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THE POWER OF FAITH
Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
Which of these statements best defines faith?
Faith is the self –assurance that you can solve life’s
circumstances.
Faith is an awareness that God can solve life’s circumstances.
Faith is an assurance that God can solve a particular life
circumstance.
Faith is the assurance that God will solve a particular life
circumstance.
Faith is the assurance that God is solving a particular life
circumstance even though the facts seem not to have changed.
You know you have faith when the hope that God will do something
gets very strong.
You know you have faith when you have the assurance to push
ahead solving your own life issues expecting God’s help you along
the way.
You know you have faith when you realize you can’t accomplish
something yourself, and you become aware that God can.
You know you have faith when you can’t solve something yourself
and you become absolutely certain God is going to.
1) Faith is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going
to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
2) Faith is catching a glimpse over the hill of what is… and
grasping a picture in our spiritual mind of what God wants to be!
3) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.
4) Faith brings into our mind and our heart the assurance of what
is not as if it already were!
5) Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and gives us proof of
what we cannot see.
6) All of the above
So…Fred, here, has a life issue he can not solve on his own. He
knows that because he has followed the typical human pattern of trying,
over and over again. Finally he does what he should have done from the
very beginning and takes his problem to God.
Fred gets the idea, in his head that God is able to solve what
he has been unable to solve on his own. Is that faith?
______________
Fred goes the next step and asks God, in prayer, to solve his
problem. He even gets a couple of friends to agree with him in
prayer. Is that faith? _____________
Fred becomes assured that God has heard his prayer and settles
in to see if God is going to answer it? Is that Faith?
__________________
Fred becomes assured that God has heard his prayer and an inner
assurance begins to grow in him that God is in the process of
answering his prayer.
Is that faith? _________________
Fred becomes so confident in his prayer of faith that even
though his circumstances have not yet changed he has the inner
assurance that the final result is as good as done!
Faith brings into our mind and our heart the assurance of
what is not as if it already were!
I.Faith is…________________________
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Every person, in Scripture, who had faith, were people who
were able to catch a glimpse over the hill of what was… and
grasp a picture in their spiritual mind of what God wanted to
be! Into their minds came the assurance of what was not as
if it already were!
So tell me…. (actually, this is rhetorical) what is going on
in your life that you are trusting God for that can not possibly
happen, apart from the direct personal attention of God.
What impossible situation have you brought before God, in
faith, and even though your circumstances remain the same…. you
have become certain that an answer
from God is on the way.
Where in your life do you have hold of a line of faith, the
other end of which connects directly to heaven and you know that
what you have hold of, on this end, links you directly into the
throne room of heaven where God himself is giving personal
attention to your specific need and the return answer here on earth
is as good as done, even though you haven’t seen evidence of it
yet?
I was laying in bed, early yesterday, thinking and praying
about this subject and into my mind came a lady I know
(Christian…..not in this church…..not in this state) who is one
of these types who is ever busy, thinking, planning, scheming,
arranging, re-arranging for everything in her life to come
exactly as she plans….
It just struck me….I wonder if there is any place in her
life where she is hanging on to a line of faith that reaches
clear into the throne room of God where she is resting in the
assurance that in her helplessness, she has gotten hold of God
to do, in her life, what she can not possible do herself.
I wonder if there is anything in her life that truly has
eternal consequences; I wonder if, in her planning and
arranging…if all the arrangements she makes has any relevance
beyond this life. I wonder how much of her life has any link to
the eternal or how much of all that effort is about the “here
and now” and won’t mean a thing 30 years from now.
And then I started wondering if there would be people, here
in this room today, who are like that…. Who’s life is spent
arranging temporal things… who spend little or no time hanging
on to God, in faith, for issues bigger than themselves that are
totally beyond their control.
These verses caught my eye this week:
2 Samuel 23:9-10 And after him was
Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three
mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines who
were gathered there for battle, and the men of Israel had
retreated. 10 He arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand
was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword…… (NKJV)
That ever happen to you?…you are so busy “getting it done” for God,
eliminating all God’s potential enemies, that your hand freezes around
your sword and you can’t let loose…
You’re here…you’re there…making it all happen in life…and when
you’re are not in the battle your laying in bed, quivering, with
your sword locked into your hand….
II. Faith is not a product of personal ability!
If you can solve all of life’s issues on your own…you don’t need
faith!
You don’t need faith for what you can see… you need it for what
you can’t see!
Hebrews 11:1 Faith makes us sure of what we hope for and gives
us proof of what we cannot see. (CEV)
What each of us are supposed to be hanging on to, without letting go
is not our own ability, our own sword swinging skills…. What we are
supposed to be hanging on to is the end of a line of faith that reaches
from our hearts up to the very heart of God!
Hebrews 10:19And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly
enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20
This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us
through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us. 21 And
since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's people, 22
let us go right into the presence of God, with true hearts fully
trusting him…For our evil consciences have been sprinkled with
Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed
with pure water. 23 Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the
hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. (NLT)
On the spiritual side of life if you are in a class where you think
you have all of life figured out, there is nothing you can’t solve on
your own, you have used your brains and your impeccable logic to get
you to the lofty pinnacle of achievement you have reached.
If you think walking in faith is something for the weak…
If that’s you…truth is; you’re are not, yet, even in the game
for which you were put on this earth. You’re still sitting on the
bench…it’s actually possible that some of those you consider the
weak people in this life are the one’s who really are playing the
eternal role God designed this life to be.
We, as a church, are walking in this adventure of
faith….building the new building cash…by faith…. Building the
churches in other countries and the orphanage, and the library in
Jamaica. There are those, in this community, who look at us and
think we’re playing in the minor leagues. I hear comments like,
“you’re still working on that building”…my we finished our building
and we are working on another! (Of course they owe millions of
dollars in debt)
I’ve discovered there is little use responding to those
comments. If you don’t understand the concept of “walking in faith”
then you are not going to be impressed by those who are doing it.
Truth is, everybody walks in faith! God hard-wired us all to walk in
faith.
The issue for human beings is never.. Are you exerting faith….. The
issue for all of us is what/who are we putting our faith in?
If we don’t exercise our faith in God we will exercise it in
something/someone else!
III. Faith is not a Product of Reason
Reason says that the only things one can place complete trust in are
those things we can hear, and feel, and smell, and see, and taste.
Many in the world, (by far the majority in this world), hold that
the highest form of enlightened thinking comes from those who only
trust what their five senses can demonstratively prove to them.
God comes along and says: “You that live your lives by only
believing in what you can scientifically prove to be true are not
at the top of the intellectual pyramid…..and you are definitely at
the bottom of the heap in spiritual understanding.
If you can prove something with your five senses.. you don’t
need faith!
If you never stretch out and believe God for what is not
immediately provable, you haven’t even stepped your toe over the
threshold of faith.
The world says: Seeing is believing… God says believing is
seeing!
Every….every example of faith in all of the Bible is about believing
is seeing…not the other way around!
Luke 8:41 And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was
a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus’ feet and
begged Him to come to his house, 42 for he had an only daughter
about twelve years of age, and she was dying. 49….. someone came
from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him,
“Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher.”
50 But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, “Do not
be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well.” 51 When He
came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter,
James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. 52 Now all
wept and mourned for her; but He said, “Do not weep; she is not
dead, but sleeping.” 53 And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she
was dead. 54 But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and
called, saying, “Little girl, arise.” 55 Then her spirit returned,
and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given
something to eat. 56 And her parents were astonished, but He
charged them to tell no one what had happened.
Jairus..ruler of the synagogue reached the point where he didn’t
give a rip what anyone thought of him. He “fell down at Jesus feet and
begged him”. When the circumstance got even worse…his faith grew even
stronger.
When they got to the house. His senses said she’s dead. His sight
said “she’s dead”. His hearing said “she’s dead”. His touch said “she’s
dead”…..but Jesus said, just believe!
Faith perceives as reality what has not yet been revealed to the
five senses.
Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be
yours. (NIV)
You haven’t started walking, in faith, until you are ready to
admit to God that you can’t solve everything on your own. You must have
some degree of understanding that your Creator can do in you, and
though you, a zillion times more than you can do on your own.
In order for you to become a person who is walking in faith you must
not only reach out to God for answers to your life issues, but you must
reach the point where you believe that God has heard you and that he is
actively moving to solve your problems.
In fact, true faith goes one step further.
True faith grasps God’s answer to our prayers as if it were already
done.
Hebrews 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.
There’s more here than meets the eye:
Faith moves outside of time! It makes today’s dreams tomorrow’s
realities!
God lives outside of time
God already exists in the future.
God is already experiencing 10 years from now.
He can, at one glance see the beginning and the end. In fact he
doesn’t just see it…Jesus said He is the Alpha and Omega.
From God’s Perspective; your future is His Past!
When you pray a prayer for an impossible situation in your life-
God is already living on the other side of the answer.
God doesn’t have to work up his faith to believe your need is as
good as done. In his eternal perspective…he has already done it.
Your present problems are future to you…they are history to God!
But….He has linked your receiving of his provision to your
prayer of faith!
Mark 11:22-24 Then Jesus said to the
disciples, "Have faith in God. 23 I assure you that you can say
to this mountain, `May God lift you up and throw you into the
sea,' and your command will be obeyed. All that's required is that
you really believe and do not doubt in your heart. 24 Listen to me!
You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it. (NLT)
“Not a real mountain….a life mountain”
What are you needing to have faith
for?_______________________________
What are you putting your faith in, apart from
God?____________________
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