INCREASE OUR FAITH
(Luke 17:3-6; Mt.15:21-28)
Increase our faith asked the disciples after Jesus had just explained to them the need to forgive your brother even up to 7 times in one day.
The disciples knew themselves well enough to admit that to forgive a person once can be difficult let alone seven times. They knew that many of the teachings Jesus taught required more faith than they had. On one occasion after Jesus had healed a son
who had a dumb spirit that caused epileptic seizures, the disciples asked Jesus privately afterwards: Why could not we cast out that dumb spirit as you did? And Jesus said to them
“this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:28ff) This episode of not being able to heal like Jesus and not being able to forgive as often as Jesus taught was cause enough for them to ask: “Lord, Increase our Faith !
It is our loss when we do not make the same request of Christ today. Most of the time it would seem that we are satisfied or willing to live with the status quo when it comes to our spiritual life. Then when a crisis occurs, we suddenly have an urgent need for more faith- God please heal my very sick child; God please save me from the shame and embarrassment of this sin in my life, God, please give me the right answer to this difficult problem I face; and we find
ourselves repeating the remark of the father speaking to Jesus about healing his son- Lord,I believe, help my unbelief— another way of saying Lord, I have faith, but I need greater faith to deal with this child’s problem.
We could take a long time talking about what faith is or what faith means but most of us already have a pretty good idea because of being disappointed by the
faithlessness we have all experienced at one time or another. The most common example is the person who promises to be somewhere at a certain time and then never shows up without any explanation or she told you even promised you she would never do it again and then she went ahead and did it again. And what did you say to yourself about that person:
“I don’t have much faith in him or her.” And we know exactly what you mean- the person can’t be counted on, can’t really be trusted, because they are unreliable for whatever reason.
Yes, we know something about faith all right even to the point of sometimes thinking or accusing God of being faithless. He didn’t answer my desperate prayer; He allowed this terrible evil to happen in my family; here I am trying to live a decent life and I’m getting further behind instead of ahead- where is this God who blesses and keeps safe- where no evil shall befall me, no scourge come near my tent (Psalm 91:10)?
What can be even more discouraging is what Jesus said to his disciples after they asked Him
to Increase our Faith. He said to them:
If you had faith even the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this tree be rooted up and be planted in the sea and it would obey you. In Mark 11:23 Jesus uses the example of a mountain
(far greater than a tree): “whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea and
does not doubt in his heart, but believes it will come to pass, it will be done for him.
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If we can’t even move trees or mountains into the sea, our faith must be smaller than a
mustard seed or is this just hyperbole, exaggeration, that Jesus is using to make a point about how important faith is in our spiritual life. I wonder if we have more faith in our car starting
than we do in Jesus answering our prayer. I wonder if we have more faith in our best friend
helping us than we do in Jesus helping us. I wonder if we have more faith in our self to make
a living and pay the bills than we do in hearing and answering the call of Jesus to serve Him.
It might be a good idea at this point to look at someone for a moment who Jesus said had
faith, in this example great faith. The person is an unnamed Canaanite woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. At her first cry for help Jesus did not answer her and his disciples told him to send the woman away because she kept following them and begging for help. Finally Jesus did answer the woman telling her:
“…I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
“It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But the gentile woman, unbeliever or not, answered Jesus:
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table.”
And then Jesus said: O woman, great is your faith…” And her daughter was healed.
We are not told how this woman had heard about Jesus or whether she had seen Him before, but it was obvious this was the first time Jesus had seen her. Yet she was absolutely sure that Jesus could help her and all He needed to do was to say the Word and it was done and so it was.
I have seen people with that kind of faith in their family doctor whom they have known for many years. A diagnosis is made, an operation is performed and the person has “all the confidence in world” in their doctor. But here is a woman who
has never met or even talked with Jesus only heard about Him or seen Him from afar. Now when He is in reach she does not hesitate to beg, pursue, plead, argue whatever has to be done just to have Him say “Be healed”: “O woman says Jesus great is your faith.” Isn’t it amazing what we will do for our child especially if the child is seriously ill. In that day gentiles didn’t mix with Jews and women did
not speak to strangers especially of another race and gender and this woman ignores all these social restrictions even in the face of the disciples’ opposition to plead for her daughter’s healing because she believed so strongly that this Jesus
was the one who could help her. How do you explain such a strong belief or as Jesus said such a great faith? My only explanation is that it was a gift from
God to this woman for whatever reason God had. We can have faith in our own abilities or in some natural law of science or simply in this chair that when I sit down in it, it will hold me, but when it comes to Jesus- having faith in Him, in what He taught
us and did for us on the cross, in what He can do for us this day, in what He is yet to do in the future when He comes again- that kind of faith does not come from our own making.
As much as we would like to get up in the morning and say:
“Well today I am going to have a 100% more faith than I had yesterday.”
As if you and I could create it or muster it up so to speak—if that were the case, that we could create or increase our faith, then there would be no need
for the disciples to have said to Jesus: Increase our Faith.
They recognized then, walking and talking with Jesus every day and watching these healings and miracles that such divine work calls for a faith that is given by the Divine, by God, Himself—yes, Jesus, increase our faith.
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And this is not intended to be a copout in the sense that I don’t need to pray more
and get into the Word of God more, because Jesus will just give me all the faith I need.
The spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting and mediation and worship and bible study
all can help add to our faith. But whatever amount of faith we do have, let us begin to recognize
if we don’t already that such is a gift from the Father and to him/her who will trust and obey more faith will be given.
A final point about increasing our faith is to recognize when your faith is increasing. One sign of an increasing faith is less anger toward God, less questioning and doubting of God during those times of hardship in our life. It is easy to have faith when everything is going right; it’s when things don’t go right and can go very wrong that our faith is “shaken”. And before you know it we are swearing and drinking and getting mad or depressed asking and more often demanding why,why me God, why now, why this way? Throughout my ministry this is a constant
challenge not just for myself but for so many Christian believers. Like we see in the life Joseph or Job, suddenly evil strikes, pain and suffering come upon us in a harsh fashion and it’s unfair. It is only natural to want to strike back in anger and frustration and we do often at God who is in charge we say.
And before you know it we are unfaithful instead of more faithful to the Lord-
but that’s what faith is isn’t is remaining faithful when everything and everybody seems to be less faithful not just in their marriage or to their job or their word but most of all to God.
Instead of demanding from God, why God, those with increasing faith are morelikely to say what do you want me to learn from this Lord, what are you trying
to teach me or show me?
You will know that your faith is increasing, when you more and more draw close to God instead of drifting apart from Him in those most difficult times.
This is the remarkable gift we see in the lives of the disciples after the resurrection of Jesus; instead of fleeing from Him in times of danger and distress; they are now willing to suffer and die for Him even when He is no longer physically present with them.
Sounds a little too much to you and me, us plain ordinary Christians with faith smaller than a mustard seed? Well it should sound like a lot because it is a
lot of faith that only comes as a gift from the Father; a gift that we find the disciples asking Jesus for: Lord, increase our faith, increase our faith in You, that in the best of times as well as the worse of times, that in all the mediocre
days, I will remain faithful to You- to your way to your truth to your presence in me. And then surely that day will come when we speak to this tree
or that mountain to be moved into the sea, and so it will be.
