“A Closer Look: Faith”
Introduction:
We live in a world in which it is hard to have faith. People expect everything to make sense logically and faith very rarely fits into people’s equations. We as the church are supposed to be based and founded on faith. Faith is what keeps us going and operating, but sometimes the church looses its faith and trust in God. It is easy to feel this way when times get tough and things are not going the way we planned. It is easy to get that way today, but we must always maintain a faith that God will work all things for the good of those who love Him. If we would become people that had total and complete faith in God we would grow and multiply and individually we would mature into a strong body of believers.
We need to be a Church of faith, which completely and totally trusts in God for everything. Sometimes it is hard to have faith when it does not make sense, when all logic says something cannot be done, with God it can.
Remember it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and as James says faith without works is dead. We must not only verbally confirm that faith, but we must show our faith in how we live and act in this world. If we would only be a Church with faith God could do immeasurably more that we could ever imagine.
Perhaps today you have not trusted in God. Perhaps your faith is not being shown in how you live. Today we are given a new start and a chance to grow in our faith.
Do you remember Noah? He was a great man of faith God told Noah to build a boat because he was going to flood the Earth. Imagine the faith it took Noah to build that Ark! He had never seen rain before, he had faith in God. Do you remember the faith of Abraham? God told Abraham to offer his son, his only son as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Abraham though, but God I thought my descendants would be numerous. Abraham had faith that God would raise Him from the dead, and took His son to sacrifice and God intervened. Faith is what saves us and our response from our faith. Just imagine what we could do with real faith. We would be a powerful church if we really believed God would do great things with us. Sometimes we say it but don’t believe it, let us move from not trusting to having faith in God.
I love to read stories of faith because in them you see two things. First, you see the trust of godly people in their God, which was unhindered and completely pure. Secondly, you see the faithfulness of a loving God who always meets our needs according to Hid will. Sometimes God does not respond to us how we would like, but His will is perfect and we must trust that He has our best interest in mind. As we hear of stories of Abraham, Noah, and David, how do we compare? They were not superheroes, they were not perfect in their lifestyles, and they just had faith in God. Do we have that same faith in our God, that he will respond to those who have faith and that our faith is powerful.
There was a little boy who was caught in a fire at home. He could not get out of the burning house. He climbed up out onto the roof of the burning home, and began to cry for his father’s help. The father looked up at his son from the ground, and told him to jump. “I can’t see you though daddy, how will you catch me?” said the son. The father said, “I can see you”. Without further hesitation the boy jumped into his father’s arms.
Sometimes we need to have that same type of pure faith that a child has in their parents in our Heavenly father.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, but with it we can move mountains!
Text: 11:1-6
I. Faith in God’s existence
Some things recorded in scripture are hard to understand and even more difficult to accept. This world tries to fill our minds with scientific evidence proving that God does not exist and that we were not created by any intelligent being. Sometimes we have more faith in the scientists who give us information than we do the Word of God. Sometimes we blindly accept their theories as fact, even if they are contrary to scripture. Christians have tried and tired to reconcile the scientific theory of evolution and the Biblical view of creation, but they cannot be harmonized. Either you believe in a creator God the way the Bible teaches or you don’t. What I am suggesting today is that we have faith. I suggest we trust wholly in the God who has never been proven wrong. The faith that we have is not a blind faith, and it is not a leap of faith. The faith that we have is based on Truth and logic. We must believe that God exists and believe it by faith even if some aspects of it do not make sense and are hard to understand. It is hard to answer questions like, if God created the world, who created God? Saying, God always was, is not enough for some, but we simply must believe that God does not have to meet our expectations of logic and sense. Faith is heavily incorporated into our relationship with God. We can believe that God exists.
One of my favorite movies is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In that movie Indiana Jones is one a search for his father, and the Holy Grail. Indiana’s father had just been shot and he needed to get to the grail to save his life. He entered into the cave where he knew it was located. He had several tests that he had to pass. The last test was the greatest. He stood at the edge of this great cliff and looked to the other side where he needed to go. He knew that there was no human way to jump that gap. It was a test of faith. He closed his eyes and stepped out over the cliff, and when he did a bridge appeared for him to walk safely across. He did not see the way, the way to the other side did not seem possible, but all things are possible with faith.
Hebrews 11:6
One cannot expect to spend eternity in Heaven without a belief in God. One cannot expect all of our views about God to make sense to us, but we must accept them by faith. I have no doubt about the existence of God. I know that He exists because I can look at His creation and know that there is a creator, but some things baffle me, but I do not let those things tear down my faith.
II Corinthians 5:7
We can spend our whole lives having no faith, and not believing in God or trying to harmonize God and science, but it cannot always be done, faith must enter in where logic fails. I do not understand why a person would want to live their life not believing in God. There is no hope, no peace, nothing with that view. If a person does not believe in God they die and go to the grave and that is the need of them, but we as Christians believe that there will be a judgment and we will wither be in Heaven or in Hell for eternity. If we die and are wrong then what harm does it do? If a unbeliever dies and is wrong they have everything to loose. We must have faith that God exists, and He does. No, we cannot see Him or touch Him, but that does not mean that He does not exist. It sure is much more appealing to have faith that God exists and He created us, than to believe that we just happened to come about or that we evolved from the plants of the sea. We must simply accept by faith that God exists.
II. Faith in God’s deliverance
We also must have faith that God is going to deliver us from whatever trials we may be going through. We have faith in God’s deliverance because He has always delivered His people that were seeking and wanted to be delivered. God delivered Noah from the flood that destroyed all the wicked. God delivered Lot from the fire that came down on Sodom and Gomorrah. God delivered Israel from the oppressive hands of the Egyptians, and again delivered them from the pursuing armies. God delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Adednego from the fire that would have devoured them. God delivered David from the hands of the vengeful King Saul. God delivered Daniel from the Lion’s Den and he delivers us now from sin.
Perhaps today you are broken because of sin. Perhaps you are stuck in your sin and feel that you have no way out. Have faith that if you trust is God and want a way out God will provide that way for you.
I Corinthians 10:13
We are all going to struggle with sin, and we will wrestle with sin until we die. We can never be perfect in this life, because we are weak and easily given in to temptation. Paul struggled with sin constantly. Remember Paul talked about in Romans seven that he was battling with sin and in II Corinthians we read that Paul prayed to God to have His thorn in the flesh removed from Him, but God says his grace is sufficient for Him. It is awesome to know that we have a great deliverer that can us from our struggles with sin and provide a way out for us. We should use those times of struggle with sin and learn from them and grow from them. Paul said that the testing of our faith develops perseverance, and perseverance develops character and character hope.
We should not loose heart when all seems lost, we should not loose our faith in God, because God is faithful. Sometimes God uses those hard times to teach us a lesson. Moses had a very similar case. He had that mountain top experience with God, where he was in God’s presence and very close to Him, but then he came down into the wilderness, and it was in the wilderness that Moses really learned. Perhaps some here are on the mountain top spiritually and that is great. Others though I am sure are in the wilderness; perhaps you are tired and discouraged and feel distant from God. If so then deliverance will come if you seek it. In order to get back to the mountain top you have to climb and work to get there.
A man fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on his way down. “Is anyone up there?” he cried out. “I am here, I am the Lord, do you believe me?” the voice said. “Yes, Lord I believe, I really believe, but I can’t hang on much longer.” “If you really believe you will be alright, I will save you, just let go of the branch.” The man paused for a moment then said, “is there anyone else up there?”
God will deliver us if we trust Him.
Ultimately we can have faith in the deliverance from our sins, when God remembers them no more. We can rest assured that Jesus’ sacrifice was more than enough for our sins, and God is faithful to His promise to forgive those sins. You don’t have to struggle with guilt of past sins, you cannot be beyond the grace of God, and you can never be too far gone. God promises that those who come to Him by faith, and repent of those sins, and are baptized into Christ will be forgiven, which means God remembers them no longer.
We simply must forget what is behind and strive towards what is ahead as Paul said. We all have sin and struggles. Some have sinned more than others, but the ground is level at the cross and he is faithful and just to forgive all sins, even if those sins seems so wicked in the eyes of God. The good news is that God wants to forgive you, he wants to deliver you from your sins and our God will not go back on His Word. Have faith that God will deliver you from your sins and will remember them no more because God is faithful.
III. Faith in God’s faithfulness to His promises
Throughout scripture God has made many promises to man and he has never been guilty of breaking one of those promises. He promised to Noah to save his family and never destroy the whole Earth with water, and God has been faithful to the promise that he made. God made a promise with Abraham to increase his descendants, and to bring the Messiah from among them. God has been faithful to that promise so that the three major religions of the world come from Abraham. God is faithful to His promises.
Over the years of our lives we can probably name time after time that some person has not been faithful to the promises they made us. Day after day people break their promises, but God is not like that He never breaks one of His promises. Within the scriptures are many promises that directly apply to us. God has filled His Word with promises that the faithful can claim their own; don’t you want to be counted among the faithful?
a. He will come again
II Peter 3:3-10
That time has come, people continuously doubt that Jesus will come again because the promise has been so long. Our faith needs to continually be looking to Jesus knowing that He will return for His bride; the church. Many times in scripture is the promise of His return recorded, and you can rest assured that He will come again. No, we do not know the times or the dates, but Jesus is coming again as the scriptures say, and since H is coming in this way how ought we to live?
II Peter 3:11-13
We need to have faith that Jesus is coming, and since we have faith in that we ought to live godly lives as we expect that coming.
b. He will provide for His people
God has always provided for His people. In the desert he provided Manna as the Israelites wandered, he always provides for the faithful. I can tell you time and time again that the Lord has provided for me when all logic says I cannot make it. He meets our needs. We need to have faith that during times of trial and hard times Jesus will provide. We have that faith because God is good, and He has never failed us. He knows what is going on in our lives, he knows our needs. He has the hairs on our head numbered and we can rest assured He will take care of us, even if it is not when we expect or how we expect. The thing is he only provides for those who have faith that He can and will.
c. He will give the increase
John 6:1-15
In this story we see great faith. We see Jesus giving the increase in their little. All logic said that there was not enough food, but with God all things are possible. Perhaps the disciples remembered Jesus’ words if you have faith as small as mustard seed you can move mountains.
Sometimes our five loaves and two fish do not look like enough for us. Perhaps we do not have faith that we can make it with the little that we have. God will always give the increase if we have faith. Right now the church has five loaves and two fish, and we are trying to feed Asheville the Bread of Life, and we don’t have enough to accomplish the mission. With faith all things are possible, and as the increase was given to feed the 5,000 the increase will be given according to our faith.
