Counterfeit 3 - You will never get over what God does through you

Opening Reading of James 2:26

James 2:26 (ESV)

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Ask

So here we are in the third week of our series counterfeit. Hopefully, you’ve been picking up a bit of what this series is all about. If you are just joining us here for the first time in this series then to summarize, we are talking about what it means to have real faith. As followers of Jesus, we should want people to know that we are different because we don’t follow the influences that everyone else might follow.

We are different, because of our faith. And our faith is made known because it makes us active.

The thing is, God can do amazing things through you when you trust in His power to do it. What I want you to know tonight is God can do amazing things through your faith

Tell:

When I was in high school, I had a friend named Cameron. And quickly became one of my best friends. We had the same interests, we were workout partners, we used to get into dance battles with other people and lost a lot of them.

One thing we didn’t have in common was that He didn’t believe in Jesus. He knew about Jesus, but He wasn’t in a relationship with Him. There were times where he would ask me questions and I would answer them the best I could. One day I just decided that I would ask him to come to church with me. I introduced him to my youth pastor, I sat next to him and let him listen to the messages and He started asking me more questions.

I finally told him my version of the gospel at the time, and he went to church service again, and again, and finally he made a decision that he wanted to be a Christian. So he decided to get baptized as an expression of his faith and the craziest thing happened a little bit afterward.

He went home and talked about his experience at my church, then his parents both started going to church, which led to them deciding that they wanted to be Christians. So they all together got baptized and started following Jesus.

It was a relationship and a step of faith that I took and I realized God could do something amazing through me.

And God can use your faith in Him, Your relationship with Him, a crazy step of trust in Him to do something amazing through you.

Let’s first define what is faith.

I like the way that Faith is defined in this way:

Faith is first and foremost not knowledge about Jesus, but active trust that Jesus is sufficient for one’s deepest and most heartfelt needs.

So just knowing Jesus is not enough It is an active faith that expresses Jesus is everything you need in every situation.

Let’s look at this in a biblical way:

BIBLE

Jesus was 30 years old and began his ministry preaching the Gospel and healing. There are many instances of Jesus healing people and performing miracles and there is one miracle that I want us to focus on tonight.

Mark 2:1–12 (ESV)

And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

What I want to do before we keep looking into this passage, is look at where we see authentic faith happening.

1. Authentic Faith is believing that Jesus can take care of your needs

These 4 guys carried a man who could not walk to Jesus. There was no room to sit, so they literally had to raise the roof in order to get this guy to see Jesus.

The things is, before they carried him on a mat, before they took the roof off, before they let him down in the room, these guys believed Jesus could do something about this man’s affliction

They knew about Jesus and trusted that He could take care of the crippled man’s needs.

Interestingly enough, everyone assumes that the only thing wrong with the crippled man was that he was crippled physically. Jesus saw that the man was crippled too, but he was crippled in His spirit. The authentic faith of these 4 guys was believing that Jesus could take care of this mans needs, and trusting Jesus to do that.

Transition to 2: Authentic Faith trusts that Jesus can take care of your needs, and it is active in brining your needs to Jesus.

2. Authentic Faith is Bringing your needs to Jesus.

It wasn’t enough to believe that Jesus could take care of the crippled man’s needs, their faith was made known by their actions.

The scripture says something interesting here, it says that Jesus SAW THEIR faith. You don’t see that someone believes something, you see what someone believes based on how that act. The action of these 4 men was the expression of what they believed about Jesus. That if they could bring the needs of the crippled man to Him, He could take care of it.

Let’s continue...

Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

3. Authentic Faith can cause others to Respond

Jesus makes it known that He is God since only God can forgive people’s sins. After He forgives the sins of this man, He heals him of being paralyzed. And when other people saw it, they were amazed and did what?

Glorified God.

When you bring your needs to Jesus and He meets them, it is our job to respond in a way that thanks to Him for what He has done. If you are a Christian, our response should be giving thanks to Jesus for dying on the cross to pay the price for our sins.

And the thing is, God can do amazing things through your faith

The problem is, we might not be bold enough to trust God to do them.

James writes in chapter 2:26

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

There is still an effort on our end to move in faith. Just like we learned in the first week of this series, faith is more than just knowledge and belief, it’s something you do.

So why can it be so hard for us to be active in our faith?

Many of us have friends with people who don’t know Jesus and are afraid to tell them about Jesus because maybe you might care about what they think of you.

Maybe you just want to avoid an awkward conversation or maybe you are afraid that you will say something wrong and offend the person.

All of these things play a role in how we approach people, but I would just suggest to you to do it anyways.

Nothing shows that you are a faithful follower of Jesus than making bold decisions and being willing to look stupid so that Jesus can take care of every need.

Be like these 4 guys who were willing to deconstruct the roof of a house because they trusted that Jesus could bring healing to their crippled friend.

Who are your crippled friends? Which roofs do you need to take off to get them to Jesus?

Maybe it’s fear of what people think about you - trust that God makes you bold

Maybe it’s because you think that you’ll say something wrong - God promises to put the words in your mouth at the right time. You are meant to trust that He is faithful to do it.

God can bring healing to you and to others despite if you stumble through your words or not.

transition point to close

God can do amazing things through you and even to you

Tonight if you are here and have not fully trusted in Jesus then the offer is extended to you.

Just how Jesus saw the needs of the crippled man, he sees your needs. He knows that you are crippled in your heart following things that will soon be gone. Jesus did something for you. He himself became crippled on a cross, took the punishment of your sins and made a way for you to be forgiven of every wrong that you have done. Then he rose from the dead after 3 days later to prove to you that He is the one true God who can take what’s dead and make it alive.

Trust in Jesus and believe that He can take care of your true needs and become a bold follower and prove to have authentic faith so that you can see the amazing things that God can do through you.

PRAY