Faith in Action
New Year • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 7 viewsBig Idea: Faith in action requires us to listen, look, get uncomfortable, and follow.
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Transcript
Outline
Outline
Big Idea: Faith in action requires us to listen, look, get uncomfortable, and follow.
Listen
Look
Get Uncomfortable
Follow
Introduction
Introduction
As we look to the new year, once more we are challenged to consider our lives, our spiritual walk, and we are given the opportunity to take stock, evaluate, set some new goals, and look to what God wants of us.
Tonight, I want us to consider OUR FAITH IN ACTION.
What does FAITH IN ACTION mean?
How do we possess a faith in action?
How do we grow in an active faith?
I want to suggest four ways that we can grow in a faith that is active.
Not exhaustive by any means, but maybe a starting point for us to consider.
Big Idea: Faith in action requires us to listen, look, get uncomfortable, and follow.
Body
Body
Listen
Listen
Video - Stop and Listen (Skit Guys - Onetimeblind)
Have volunteers to read…
Psalm 46:10.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
What is implied in “being still and knowing that He is God?”
What is implied is that in BEING STILL, you are drawing hear, looking to, trusting in, and seeking to hear from God.
It is implied that instead of being harried and stressed, we are learning to look to Him for answers and help.
Why is it so hard to “Be still?”
Pride.
We think we are too important and too needed to take a break and be still with God.
Idols of the heart
Too distracted with other things.
Too busy
We have taken on too much.
Which can also be rooted in pride by not knowing how to say no because we do not want to disappoint others or we fear what they might say if we said no.
We do not like being alone in the quiet with ourselves or with God
Where does faith come from?
Where does growth come from?
Romans 10:17.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
1 Peter 2:2.
2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—
Hebrews 5:12-13.
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,
13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
So, where does faith and growth come from?
THE WORD
What is the primary means of hearing from God?
The word.
Which means, we need to be in it. Regularly.
BUT YES, we also need to learn to be still, to let His word speak, to let the Spirit convict, instruct, remind, and give understanding.
What keeps us from truly HEARING the word when we sit down to dig into it?
Anxiety
Fear
Doubt
Cares of this life
Tiredness
Busyness
Overwhelmedness.
Competing and conflicting desires
What is the purpose of hearing?
Read James 1:22-25.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
To be a doer.
To live out what we hear.
BUT this necessitates that we what?
Hear.
Listen.
Problem is, too many of us are not even bothering to listen.
How will we grow as listeners in this new year?
Eliminate distractions
Prioritize the time, defending and protecting it with a vengeance.
Set aside times to listen
Ask others to help us.
Free up time.
Still the busyness even in our own minds.
Look
Look
Video - Little Things (Skit Guys - Onetimeblind)
Have volunteers read the following…
Save my bullet points for after they are all read.
Psalm 84:3.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
God cares for even the little sparros.
Luke 12:7.
7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
God is concerned and cares for the hairs upon our heads…the small things.
Matthew 5:44-45.
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
God is the one who sends the rain…
And the sun
and the night.
And everything we need for life.
James 2:14-17.
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,
16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
God uses OTHERS to meet our needs.
Psalm 71:14-16.
14 But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.
15 My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge.
16 With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.
God is FULL of righteous deeds
His acts are MANY and VARIED
Praise for them ought to be continually on our lips.
Psalm 77:12.
12 I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.
God is full of mighty deeds, IF WE ARE PAYING ATTENTION for them.
Psalm 150.
1 Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!
3 Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
4 Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
5 Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
We should be continually praising His mighty works. WHICH MEANS he is actively coming out with new ones.
What stands out to you from these texts?
Go back through and read my points under each.
We are repeatedly told to praise the mighty works of God.
We are repeatedly admonished to pay attention for His “small” works too.
We are surrounded and inundated with God’s good and mighty works.
The question is, are we LOOKING for them?
Actively?
Intentionally?
Are we logging them?
Those God Sightings?
Faith in action is actively and intentionally building an ongoing and lengthy log of God’s works AND praising them continually.
What acts of God have you seen Him do recently? (Big or small)
SO
Faith in ACTION will
LISTEN for the word of God to speak in our hearts
It will LOOK for the works of God, actively and regularly, AND will engage in worship and thanksgiving!
Get Uncomfortable
Get Uncomfortable
Video - Comfort (Skit Guys - Onetime blind)
What discomforts are we often unwilling to embrace in our service and obedience to Jesus?
Man’s criticism and judgment
Awkwardness of conversations and interactions
Getting up early to help others
The sacrifice of our time
The surrender of our resources
The giving up of our pleasures to read and study more so we are prepared to give an answer to those who ask.
Lack of sleep
Praying out loud, in public, with those who need it.
Loneliness by standing on truth when no one else will.
What is the cost of following Jesus?
Have volunteers read the following:
Matthew 16:24.
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Dying to self.
Surrender of all to put Him first
Death to our will
Mortification of our desires
An embracing of suffering and struggle (for now)
Matthew 10:37-39.
37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Putting God ABOVE ALL, including our most cherished relationships.
Dying to self
Losing our life for His. (Like He did for us?
Faith in action will require us to LISTEN, TO LOOK
AND TO
GET UNCOMFORTABLE.
We will be called to step out of ourselves and live for the sake of another.
Are you willing?
What comforts do you need to lay down for Jesus?
So that you can follow….
Follow
Follow
Wash My Feet (Skit Guys - Onetimeblind)
Read…
John 13:1-15.
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,
3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,
4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.
5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”
7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”
8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”
9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”
10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”
11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?
13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.
14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.
Faith in Action is a life that is exemplified by a humble, Christ like serving of those whom God places in our lives.
How will you and I serve Jesus better this coming year? How will we grow in our FAITH IN ACTION lifestyle?
Conclusion
Conclusion
Big Idea: Faith in action requires us to listen, look, get uncomfortable, and follow.
Listen
Look
Get Uncomfortable
Follow
Pray.
