Understanding and Growing our Faith

er we do commit the day to you we are people that are committed to the purposes that you have for our life and we ask that as individuals and as a church we be found faithful and to that we commit the morning in Jesus name amen you can be seated well the series we’re in now is called face to face with Jesus and the reason for that is we’ve been in the Book of Matthew but we’re going to move around because chronologically we’re going to chase

the life of Jesus through his time and teaching up to the time of the Cross and we’re going to move not just in Matthew but we’re going to move into other books as well for example next week we’ll be in Mark chapter 7 on the subject of forgiveness and the following week will be in Mark 8 on the subject of productivity in our Christian life but in all this our goal for you is to kind of theologically wrap that bracelet around your life the bracelet that

says WWJ D what would Jesus do if we do our job right and if the spirit has free course in our life we’ll keep asking that question what would Jesus do and we are there this morning as well we’re coming off of a I guess guess you would call it a a high from last week in terms of saying schedule wise goodbye to step Debbie the good news is Stephen Debbie will continue in the course while their schedules change and they won’t he Steve won’t have

a regular time in the Pulpit they’re going to be traveling around but this is their home Church they may be gone but they’re not gone gone and so you know I I’m not part of the search committee but if I was I would have just one question and as I asked that question apparently it’s a question that the search committee has already asking and it’s one of the first questions that they ask those that they’re interviewing and it is what do you think about the pastor

of 30 years staying in this church do you have a problem with that and I’m I’m happy to say that that’s a question that’s being asked because I feel kind of protective for stepen Debbie I used to be part of a mission group called Village missions and a country church and they had as one of their philosophies that as the pastor retired he couldn’t stay in that church and I thought that was kind of odd you know now that I think about it two of the

last three churches I’ve been in the pastor have retired that may not be good it may have something to say about me but this is this is church family we are family and barring different decisions for Stephen Debbie they will be with us as part of our church family the message of today is out of Matthew chapter 8 and we’ve been through The Sermon on the Mount and now we are into the subject of the faith of the the Centurion let’s see your Bibles you hold

up your Bibles for me very good great good job you know did you notice that that is it Kyla that’s moving up to the high school that they gave her a study Bible ha I was so pleased with that and if you were to look at my Bible you’d find that one of the yellow tabs I have in my study Bible The New International Version Study Bible is a two-page chart on the life of Jesus that I go back to regularly because right now I’m teaching

here in the Book of Matthew in a different context I’m teaching out of the Book of Mark the men’s group on Saturday morning and in a blog that I do every week I’m teaching out of the Book of John so I have to keep going back and saying where are we in the life of Jesus and that chart for me helps to orient me back to that the time we are in this morning morning is the middle year of Jesus Jesus had three years of public

Ministry he had a year of introduction and that introduction included things like saying to Nicodemus you must be born again and Nicodemus said say what and Jesus explained you must be born of the water and you must be born of the spirit in that first year Jesus in John chapter 4 met the Samaritan woman at the well and as she got water he asked for a drink and she said sir you have no bucket and he said if you knew what you were asking you’d ask

me and I would give you water that lasts for eternity and Jesus talked to her about as she tried to deflect the conversation you remember to get into a theological debate about who was who should Reign where in terms of the different Jewish Traditions he said you’ve been married five times the man you’re with now you’re not married to and the woman knew immediately that it had the conversation had Dove deep into the issues of her heart and he led her to a believing faith in

him as well that’s all in the first year and the second year we’re in the year not of introduction but the year where Jesus basically is gaining popularity he’s doing Miracles he’s telling Parables and and regularly he says to the disciples or he says to the one who heal he heals don’t speak of this because he doesn’t want the volume and momentum of the second year of his ministry to grow prematurely and it’s in this second year that the Sermon on the Mount came it’s in

the second year that we find ourselves in Matthew chapter 8 the faith of centurion reading at verse reading at verse eight when Jesus had entered Capernaum verse five when Jesus had entered Capernaum a centurion came to him asking for help Lord he said my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering in another version a different gospel he actually calls his servant his son which was just another endearing way of saying this man’s people that work for him were like family to him Jesus said

him I’ll go and heal him the Centurion replied Lord I do not deserve to have you come under my roof but just say the word and my servant will be healed for I myself am a man under Authority with soldiers under me I tell them this one go and he goes and that one come and he comes I say to my servant do this and he does it when Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him I tell you the truth I

have not found anyone one in Israel with such great faith I say to you that many will come from the East and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom with in the kingdom of heaven and that of course resonated strongly with the Jewish Jews who were listening to him the subjects of the Kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness where they will be weeping and nashing of teeth then Jesus said to the Centurion go

it’ll be done just as you believed it would and the servant was healed at that very hour now in this story we’ve gone from 0er to 100 in terms of what it’s like to be a man or woman of faith we say that because there’s no exclamation in the whole of the Bible that quite meets this exclamation of Jesus when he said I’ve not seen such great faith in all of Israel there are a number of things that would ring up for us as surprising one

of this is it’s not from a Jew it was from a non-jew it was not from someone who had religious Authority it was someone who had political Authority this is a man who worked within the court of Herod and he said I have a servant who’s ill and Jesus said I’ll go and he said no just say the word and what he does is addresses the issue of Faith as we deal with it as Christians in our life because faith has a number of sides to

it in the New Testament it is the initial step in which we come to a saving knowledge of God through Christ Ephesians 2:8-9 bring that up when it says for by Grace you have been saved through faith it’s not of yourself it’s the gift of God not of works so that no one can boast so Ephesians 2 says as you believe in Jesus initially it was through nothing of your own Merit there was no merit in it there’s no works and in fact the purpose of

that is to illustrate that it’s a gift of God not not by works so that no one can boast and then Paul writes in verse 10 for we are God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good work works now works comes to play which God prepared in advance for us to do so what we’re looking at is really a primer on faith this morning and we’ve gone from zero to 100 with the Centurion but if we were to go back to zero and one and

two it would be Ephesians 2 8-10 your initial walk with God begins in believing in the person of Jesus and not just in believing but as we learned as we looked at the man who was Bor who was healed of his blindness John 5 says I tell you the truth whoever believes my word excuse me whoever hears my word and Believes In Me has eternal life will not be condemned but has crossed from Death to life you may run into people who say well I believe

in God and we call that a theist it’s not good enough James 2 says even the demons believe so to be a theist someone that believes well I think God ordered our world does not bring Redemption it’s someone who believes in God and who takes the step individually of committing their life to him say I believe in you I trust you as my savior and in that as John says we pass from Death to life now we see a lot of illustrations of faith in the

New Testament for example we see in ma in Mark chapter n that there was a man who parallel to this passage a ruler who came who had a son who was very ill and he said to Jesus in Mark 9 just come put your hands on him now the man’s home was 20 miles from Jesus and Jesus said go your way your son is healed so Jesus took that man who his category of Faith was I’ve got to have a touch from Jesus in order for

my son to be well and he elevated his understanding of the power of God in the life of that boy by healing him from 20 miles away you know we run into that in our lives I was raised by a single parent who at the latter part of her life got multiple sclerosis strong believing woman raised three kids and she had good friends who came to her and said Jean there’s a nationally renowned healer in town we want to take you there we believe that may

be the answer to your multiple sclerosis what do you do as a family when you have various options that may be proposed that may intersect it may not intersect with your view of God’s work in your life or a crisis that you’re in and in that situation we as a family had to decide do we need the physical Touch of a Healer to consider the prospect of the healing of this one who has multiple sclerosis and in fact we’d find that someone who like the the

ruler in in Mark chapter 9 who says just come and touch Jesus said no it’s your faith that’s made him well another illustration is in Mark chapter 4 with a woman who was bleeding had been bleeding as issues of blood for years in her life and there was a crowd pressing Around Jesus as the woman said if I can just Touch the Hem of His Garment I’ll be well and she did and Jesus said who touched me and his disciples says are you kidding there’s a

whole crowd around you what are you saying who touched me and he turned to the woman and he said woman your faith has made you whole do you see how God in Christ compassionately meets people at the level of their faith it may not be a great faith like the Centurion it may be a mediocre Faith I’ve got to be touched he has to touch my son in order to be well and Jesus meets each believer at the level of their faith and struggle and doubt

and instructs them that their goal is to look to Jesus and trust in him we get really a further definition of faith in Hebrews 11 verse six this is the single best definition that we have of faith in the the New Testament and it is classic and it says in verse 6 for without faith it’s impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists if the sentence stopped there we’d be in trouble right because you got to believe more than

that he exists the demons believe that you’ve got to believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him and as we go through Hebrews 11 if we were to take the time we’d see the heroes of the faith the Abrahams The Isaacs the Moses’s the ones who in the Old Testament stood up and in the midst of insurmountable odds said I believe in God but you know the greatest heroes of the Hebrews 11 were the unnamed at the end of the passage and if you read

that later on today you’ll see that at the end of the passage the author of Hebrews who I think was aplus but I don’t have a lot of Authority for that that’s just who I think the end of Hebrews 11 it says others were tortured and refused to be released so they might gain a better Resurrection some faced chains and put in prison they were stoned they were s in two they were put to Death By The Sword they wore about in sheep skins and goat

skins destitute persecuted and mistreated the world was not worthy of them so the finishing off of the faith for some of the Saints include that you or I will die without seeing the resolution to our prayer it’s okay you can come after us in fact the scriptures say the world was not worthy of those who as kind of the biblical Fox of Martyrs said my life is committed to Jesus regardless of the circumstances around me Hebrews chapter 11 then becomes a primer for us to say

it is true that faith is for those who believe that God exists and rewards those who earnestly seek him we get the concept of Faith stretched out in the Bible further in James chapter 2 we’ve been in James for a number of years and in James chapter 2 we get a what some see as a problem text but it’s actually a great text James writes the brother of Jesus what good is it my brothers and sisters if someone claims to have faith but has no Deeds

has no Works can such Faith save him and the answer in the chapter is no and the reason for that is in the Bible you have certain words that stretch out to mean more than a circumstance in one area of our life salvation As We Know from John chter 5 and Ephesians 2 begins when we believe in Christ but here is a term salvation used to stretch out the preserving the setting aside of us in our walk in the faith and so James said in order

to activate faith in our life we have to obey we have to do Works in fact if we don’t do Works our faith is dead and by that James means it hasn’t finished its work in us so in James chapter 2 James gives two illustrations he gives Abraham and he said in James 2 that Abraham Works Justified his faith as he offered Isaac up on the altar well that was Genesis 22 it was an act of faith that that is compreh incomprehensible to me as a

parent but for all the promises God had made to Abram and Sarah and that their Nation would be as M as many as the stars of the sky the text says in Genesis 12 he obeyed God and left his country in Genesis 15 he believed God and it was counted him as righteousness and in Genesis 22 we see the finishing off of James’s Fai of Abram’s faith when he took Isaac and was instructed to offer Isaac as a sacrifice in the Altar and as you know

at the last minute God provided a sacrifice instead of Isaac but James says that act by Abraham was in the words of the text his faith was made complete that’s really where we are we’re at a place as Christians where we are at a slice of life where we have some passion of faith in our life it may not be great faith like the Centurion it it may be a faith where says go God has to intervene physically in a way for me to be confident

that he’s working in my life it could be a good faith it could be a mediocre faith it could be a modest faith it could be a faith that’s just new for you as a young believer but in all of that God is working in a way to finish you off to as the words in James says to be made complete and if we haven’t gotten the point in James 2 James 2 ends with Rahab Rahab the woman of ill repute first heard of the god

of Israel and believed in the god of Israel that he was acting on behalf of Israel so when the spies came to her she hid them and she said to the rulers of the city they’re not here I don’t know where they went and when they left she instructed the spies go this way do this hide for two days and go back and tell Israel that God is at work in our land and rahab’s Faith was made complete by this finishing of her at the end

of her life where she demonstrated that her faith had action it had feet she obeyed the truth of what God had for her so faith for us is a is an act that is in every feature of our Christian Life for every part of our Christian Life from the beginning of when we are born again until the time that we take our last breath and in our last breath we may die in faith recognizing that God hasn’t yet finished his promises to me but it’s going

to happen after my life time are in the words of Hebrews 11 to those to whom the world did not deserve Mark 9: 24 may say it best there was a man whose son was demon possessed and he came to Jesus and as Jesus turned to the man and his son the evil spirits in the sun in the Sun shrieked out and Jesus said this this kind can only be driven out by God and the father said I do believe help me in my unbelief and

Jesus said your faith has made him whole and He restored his son to health and spiritual life in other words Jesus took this man in the midst of his halting confused manner of trying to understand what God was doing for him and he said I’m going to meet you right here I’m not going to be critical of you I’m going to take you in your belief in your unbelief and move from there you know things don’t always work out the way we want them to in

1978 there was a fireman strike in London and the British Army stepped into London and began to do the firefighting since the firemen were on strike and a woman lost her favorite cat went up a tree and the British army was called in and they in a rather dramatic way rescued this cat brought him back to this Widow lady as they were ready to drive off she said wait a minute why don’t you come in and have tea with me which they agreed to did and

as they were then leaving they waved goodbye she said thank you again and as they drove off they ran over the cat some things just don’t work out the way we want them to but in the circumstances of life Faith takes us beyond the circumstances someone would say how you doing and they’ll say well not bad under the CC circumstances and you might say what are you doing under the circumstances the life of faith is one who says I’m not tying my confidence into God into

what does or does not happen in the particular challenge that I face in my life I’m believing that God exists and that he’s going to honor my faith in him and bring his purposes and will in my life either in my lifetime or after my lifetime it seems like the subject of faith in the scriptures leaves us with three conclusions the first conclusion is that faith is something that is a requirement for everyone who’s a pilgrim in life following Jesus you’ll never unstrap your life from

the need for Faith for believing that God’s working in a situation where visually it doesn’t look that way take our country my goodness or whatever else you want to look at and say you know every day I pray that God will preserve this country so that as a church we can have a quiet and tranquil environment for the church that’s considered that’s good that’s 1 Timothy 2 and and in the midst of visual bizarre kinds of things that come into our life we’re ones who say

God hasn’t lost control God doesn’t expect me to get my life together before he’s going to work in my life in fact as he structured the tests of my life he said just the opposite you know it’s James 1 that reminded us way back years ago when we looked at it that we are we are to consider it pure joy my brothers when you encounter various trials knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance and endurance must have its perfect work that we may be perfect

and complete that’s the blueprint for every Christian but it doesn’t stop there because the next verse says but if you lack wisdom in other words God understands that you and I are going to run into brick walls and we’re going to say I wasn’t fair for my Godly mother who raised three kids to get hit with multiple sclerosis that wasn’t fair that I had the financial or health reversal that I did that my options are limited in terms of how I think I’m going to be

able to work this out God meets us at the level of our fear at the level of our concern at the level of our questions and keeps us going in the pilgrim AG you know it was Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress written by John bunan who whenever he would fall into the slew of despond it would discourage him but he recognized he need to get up and keep moving toward the celestial City the second thing we do is we understand that faith and doubt walk hand in

glove with a Christian don’t get down yourself if you’re frightened by a circumstance are you’re confused are you’re fearful that’s just the human phenomena of living life if you don’t have an answer to why this calamitous thing happened in your life that’s all right I’d recommend to you that you be honest in that I love the prayers of new believers who in some of the first times when they pray they’ll say Lord this is Mark and I have to kind of smile when they do that

because the Lord knows it’s Mark but but they want to make sure the Lord knows that it’s Mark and then they ask what they ask in the name of Jesus that’s an honorable thing to do to be honest with God as Jesus confronted those who struggled even Thomas one of his disciples at the end of his life after his resurrection before his Ascension Thomas said just do me a favor show me your hands and I I think I I’d get a nervous tick if I was

in that group saying Thomas you sure you want to ask that of Jesus who’s risen from the dead and who walks through walls and who’s met with us in various settings over 40 days and Jesus did it Jesus will meet you God will meet you at the level of your fear and your concern turn be honest with him and then put it before him in a way that lets him work in that sense and I think this is true faith is the beginning the middle and

the end of our Christian life it doesn’t stop it continues to require of us that we have people that March according to a drum that’s chronicled in the scriptures and the truth of the scriptures regardless of visual circumstances There Was An Old Saint that said what do you do when the river overflows Faith answers he says I’m going to sit on the porch and watch her go what are you going to do when the Hogs all drown I’m going to wish I lived on Higher Ground

what are you going to do when the cow floats by I’m going to throw in after her a bail of hay where what are you going to do when the water’s in the room I’m going to sweep her out with a sedge straw broom what are you going to do when the cabin leaves I’m going to climb on the roof and straddle leaves and what are you going to do when your hold gives way and the Old Saint said I’m going to say howdy Lord It’s

Judgment Day you know I had the privilege of teaching at Mt Noma for 15 years Bible College before I went into law and U for all the theological Firepower of that faculty and the books that we wrote and we wrote a number of them maybe the most notable book that came out of that faculty group was from Pamela reev Pamela ree was the wi women’s dean of students at mola and she and I actually had occasion times where we had difficulty with each other because she

had these silly rules for the girls and then they come to my office and talk to me about it but that’s another matter pam pam wrote a book called faith is some of you have it in your library and it’s a wonderful book it’s a book cited by Charles swindall and a number of different authors where she summarized kind of in a piy form what faith is and she said faith is the engaging in the deepest Joy Of Heaven knowing that that the unfathomable love of

God for me is there as I walk through the thorny desolate now and that’s what faith is Faith doesn’t promise that if you go to the right healer you’re going to be healed Faith doesn’t promis that if you

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 4,810 words.