Crisis of Belief - 529
Sermon #529
“Crisis of belief”
Joshua 6:1-5; Lk 14:27-35
Are you a Servant of God?
Do you consider yourself a ‘servant of God?’ How many of you would use that term to describe yourself?
What an amazing thing that is: to be someone who does things that God considers somehow important or meaningful. How difficult that must be – God already created the universe, so how would something we do be meaningful to Him.
I sometimes comment at weddings that we are witnessing a change of the couple in the eyes of God. That in the eyes of God our humble and imperfect ceremony has changed how he looks at these two from being single to being husband and wife.
Crisis of belief
They say how we respond to a crisis defines us. We might experience a crisis from a variety of reasons: Everyday life throws them at us regularly, challenging us to respond in love and faith. Also, we experience special crises because what we believe is different from the world, and we have to decide if we want to act like Jesus or go back to doing what everyone else does
Real belief will lead to a kind of crisis. A choice between doing what the world says is normal and what God says we should be and do.
‘The word crisis comes from the word that means ‘decision’. The same Greek word is often translated ‘judgement’. The crisis of belief is a turning point where you must make a decision. You must decide what you believe about God. How you respond at this turning point will determine whether you go on to be involved with God in something God-sized that only he can do, or whether you will continue to go your own way and miss what God has purposed for your life.’[1]
Joshua 6:1-5 (NLT)
The Fall of Jericho
6 Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go out or in. 2 But the Lord said to Joshua, “I have given you Jericho, its king, and all its strong warriors. 3 You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days. 4 Seven priests will walk ahead of the Ark, each carrying a ram’s horn. On the seventh day you are to march around the town seven times, with the priests blowing the horns. 5 When you hear the priests give one long blast on the rams’ horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse, and the people can charge straight into the town.”
Looking at this through modern eyes, you have to wonder what it could have to do with my life. Most of us have never been to Jericho, so we first start with a picture in our heads about some lonely place in a desert (in fact it was and is a fertile place – probably the most welcoming and pleasant sight most of them had seen in their lives). We never saw the raggedy band of Israelites led by Joshua, nor lived with them so we don’t know how they were feeling when he said this. Probably few if any have been in a real desert, much less lived there for any amount of time – they had just lived in one for forty years.
Finally, we have never been in front of a walled city considering an attack without siege weapons or any kind of armor. A walled city in the ancient world was security. It was so significant that cities with a functioning wall had a different name.
You can’t stand there with them, but you have felt what they felt. It is a Jericho experience. A kind of internal decision must be made.
A daily decision
‘This is not a one time experience. It is a daily experience. How you live your life is a testimony of what you believe about God.’[2]
These crises are normal
Convergence of knowing God and doing His will
We have come to the point in our experiencing God series where knowing God and doing His will are coming together. Indeed, these two things happen together.
Colossians 1:10 (NLT)
10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
We are meant to be doing as we come to know Him. That reading a myriad of Christian books and thinking on God is only half the picture. But the reverse is true, that He wants us to know Him, not just to do good stuff.
2 Corinthians 9:8 (NIV)
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
He is going to give you the things you need to do those good works.
Believing God for the power
‘When your life is in the middle of God’s activity, he will start re-aranging a lot of your thinking. God’s ways and thoughts are so different from yours and mine that they will often sound wrong, crazy and impossible. Often you will realize that the task is far beyond your power or resources to accomplish. When you recognize that the task is humanly impossible, you need to be ready to believe God and trust Him completely.’
God changes us to prepare us to do His will
These changes do not have to be completely finished before you can do any of His work. (The Wounded Healer) But a big part of what you are going to accomplish is going to be the result of being changed by Him. Changes are not secondary to His purpose in your life, or that they are something that can be skipped. You may feel at some point that you are too busy helping others so you don’t have time to work on your relationship with God. But any interruption to those changes will significantly impact your effectiveness.
2 Timothy 2:21 (NLT)
21 If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:17 (NLT)
17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.
Hebrews 13:21 (NLT)
21 may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,*
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.
God gives the desire and the power
Philippians 2:13 (NLT)
13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
We might be used to Him giving us the power to act but he also can supply us with the will, the desire if we look to Him.
Intensity of belief
The guest speaker in Saskatoon who believed in a nice way, had a nice job and people sort of liked his sermons, so he wondered if he should be a pastor.
How he might well have done so – being a nice guy he had the affirmation of the people (not that this was a bad thing),
Yet as he went through the sermon on the Mount I think he saw how his life was in contrast to the life portrayed in that book. Fasting, faith, prayer, the priorities spelled out in the beatitudes – these things were foreign to him. It was a credit to him to so honestly say so.
Reading the book of Luke is a real experience. Who has done this lately?
Luke 14:26-27 (NLT)
26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.
34 “Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? 35 Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!”
Belief is what is real to us
When you think of belief, it is what is real to us. What we actually think and believe.
‘What you believe about Him will determine what you do. If you have faith in the God who called you, you will obey Him; and He will bring to pass what He has purposed to do.’ (113).
What you believe about God comes out in your actions. What you think he is going to do – you will respond to that. If you think God is at work in this world, that He is actually doing things and you could jump on His bandwagon – that you believe you can be His conduit you actions are going to show that – because we are into reality.
This world is reality programming. There are no scripts or writers. We will respond to living things. To what is real and true and actual and important. Eventually our actions will follow those instincts – those real beliefs.
That is the reason to examine you beliefs – because the reality will come out. It might not come out of your mouth but it will come out even in your lack of action.
In the same way the reality of the Bible shows such a different reality from the reality of this world it has to be frequently pointed out – How God’s reality is different from ours because we settle back down into a different kind of belief. A belief that is comfortable for us.
Obstacles on the path
Pain
The belief that our life should be going good all the time.
Everony experiences pain. But the commitment to avoid it can become our focus, and take our minds off of God.
The waiting game
Never pulling the trigger on a decision that God has for me.
Shirley’s example. Not going ahead with something we feel called to do: our own Jericho experience. We go around the city rather than through it, and it sort of sits there in our life as a reminder of something we still need to do. We are not ready for it.
So we are waiting. We are waiting for some kind of clarification, some kind of verification that this is something we are to do.
God isn’t Santa
‘How important is it for your faith to be in God and what he says rather than what you or someone else decides would be nice thing to have happen?’
Today as I was listening to ‘Christmas Classics’ on the internet radio I heard that song about ‘these are a few of my favorite things’. It was nice. I am not taking away from that. It created a warm feeling inside.
If you don’t actually read the Bible you might content yourself with the thought that this nice feeling is what God intended to create in all of us. But the Bible has so many challenging commands – calling us to forsake all and follow Him that if all you wanted was the warm feeling you would not hear His voice.
As we choose not to listen over and over, it becomes increasingly harder to hear God’s voice. We begin to substitute ‘nice religion’ for His voice.
Our examinations of our lives need to scare us once in a while. None of us are perfect, so if we are never shocked by the intensity found in the gospels we are probably avoiding something.
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[1] Page 109
[2] Ibid.
* Some manuscripts read in us.