How Big is Your Faith

Sermon: How big is your Faith? Introduction Good morning Church, Welcome especially to those who are with us for the first time today. If you have been out looking for a good church, well you have found one. Welcome to my mate and his Wife and kids. Ronnie, Trudy, Bethany and Christopher. Text: Mark 9 17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” 19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” 20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. 21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” 23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. 28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” It is important to note here that Jesus doesn’t require that we go into deep intercession every time that we encounter the demonic. It is having a prayed up life that results in the confidence in God’s ability to do what he said he will do. Anyway, lets look today at some lessons on Faith today from this scripture 1. Faith must be in the Who, not in the What! Faith depends on this idea of community, because, when you get right down to it, faith is bigger than believing. The Heidelberg Catechism characterizes true faith not only as certain knowledge, but also as a “wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit create in me through the gospel.” Faith is trust, and trust requires relationship. 2. The size of faith is not the issue – Size of your God is! Here is the real issue though: Faith is not to be measured; it is to be lived. It is not the size of your faith in God that matters but the size of the God in whom your faith lies! Abraham called the father of faith – called righteous by God (Justified) because he believed and obeyed. Imagine, He got up and followed God, even when he didn’t know where he was to go! Likewise, he went to sacrifice his son believing that God would provide a sacrifice or even return his son from the dead. Abraham believed God and put his faith into action. You see, we don’t need more faith; we need to be more faithful. And it’s also possible that we need a different kind of faith than what we have been taught traditionally. Faith is not something that ignores reality, Faith is not pretense, it is not mind over matter. #genuine faith impresses God because it believes what God says despite the contrary evidence. Miracles amazes People - Faith Amazes Jesus Matthew’s account of this miracle reveals another aspect to the faith story! Matt 17 17Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well. (Not demon hunters, not conversing with demons. Many places in the Gospels we see that Jesus cast them out with a word) 19Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” 20“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” 3. Importantly, Faith can grow! In Mark 4, Jesus tells us the The Parable of the Mustard Seed to illustrate a different point, but th truth of the mustard seed is seen here. 30 Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? 31 It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; 32 but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.” This passage is just one more example of Jesus telling the disciples they are asking the wrong question. Instead of asking for more faith, or bigger faith, the disciples should have been finding opportunities to act on the faith they already had. Instead of treating God like a short order cook who could be expected to slap a scoop of faith onto a plate, they needed to be living by the faith they’d already been given. Thus, the man with the epileptic son cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). This is a good prayer. It acknowledges that without God we cannot even believe as we need to. Let us pray daily, “O Lord, thank you for my faith. Sustain it. Strengthen it. Deepen it. Don’t let it fail. Make it the power of my life, so that in everything I do, you get the glory as the great Giver. Amen.” 4. No Prayer = no power John Piper states Jesus disciples asked, “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus answered, “Insufficient prayer!” What did he mean? Probably not that they hadn’t prayed over the demonized boy, but that they had not lived in prayer. They had been caught in a prayer-less period of life. Notice: Jesus cast out the demon without praying: “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” But Jesus had prayed. He lived in prayer. He was ready when evil came. But the disciples had become weak and negligent in their praying. And they were powerless in the face of strong evil forces. “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” 5. What is Faith? - I spoke before about what ‘Faith is Not’, but is Faith? The present knowledge of future blessing Hebrews 11: 1 Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen. St Agustine Contrary to what you have heard for years, I believe that Faith is a feeling! Because when you have faith, you know that you have it! 6. World doesn’t look to the church for the answers because we are not living in the power that Jesus gave us. Our lack of Faith in a faithful God, means that the world wonders why it even needs the church anyway. We don’t pray, we don’t know his word, we struggle with the same things that everyone else does when God wants to transform us and form Christ in us! We are meant to be Jesus to our world. When people want to see Jesus, they should be able to come to us. Did you get that from this account of the Father and his son. He brought his son to the disciples. That should have been enough to get the Job done! According to Jesus words, we have the same power that Jesus has to bring heaven wherever we are. Mark 16: 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” The number one reason that we have lost relevance. We have stopped living a prayer filled life. We live busy lives but if we want strong faith, then we need a strong relationship with Jesus. 7. Genuine Faith is demonstrated in obedience to God. Matt 17 17Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Ephesians 2: 8-9 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. Altar Call Wanting to get to know God – Salvation Want prayer to get God’s help to strengthen you in your faith. Maybe you have been feeling like your faith is failing, why not come forward and our prayer team will pray with you. They can share the load of your burden with you.