Deepen My Faith
DEEPEN MY FAITH
Hebrews 11
This week in our series entitled “Influence” we are looking at Deepening My Faith. We have been considering how God has created us – wired us – to make a difference in the world with the influence He is working into each of our lives.
Faith is really the place where what I believe and how I live collide. James says that faith without works is dead.
James 2:14-19
if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.
Because faith is not an intellectual exercise but very much a ‘real life’ challenge, I have found in my life that the most effective way to learn how to deepen my faith has been by seeing how others have deepened their own faith and then try to copy them – to learn lessons from others and stand on their shoulders, so this morning I am going to share some stories of others, and perhaps a bit of my own story.
To get started, lets start with a story where Jesus is teaching his disciples an important lesson about faith. Jesus had sent his disciples out to preach, heal and cast out demons. They came across a situation where they could not exercise the influence Jesus had sent them out to exert, they were stuck so they brought their challenging situation to Jesus. He deals with the problem and they ask him why they couldn’t deal with the problem themselves, and he gets on to them and says...
Matt 17:20
..."Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, 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."
What was their issue? They didn’t have the faith they needed to extend their influence that God had sent them out to do
What was Jesus saying... There is a connection between our influence, doing what God has created us to do, and our faith.
This morning we are going to consider the connection between our faith and our influence, and there is a real deep connection. The disciples influence was limited by their faith. Could it be in my life, and in your life, that our influence is limited by our lack of faith? What if our faith were a little deeper? If we increased our faith to the size of a mustard seed – what would happen to our influence? Shallow faith limits your influence, deep faith increases your influence, your ability to be used by God to make a difference in our world.
The principle for this message is this – As your faith expands so does your influence. Deepen your faith, increase your influence.
A couple of weeks ago we considered how you can make some goals in different areas of your life. Those who wrote down some goals made a step of faith. Setting a goal – writing it down and moving towards the realization of that goal is done is a step of faith, what you expect to see happen in your life that is not there today. That leads us to our memory verse for this week:
Heb 11:1
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
Faith is the confident assurance that what we hope for is actually going to happen. When you write down a goal, that is a statement of faith. For some, we write down BHAG’s (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals), for others they may be everyday goals – but still a goal is a statement of faith that I want to see something happen in my life.
What will your influence be like over the next 20-30-40 years. Do you have the confident assurance that even though you cant see it, God is going to bring something incredible to bear in your life.
All influential people through the ages have been with great amounts of faith, that could see great things happening – that had never happened before – and they could move forward with confident assurance
Video
All people through the ages have been people of faith. Kennedy saw something incredible happening that had never happened before – he didn’t put one rivet into the space craft, but he put men on the moon.
For Christians, this faith takes on even more significant meaning, a deeper spiritual understanding, because God blesses faith. When we as followers of Jesus have faith, God adds his blessing to our faith. We are not making up the future but instead we are cooperating with God to bring about God’s will on earth – and believe me that can be every bit as challenging as putting a man on the moon.
How I Can Deepen My Faith:
1. Face my life challenges with Faith - trusting that God is able and good
All of us are going to face challenges, problems, difficulties, and when they come we must face them with faith.
Believe that God exists:
Enoch: Heb 11:5 ~ he was commended as one who pleased God.
Heb 11:6
And without 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.
I had a conversation with someone this week who made a significant decision in their life to trust God with the challenges of their life. This person was facing a job they hated, a bad relationship and some significant health issues. Their friends were telling them how they always make the same ‘bad’ decisions and they were tired of making those kinds of decisions, they needed to break out of some really bad patterns in their life. As we talked, this person knew they needed to trust God with their life challenges, and they thought they had, but this time they knew it had to be different. They couldn’t just “do the right things” and expect God to make things right, but they needed to trust God like He is a real person involved in their life. This person began to trust that God was truly good, He knew them and the issues going on in their life and as He moved they began to experience their faith in him go deeper than it had ever been before.
Believe God is good:
Rom 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,j whok have been called according to his purpose.
2. Willing to Risk Obedience – even when I don’t like it or it doesn’t make sense
Heb 11:8-9
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents,
Willing to live different from the world around him
One of the first things that happened that pointed us towards Vancouver to start a church involved God telling me to do something that I didn’t want to do – I had to go and talk to a man that I didn’t like, someone that I never really considered that God would use to give me direction for my life – but God did and He used that man in a very significant way that put Vancouver on our radar screen as the place God would want to take us to start a church.
Vision for a tomorrow that was bigger than today’s reality
Heb 11:11-12
11 By faith Abraham, even though he was past age — and Sarah herself was barren — was enabled to become a father because hea considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
Heb 11:13-16
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
3. Willing to Sacrifice my most valued – living my life with open hands
Heb 11:17-19
17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspringb will be reckoned."c 19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
My story – Diana & I and the kids were moving to FW where God was taking us so I could go to seminary. It was an incredible time for us and God moved in some great ways – you can read about it on my blog if you want, but our faith in God and the realities of life still have to come together.
We had received a letter from the admissions office about a house they had assigned our family. We had gone to the Dallas area for a wedding and took a day to go over to FW to check out the housing. I remember pulling up infront of the house we were to live in. It was a cracker box painted an ugly color of yellow with weeds about waist high and a rail road tracks that ran right behind the back fence. I looked at the house – I looked at Diana and thought “this is not the positive move I had hoped this would be.” We decided to go inside and the house was about 900 sq ft that was divided into 3 br a living room, and a kitchen with an eating area and a bathroom so small the light switch was in the hall. And two window air conditioner units so loud that you couldn’t have a conversation when they were running. Abut that time a little gecko lizard ran across the wall and I looked at Diana with tears streaming down thinking “this is not a good move” We were moving from a beautiful home 3X the size to something smaller and in worse shape than anything either of us had ever lived in to this point of our lives. We left and started looking for other houses we could buy or rent in the area, but I didn’t want to look at buying something without having the certainty of a job yet or our house not being sold. The drive back to Dallas was a long and quiet drive.
Later that night after the kids had gotten in bed, I went for a long walk to pray, and I read this chapter – Heb 11 under the street lights that hot June evening. I read how all these great people of faith trusted God and God seemed to move and I prayed, God I have given you everything to make this move, my career, my job, our church, friends, family, our house – everything was on the alter to sacrifice to you – and then God spoke. “There is one thing you have not put on the alter to me ~ your lifestyle”
It was like a dagger that pierced my heart. He was right. We had given up so much, but I was not yet willing to change the way I lived, the way other people looked at our lives, the comforts of our lifestyle.
That night, while I was walking, I gave it to God too and said “I will live where you want us to live, and we will like it. I want nothing to stand between me and the future you have for us.”
When I returned to where we were staying, Diana was already asleep, so the next morning I told her about what God had said and she said that God had spoken to her about the house as well and we decided we would take that little house. That year we learned alot about living simply with most of our stuff in storage. When our friends and parents saw the little house, I know they thought we were a little nuts, but we had a great year in that little house. A year later God blessed us with a larger home and we enjoyed it, but God did something in us that year in the little house, he knit us together with him in an extraordinary way that God has since used in different ways since that time. That was a deep lesson for us in living with open hands, that he will give and take as he chooses and he is good.
Heb 11:24-26
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
It is in Sacrifice that God will raise the dead is validated
The blessings of a Deep Faith:
Ps 31:19
How great is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you,
which you bestow in the sight of men
on those who take refuge in you.
Heb 11:28-31
v28 – Passover – Divine Mark on your life
28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
V 29 – Red Sea – Divine Interventions - God moves to bring salvation 29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sead as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
V 30 – Jericho - Divine Victories
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
V31 – Rehab - Divine protection
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.e
Heb 11:32-35
32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again.
V 34 – weakness turned to Divine strength