The Gift of Faith

Notes
Transcript
What is the gift of faith?
9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,
Types/expressions/experiences of faith:
Converting/Saving Faith
Daily Faith
Charismatic/Supernatural Faith
1. Converting/Saving Faith
1. Converting/Saving Faith
9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
2. Daily/Continual Faith
2. Daily/Continual Faith
Relying on the work of the HS continually, throughout the day
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Constantly knowing and believing that I am a child of God, adopted as a son
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Or, that God will never leave or forsake me
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Or, God will provide
19 And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
This is an ongoing, continual process of faith in God’s promises.
There is a lot of theological distinctions on this and we will get into some of this in the coming weeks as we talk about healing.
3. Charismatic/Supernatural Faith
3. Charismatic/Supernatural Faith
This is what I believe that Paul has in mind when it comes to the gift of faith
My belief is that this gift can be given to some individuals and not others…or even more likely so, that this is a temporary extreme amount of faith in a specific situation
The gift of faith is likely not ongoing as other gifts such as healing (which we will be talking about), WoW, WoK, prophecy, etc.
It is possible, though not definitive, that Jesus had this idea in mind in
22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
We need to make a few distinctions on what the gift of faith is and is not.
What it is not:
It is not someone forcing themself to believe something other than what they believe
It is not coercing one’s self of something as truth when one’s heart knows otherwise
It is not psychological certainty - where we convince ourselves of something as being true that simply isn’t
Side caveat to the side caveat, there certainly may be things that we believe are true that simply aren’t. Or vice versa. Things that aren’t true that we believe as truth.
Our minds do need to be transformed through the word and the Spirit.
So, don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say: yes, at times we do need to transform our minds! But, convincing ourselves of something because we want or desire it, does not make it the gift of faith.
So, for example: I believe in the promise of God to supply my needs. I also believe that God does bless us with temporary things at times. But say I want a 2 million dollar home, and so what I try and do is convince myself that God will give me the 2 million dollar home that I want because of His promises…
and convincing myself over and over again to believe that God will give me that 2 million dollar home is not faith, it is what we would call psychological certainty.
Just because I am convinced of it, doesn’t mean it is faith.
Now, that being said, I do believe in a relational God, who may speak to us and say He is going to do something beyond what we think could happen and give us the faith to believe for it!
As we see in:
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
So, we have the power of God in us, to help us understand the love of Christ! And to help us understand how great God is, and what He can do beyond what we can ask or imagine…
And so absolutely, God may give us faith for something that might seem crazy….but that is from God, not from us convincing ourselves of something!
After all, the definition of faith is
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Another error that we can sometimes make is not taking the entire council of God into consideration when we are walking in faith.
Sometimes, we see people will take one or two verses out of the bible and claim them as true in every and all situations without looking at the rest of God’s word.
For example: they may take what Jesus says in Mark 11 that we just read and say “well jesus said to believe without doubting in our heart and it will be done.”
But, they are simply ignoring other scriptures like:
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
It seems like what James is saying here would apply to my 2 million dollar home…maybe my motives are wrong and I, in flesh, am desiring something to fulfill my pleasures…and God won’t grant that to me…
Sometimes I will hear people use:
5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’
8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. 9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
And they stop reading there…and they say, well God gives good gifts to His children and as a parent wouldn’t you give your child everything you can?
Well, 2 issues
1 finish reading the passage
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
What is the promise here? The HS!
And the second issues is:
As a parent, I don’t give my kids everything that they ask for, because I know more than them! I know that somethings are not good for them!
My middle child, Lacy’s nickname is cakies. This has been a thing since she was little. I think it just begun as a cute nickname, lacy-cakes…but it seems it is more of a description now than a cute nick-name, because she LOVES sweets!
That girl could eat sweets all day every day.
But, guess what, we don’t let her! Because, we know that it is not good for her!
Sometimes things that we think are good, may not be that great!
So yeah, we have a father who loves us and wants what’s best for us, but that doesn’t mean we get everything we want.
So far, we see that we need to ask with:
Belief
Unselfish motives
Let’s look at a couple more scriptures
14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
So, we add asking according to His will to the list!
In addition:
7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
Treating our spouse right will not hinder our prayers.
Also, Mark indicates a level of forgiving others as we are praying
25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
So, as well look at more of the entire council of God’s will, there are several conditions to our prayers.
We went on a bit of a side caveat to the gift of faith, but it is important to lay some groundwork as these things will apply to other gifts such as miracles and healing as we move forward.
So, the gift of faith, is an empowerment from God in a specific moment or situation.
As we talked about with all of the gifts mentioned in 1 corinthians 12, the gifts are
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
The gifts are the HS moving in and through us for the building up of the body.
So, as with others, the gift of faith is not something that we can muster up ourselves.
In a moment, the HS can give us belief in what God will do beyond what we would consider to be the “normative” working of God.
The gift of faith is supernatural, meaning it not something that happens in the natural, it is a dependance on the HS!
Next week we will talk about some more mentions of the gift of faith and look at the gift of miracles…
Deacons and worship team
But for now, maybe you are in a situation where you don’t know what’s going to happen.
Maybe you can’t see the outcome, or things look pretty dire.
This may be a good time to ask the Lord if He would give you a gift of faith to believe He will do what He wants to do!
Or maybe you would like for others to pray with you and maybe the HS will give someone else the gift of faith to encourage and build you up!
We are celebrating communion today, but we can certainly still pray for you if you are needing prayer!
If you have never given your life to the Lord, today is a good day to do so!