-over”? Someone knows a person who is “Homely looking” and sends a picture to this program. They fly them out to Hollywood. Some of the best plastic surgeons in the world go to work on them. Within 4 to 6 weeks, they will completely change the appearance of these people, and when they return home their family and friends can hardly recognize them. THIS HAS TO BE A VERY PAINFUL PROCESS.
Humor: I thought about sending them the pictures of several people in this congregation to see if they could do the impossible with them.
We live in an age where people can go to a plastic surgeon with a picture in their hand and say, “MAKE ME LOOK LIKE THIS!”
Every day, God is carving and molding us into the image of His Son. The molding and applying of pressure can be painful.
Illus: Up in the mountains of North Carolina, there is a man called “Mountain John”. He has a souvenir shop outside of Chimney Rock, North Carolina. He has the ability to carve a bear out of a tree trunk, using his chain saw. He was asked one day how he did it, and I was told that he said, “It is simple! I crank my chain saw up, and everything that does not look like a bear I carve out!”
That is exactly what the Lord does to us. He carves out everything that does not look like Christ, but this process can be very painful.
We have to have SHAPING FAITH that God knows what He is doing as we submit our lives unto Him. There are things in life that come our way and we just have to simply say, “GOD, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, BUT I AM TRUSTING YOU TO DO WHAT IS BEST FOR ME.”
Illus: One day John Wesley was walking with a troubled man who expressed his doubt as to the goodness of God.
• He said, "I do not know what I shall do with all this worry and trouble."
• At the same moment, Wesley saw a cow looking over a stone wall. "Do you know," asked Wesley, "Why that cow is looking over the wall?" "No," said the man.
• Wesley said, "The cow is looking over the wall because she cannot see through it. That is what you must do with your wall of trouble. Look over it."
Faith enables us to get above circumstances and look to Christ who is over all, blessed forever. Remember that God has not promised to deliver us FROM our circumstances. He has promised to see us THROUGH our circumstances.
We have looked at SIMPLE FAITH, SHATTERED FAITH and SHAPING FAITH. But we also need to look at-
IV. SAVING FAITH
I told you in the beginning of this sermon that FAITH is one of the FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT. The more we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, the more THE FRUIT OF FAITH GROWS IN OUR LIFE.
How does SAVING FAITH work in our life to start with?
In John 6:44, we read, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Notice, the Bible teaches, “NO MAN CAN COME TO ME, EXCEPT THE FATHER WHICH HATH SEND ME DRAW HIM…”
HOW DOES GOD DRAW US?
It is the Holy Spirit of God who draws us to the Father.
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger tells that as a teenager, God the Holy Spirit had been dealing with him about giving his heart to the Lord. He said he would lie in bed at night as a teenager, with tears in his eyes saying, “GOD I DO NOT WANT TO DIE AND GO TO HELL. PLEASE DO NOT LET ME DIE IN MY SLEEP!”
He said he would slip off and go to a little Baptist church alone, but no one welcomed him and no one asked him if he would like to be saved.
Finally some Christian young people came to see him and invited him to their church. He told them he would come. He said he could feel God in that church building. The singing and the preaching of God’s Word spoke to his heart. As a teenager, a young girl around 9 or 10 years of age sat beside him and she was crying. He put his hands on her shoulder and asked her if she was alright. She said, “I am alright, but I am not crying because of myself, I am crying because I do not want you to go to Hell.” The Holy Spirit took those words and melted his heart.
He said, “Like a strong magnet, it seems as if the Holy Spirit was drawing me to that old fashioned altar where I came to know the Lord.”
It was SAVING FAITH that saved him that night. It is SAVING FAITH that saves every lost person that comes to the Lord.
Conclusion:
I. SIMPLE FAITH
II. SHATTERED FAITH
III. SHAPING FAITH
IV. SAVING FAITH
