Faith

Better watch how do I do this. I'll be made fun of on TV. I just thought of Marco Rubio. I've been hearing about that non-stop. Reach out. I saw that on TV and I thought, well, I didn't see anything that awkward about that. I reach out and take a drink of water all the time. Well, moving away from the announcements to what we call the religious part of the service. Of course, all of our worship services are religious. But I wanted to use that part of it as an introduction because we're here on a religious day. We're here for a religious worship service. And I thought, well, is there any subject that's more religious than the subject of faith? It's such a religious subject that faith, the word, is actually a synonym for religion and one of its many meanings. Sometimes you might say, well, I do this because of my faith. And people don't mean our traditional definition of faith, but they might use the word meaning their religion. Like, my faith is Hinduism, or my faith is Buddhism, or whatever. We see those as things they shouldn't have faith in. But the more common definition, of course, is belief. But not just plain old simple belief in something, but rather, especially belief in something that would logically seem implausible. Or even impossible. I started thinking of this, and I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed because I get these pop culture references. And one of them was, there's a progressive insurance commercial out. You know the commercials with Flow at the insurance store. And there's one where I don't remember all the details, but they're showing off some device they have that will show competing rates. And the woman said, wow, what will it do next? Defy gravity? And she turns around and suddenly Flow and the other salesman rise up into the air.

And the fellow there, of course, he's sort of struggling, saying, why can't I move? Flow says, because you don't believe hard enough. And it's sort of giving it this quasi-religious tone, you know, you've got to believe hard enough. But it's laughable there. But that spurred to mind another case. Now this one, I thought of, I'm not sure if I should say younger people or if you need to be older, because I thought of a Star Wars reference.

And I make maybe too many Star Wars references, but I was a huge fan when I was a kid. I'm guessing most of you have seen those movies at one time or another. But, you know, with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, and they're trying to overcome the evil Empire. And I believe it's the third movie. It's where Luke is being trained by Yoda, the Jedi Master. He's learning how to be a Jedi Knight. And his spaceship is mired in the swamp. And he wants to leave the planet to go help his friends. And he sees the ship starting to sink. And he's like, oh, I'm never going to get out of here. And Yoda said, no, you can do this. And he tries to convince him to use the Force to lift the spaceship. And Luke says, well, okay, I'll try. Yoda says, no, there is no try. Do or do not. There's no try.

But of course, if you remember the movie, what Luke does is try. He focuses and he grits his teeth, and the spaceship shudders a little, but then sinks down. He says, I can't. It's too big. Yoda says, ah, size matters not. Judge me by my size. I can't do the accent. But if you've heard Yoda, he talks like a muppet. But, you know, he points his little claw like things, and the symphonic music plays, and gradually suddenly the spaceship rises.

And it moves over and sets down, and Luke's eyes are this big around. He looks at Yoda and says, I don't believe it! Yoda says something profound then. At that point, he says, that is why you failed. Because you don't believe. With that thought, let's turn to Matthew 21. Now, this is not the same thing, but I'm using that as an illustration. If you've seen the movie, as I said, it's illustrating something that we can visualize, but it brought it together.

It brought it to light in a different way. But Matthew 21, and we'll begin in verse 18.

This, of course, is near the end of Christ's ministry, when he's in Jerusalem and having some confrontations with the Pharisees shortly before his final Passover.

But here it says, in the morning he returned to the city. He was hungry, of course, he being Jesus Christ.

Seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he came to it, found nothing on it but leaves.

And he said to it, let no fruit grow on you ever again.

Immediately the fig tree withered away.

And when his disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, how did the fig tree wither away so soon?

Jesus answered and said to them, assuredly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you'll not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, you'll be removed and cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you'll receive.

It makes me wonder, and you don't have to admit to this, but I'm willing to admit because I can say, I mostly grew up in the church and did some foolish things or different ideas.

But a lot of us, maybe when we were younger in the faith, or younger physically, might have tried to do something like this.

I'm going to sit and believe and I'm going to pick up this rock with faith and make it move.

I'll admit, I tried to do that. As a matter of fact, what I remember more clearly is when I was about 11 years old, being at the public swimming pool and thinking, Jesus said you could do whatever if you have faith.

He walked on the water. I'm going to walk out on the water, and so I'd come up to the edge and step out, and every single time, splash, down I went.

Now, the Bible says, the just shall live by faith. I'm not going to turn there now, but the just shall live by faith, does that mean that if we fail to pick up things because we believe, or if we can't walk on water, does that mean we don't have faith? We're not going to live?

Well, I don't think that's exactly what Jesus Christ meant.

And I've got to confess, I've never seen a mountain picked up and tossed into the sea. But I've been around Christians who I believe were true converted Christians most of my life. Does that mean none of us have enough faith?

I don't think so. Now, we can talk about the particulars of that particular subject later, but it's worth us all knowing and reminding ourselves that we have to ask God for things that are within His will. He's not interested in us doing parlor tricks or showing off. If it's within His will for a mountain to be moved, He'll cause that to happen. Of course, it's by faith through God's power, not anything within ourselves, and that's where we differ from Star Wars. There's nothing in us where we can tap into some power that's just available to do whatever we want. It's available to do what God wants, and we need to be in line with God's will.

But, that aside, we do need to have faith. We need to have true, lasting faith. We need to learn how to build it. And even more, because I believe we already have faith, we need to learn to maintain it and to protect it. So, I want to talk about that today. Talk about building faith and protecting the faith we have.

So, let's establish some things right off the bat. If you'll turn to Hebrews 11, we commonly call this the faith chapter. And I want to look at a couple of scriptures there. Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 1.

I was reviewing my notes for this, and it occurred to me, I think this was probably the first scripture I ever memorized.

I said, my grandmother came into church, and she taught my sister and I some things. And this is the one she told us, and I remembered it before I could remember where it was. But, it says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. As I said, I had that memorized before I really knew what it was saying. But, what it's saying is, when you don't have any tangible evidence of something, the faith, your faith, is what you do have.

So, having faith in something that you don't have any other evidence for, the thing is not seen. And we all have that. We must, because we're here.

I'll tie this into something else that was crossing my mind as I was starting to put together ideas for the sermon. I was thinking of, and I can't remember now off the top of my mind who it was, but someone I know that's a pretty good person, as we say, but not called into God's church. We all have people we know, friends or family, who we think, wow, they're a good person.

If they were called, they'd be a much better Christian than I am. And when we think of someone like that, it's easy to think, well, when the millennium comes, and the resurrection or whatever the situation is when God opens their mind, they're going to take to it real easily. And that's probably true for a lot of people.

But then I think, well, yeah, hopefully they will. But, you know, it's going to be a different world when that time comes. Jesus Christ will be on His throne right there. Satan will be put away. What I'm getting at is, you know, good people will find it in some ways easier to live God's way of life, and it won't necessarily require as much faith.

Now, I'm not saying that they'll be inferior. God calls people when He deems it best, when it's best for us. But for us to be fighting upstream, living in this world now, is an act of faith. A difficult act of faith, and we should give ourselves credit for that. If we look down in verse 3 of Hebrews 11, it says, I like the Old King James better. It says, Things which are seen were not made of things. I'm stumbling over my words today.

You know, that's what happens when you get a couple weeks off. Things seen were made of things which are not seen. In other words, we look at the world around us and believe that God made that. That's an act of faith. A great act of faith. It's one of the first things listed in the faith chapter. Now, we're not going to go on to discuss the difference of belief and evolution. Sometimes I think, you know, it probably takes more faith to believe in evolution, because the idea is so ridiculous. But that doesn't discount the fact that it takes faith for us to believe that everything around us was made by someone who made it.

If we look now in verse 6 of Hebrews 11, this is what I've heard some ministers call the first article of faith, because it's the first thing we have to really believe. Hebrews 11, verse 6 says, Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. To Him is God. For He who comes to God must believe that He is. And if He who comes to God must believe that He is, that God exists. You have to believe there's a God, and that's an act of faith.

Now, I'm not going to go into proofs of God's existence today, but I think all of us at one point or another turned over in our mind and convinced ourselves, or become convinced and convicted that there is a God. God exists.

And then we go from there to learn, well, what does God want from me? Is the Bible His word? And we prove that to ourselves. The rest of this verse shows something else important about God. We have to believe that He exists. It says, without faith, it's impossible to please Him. For He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. God exists, and He is looking out for our best interests. He rewards those who diligently seek Him, that is, who respond to His calling and live by His way of life.

That's what's sometimes called the providence of God. Providence means God is called providential. He's wanting to do good for us. He cares for us. He's looking out for our best interests well in advance of us looking out for them, because He knows what's best for us off into the future.

The best example I can think of that is from the Bible in the story of Joseph. Remember, Joseph got into trouble with his brothers because he was having these visions, and his dad liked him best. So the brothers said, we're going to take care of this guy, throw him down in the pit. When some traders come by, they sell him, and he ends up in slavery in Egypt. That doesn't sound like God was looking out for His best interests, but, of course, later, he's brought out of the prison. He interprets Pharaoh's dream, and he's made pretty much the prime minister of Egypt. Later, his brothers are brought down, and he cares for his whole family.

He tells them, then, you didn't send me to Egypt. God did this. God was looking out for my best interest in yours well in advance. For him to say that was a great act of faith. What's amazing is, I think Joseph probably still believed that while he was sitting in prison.

He might have been asking God, how is this best for me? I'm stuck in prison. But, everything we know about Joseph's life says that he probably did still believe that. We need to do that also when we're going through trials. That's important for us. It shows us some things that the greatest acts of faith aren't necessarily moving mountains, not necessarily walking on water, or, as we're going to read a little bit later, feeding thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread.

The greatest act of faith, or at least what God wants from us first and foremost, is to believe God. Let's go to John 6. John 6, and we'll start in verse 28.

We've already seen you first have to believe that God is, that he is a rewarder. This is reading one of Jesus' many confrontations with the Pharisees. Well, no, let me correct myself. This is not necessarily a confrontation for the Pharisees. This is one of the times after he fed a great many people with just a few loaves of bread. They were following him, hoping they could get more. Verse 28, they said to him, What shall we do that we may do the works of God?

They were saying, Hey, we'd like to be able to produce food from nothing, which would be a great trick. You don't have to work so hard. Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.

Sorry, I wanted to say that properly. Believe in Him whom He sent. Now, Jesus was talking about Himself. Here He was, God in the flesh. He just worked miracles for them. And the people just needed to believe Him. Not only believe who He was, but believe what He told them. And that's where many of them fell short. But that does connect back when I said, One of the base definitions of faith is belief. If we're going to believe God, we have to believe what He says. We need to believe it.

When the Bible shows us that God is building a family, and that He wants us to be His children. We need to believe it when it tells us to live by a set of laws. That these laws are binding and that therefore are good for our best interest. And of course, we need to believe that God really does know what is best for us, and that He wants the best for us. And once we believe that, we'll live a life based on that belief.

And of course, that sounds easy, but it's when trials come along that sometimes we fall short. Sometimes we want to believe, but it's more difficult to act. That's because the faith that we need has to come from something greater than ourselves. I want to turn to Ephesians 2. This is a very brief scripture, and I seem like I've read it a lot in the last year or two, but maybe because it is so fundamental. Ephesians 2, verse 8. Paul is talking about being saved, and he says, By grace, that is the blessing or benefit from God, you've been saved through faith.

And that, not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast. So this faith that we have to have is a gift from God. We can't develop it on our own. But I think we can make a case that we can take the faith that he gives us and grow it, exercise it, and we can protect it from harm. I'm talking about it as a gift of God. I made a reference.

We don't need to turn there because... I think it's... well, it's not necessary, but in 1 Corinthians 12, if you want to look at this later, it's where the Apostle Paul is writing about spiritual gifts. And he makes the point of saying, I don't want you to be ignorant. There are many spiritual gifts. And he says there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.

And he talks about the gift of tongues, miracles of healing, of understanding prophecy, of comforting, and all kinds of spiritual gifts. But the reason I'm not turning there is I want to tell you what's not there. And you can study through the list if you want later. And nowhere on that list does he mention the gift of faith. Now that struck me. I thought, wait a minute. I just read in Ephesians that faith is a gift. It's not of ourselves. It's a gift from God. It comes through the Holy Spirit. And I thought, well, maybe there's a reason Paul didn't mention it when he's talking about a diversity of gifts.

Because I think faith is the one gift that God gives to every single person he calls. Because we all have to have it. If you will turn to John 16, Jesus talks a little bit about how we get that faith, I think. And what it does initially in us. John 16. Now this is Jesus' last night with his apostles, with his disciples. Gives them a lot of instruction. And he starts trying to explain to them this idea of the Holy Spirit.

That later on they would fully understand once it was in them. But they had trouble grasping it at that point. Here, breaking in in verse 7. John 16 and verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It's to your advantage that I go away. If I do not go away, the helper, that's the Greek word paraclete, the comforter, will not come to you. But if I depart, I'll send him to you. Or we know the Greek says him, but it should be it. When it is come, it will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.

Of sin, because they do not believe in me. And of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see me no more. Of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. And I want to focus on that, says, of sin, because they do not believe in me. I'm tying that idea of belief with faith. And then also bring in the idea of conviction. Conviction, I believe, is a level of belief that goes beyond just academic knowledge.

If I tell you 2 plus 2 equals 4, okay, I accept that's what I memorized in school. But there's sometimes where you have a belief where it goes down to your heart. I heard not long ago Dr. Ward described this conviction as like a weight on your mind, on your very center of your being, that you have to act on it. I've described it in my own life when I decided it was time to be baptized. I said, I not only know this stuff, but I know that I know it.

And knowing that I know it, I can't not do it. And I'll bring in a story from my past that shows that I think the difference.

This goes years back when I was attending school in Texas, and I met a really pretty girl who was religious but not called into the true church. We went out a couple of times, and I found we had a lot of the same moral standards and beliefs. And so she wanted to come to church with me to learn what I believed, because early it came up that there was a difference. So she got in the car and drove an hour and a half with me to go to the services in the Waco congregation several times.

And we talked about our beliefs. I believe she was a member of either Baptist or Methodist Church, as I said, pretty devout. But at one point, she said, after we attended several times and she looked at some of our literature, she said, okay, now I understand what you believe, but I don't think that I have to do those things.

There is a difference of conviction. She understood academically, okay, we say the Bible teaches this, but she didn't believe it. She wasn't convicted of it. And it was early from that moment that we both sort of came to see, well, there's no point in us dating anymore. We're not going to progress and get married and have a happy life. And I thought, okay, looking at this, Jesus says the Holy Spirit would convict someone of sin for not believing, because you have to have that conviction to really not believe. You have to have the conviction to really believe. So it becomes the worst sin when you do have the conviction and go against it anyways.

And I don't want to get into the difference of our calling, except that the Holy Spirit is involved, and we know that Christ said in John 6.44 that no one could come to Him unless the Father drew Him. So this isn't to put people down who are not in the church and not called, but just to realize when God does call us, it puts something in us. The Holy Spirit enables us to believe, to have that faith in a different way. The Holy Spirit opens up a person's understanding and gives them a measure of the faith of Jesus Christ. You know, it's a gift from God that now you can be convicted and have that belief. I want to turn to Romans 10, just to briefly mention that there's another aspect of it. We have to have the Holy Spirit to begin to give us faith.

But for us to believe something, we still have to have the academic knowledge. You have to know what it is that you're believing. You have to have that actual information. Or the better, the way I like to say it, is you have to have the Word of God. Romans 10 brings it out. In verse 11, the Scripture says, whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. I wanted to start in 11 to note that He's talking about believing.

And down in verse 13, whoever calls on the name of the Eternal shall be saved. Well, how shall they call on Him and whom they have not believed? In other words, how are you going to call on God? How are you going to live His way without faith? But then, how shall they believe in Him and whom they haven't heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? In other words, how can you have faith in something that you've never heard? You know, you have to have the information to be able to believe it. So dropping down to verse 17, Paul sums that up. He says, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So to sum up what we've learned, faith is vital to pleasing God. Real faith then comes from the Spirit of God and from the Word of God. You have to have the information and you have to have the Holy Spirit to enable you to understand it and be convicted by it. I've heard that described in a narrative, almost making an analogy with plain tennis or badminton. It begins by a calling from God. You know, God's Spirit opens your mind. You're exposed to the truth. Perhaps you see a magazine article, or you see a television show, or hear it on the radio. You're exposed to the Word, but God's Spirit also allows you to understand that Word. Now the ball is in your court. You could say, God has served to you. You can decide to either watch it go on by and forget about it, or you can return the serve. You act on it. And at that point, you're starting to exercise the little bit of faith that God gave you to be able to understand in the first place. If you respond, you'll start living by God's way of life. You'll be convicted more by the Holy Spirit and draw closer to God. You'll start praying. You'll study your Bible. You'll start obeying all the things that it teaches you to do, and you'll grow in faith and understanding.

As I said, God will give you more of His Spirit. I always hesitate to say more because Spirit is not physical, so we can't put it in a graduated beaker and measure how much you have. But you could say maybe you'll comply to it more. You'll access it more. Whatever, you'll become a more spiritual person.

As a matter of fact, we're in Romans. If you'll turn to Romans 1, verse 17.

I cited this earlier while we're in the vicinity. It's good to read.

For in the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. In other words, that conviction of believing what God tells us will live by that.

I also like that phrase, from faith to faith. I was looking to see where that came from, and I believe Paul was making a reference back to Psalms. Psalm 84.7. I'm not going to turn there. I think it's David wrote that Psalm, and he wrote of strength to strength. Going from strength to strength. That's become an idiom in the English language. It's not as common anymore, I think, because people don't read their Bibles so much. Since the King James Bible came out, a writer or someone in speech talks about going from strength to strength. It means going from having a strength in one area to having a strength in another area. Through life we think of having ups and downs and ups and downs, but this thing you have an up, and then you go to another up. By analogy, I think Sue and I watched a fair bit of the Olympics last summer. There's one of the events in the summer Olympics called the decathlon, which you're probably familiar with, where the runners compete in 10 different events and add their scores together. If a runner, say, is really good in the pole, not a runner, but an athlete is good in the pole vault, that's one of his strengths. Then it turns he goes next to the discus, and he's really good in that. He's gone from a strength to a strength, not from a strength to a weakness and then back to a strength. Well, if we go from faith to faith, I think the Apostle Paul was saying we go from having good faith in one area where we exercise it, and then to another area where we also exercise faith and we're strong in the faith. So it's upward and onward, not ups and downs, but up and up and up. That's what we have as our goal, not to say that we never have dips. We all have challenges and weaknesses, but we want to go up and up. Of course, along the way, we face obstacles. There are challenges to our faith. And that's where I want to turn next, because ideally we're always going up from strength to strength. But what about some of those things that can tend to destroy our faith? How do we guard against those? Now, there might well be dozens or even hundreds of things that are enemies of faith.

But I wanted to refer to four specific ones that Jesus Christ mentioned, and we'll see them tied together by Him using a certain phrase. When He talks about, O you of little faith, we'll see these all appear in the book of Matthew. And I want to just look at them in order as they appear, not necessarily in order of importance. And I'll say in advance that each one of these are not enemies from outside of ourselves.

And I think it's important to note that, because I believe that the faith that God gives us is enough for us to overcome any outside influence. Even when Satan himself is trying to attack us, God promises He'll protect us. But sometimes the biggest obstacles are what's between our ears, you know, what's going on in our own head. Those challenges. So let's begin in Matthew 6. Sorry, I probably should have just given you the reference when I said Matthew. Matthew 6 and we'll begin in verse 25.

Maybe I should be in the same chapter. Therefore I say to you, I'm breaking into the teaching, but I think this is where I want to pick it up. Don't worry about your life or what you'll eat or what you'll drink, nor about your body, what you'll put on. Is not the life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to a stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil or spin. Yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not a raid like one of these. And if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? O you of little faith. I said I'm keying into that phrase, O you of little faith. And the other of the synoptic Gospels phrase it differently. But this comes up more than one time. We could call it a literary device or a type of utterance. And he goes on from there saying, therefore do not worry.

So we could say, O you of little faith, don't worry. Worry is one of those enemies of faith. Don't worry saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? All these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Now I wanted to read that mostly through because Jesus Christ said it so well, there's not much that I can add to it to explain it. But it's worth me saying that this does apply to us today. Our circumstances are different. You know, we're not wearing the same type of clothing or eating a lot of the same food, but it still makes sense. It says, don't worry. Or if you have the original King James Version, He said, take no anxious thoughts.

And I like that because when it says, take no anxious thought, He didn't say, take no thought.

It's just not an anxious thought. God doesn't ever tell us to not provide for our needs. He doesn't say, well, just sit on your couch and wait for Him to drop food and clothing from heaven right into your lap.

But He said, don't be worrying. In other places, Scripture tells us, we have to take action.

We're told we have to work. We have to provide for our families.

So to me, a key for understanding what Jesus meant here is that we have to do what we can, and then don't fuss and fret and worry about the things that you cannot do.

Do the things that you can do, and then turn it over to God and trust Him for the things that you cannot do.

That's where you have to allow faith to work in your mind to squelch that worry.

And I'm not implying that that's easy. All of you have been around long enough to know it's easy to say it's not easy to do.

But we can at least try to avoid being the type of person that looks for something to worry about. And we've all met some of those, and perhaps all of us at one time or another tend to fall into that category. I've had a lot of experience because my grandmother, as she got on in years, I say a lot of good things about her, so I don't mean this to detract from your thought view of her, but when she got into her 80s, she turned into one of those people that would look for things to worry about. There was a problem. We'd come and find the solution. It seemed like she was like, Well, what if this happens now? I'm like, Grandma, stop worrying about these things. We don't want to be like that. And I think she did struggle to try not to, but sometimes things happen in your mind, in this case with age and being alone and all that.

One of the best ways to do this, though, is the memory scripture that's embedded in this section that I read. Seek first the kingdom of God. How do you stop worrying? Well, put everything in perspective. If you're looking first for God's kingdom, other things seem pretty small next to that, and God will take care of the other lesser things.

Let's move a couple chapters ahead to look at the next enemy. Matthew 8 will begin in verse 23.

One of the things I like about the sermon, I thought it would be fun to just read some of these stories, because not only is Christ teaching valuable, but some of the examples of Him doing His ministry and then expounding lessons are useful. This is one case they'd been teaching, and it says, Now He got into a boat, and His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. So the storm blows up, and they're rocking, and water's coming in. And where is Jesus? He's asleep. He's in the back, falling asleep. His disciples came to Him and woken, saying, Lord, save us! We are perishing! And I imagine there was some panic in their voice. Save us! We're about to die! And He looked at them, and it's funny, I don't know if this is the first words out of His mouth, but the first thing that was recorded, He said, Why are you fearful? O you of little faith! Once again, there's that, O you of little faith! Why are you fearful?

And then He arose, and He rebuked the winds in the sea, and there was a great calm. Every time I read that, I like to pause, because I remember a friend of mine in college. We go through scriptures and such, she had an ambassador, and one of the professors read that, and he said, There's a great calm. And someone, I think when there's quiet, said, See? That calm was so great!

Like, you know, maybe I'm not saying it right. Like, boy, that calm was terrific! What a great calm! And, of course, it meant something different in the Old King James. But it's not hard to realize that fear is an enemy of faith, because it's pretty much the opposite of faith. One of the best definitions I've found of fear described it as the anticipation and nervous, uncomfortable, painful dread of something that has not yet happened.

So that fear is that bad feeling you have of something that hasn't happened yet, but you think is going to. Whereas faith is the comforting feeling you have because you're confident of something good that's coming, you know, as in God's deliverance or God's protection. So they're somewhat opposites. It's hard to have much of one if the other is very present. Now, I'm not saying that fear itself is absolutely evil, because, you know, some fear in us is valuable if we put it to use. But it's fear that's not controlled that can destroy our faith. Now, I've heard an old saying, and I don't know if I'm saying it correctly, but they say, only a fool never feels fear.

They say real courage is the ability to control your fear. You know, because fear can save us from harmful things. If I'm walking across the street and I look and I see a truck coming at me, first thing I feel is fear, and that motivates my legs to hurry up and get out of that road. If I felt no fear, I might just lollygag and something bad would happen. But fear is most damaging when it does a couple of things. One is that it can paralyze us so that we do not do the things that we can do, like get out of the way of harm.

So, fear is bad if it paralyzes us from doing what we can do. But it can also be bad if it eats away our trust in God when we depend on Him to do those things that we cannot do, because we have to acknowledge there are things we can't do. That's when we have to put our faith in God. Now, we have to also balance learning the things we can do, or have to watch that we don't think we can do things that we can't, and try to do things that should be left to God. But that's not my main focus there. This brought to mind that famous quote by Franklin Roosevelt.

Probably most of you know it. It came from his first inaugural address in the depths of the Depression. He said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Now, most people remember that and stop there. But I went and looked at the text, and he didn't end his sentence there. There was a comma, and he qualified what he meant by fear itself. He said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning dread that paralyzes needed efforts. So it wasn't just fear, but the paralysis that comes from this nameless dread so you don't do anything. Now, we could debate whether some of the things that President Roosevelt had Congress do were worth doing.

That's a whole other matter. But historians generally applaud him for trying to do something. And the country wanted to see action taken. As I said, I don't want to get into the differences because I think some was good and some was not good. But at any point, usually you don't want fear to paralyze you so that you do nothing or so that you do it without thinking about it. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing. If you've considered what are all the options, sometimes one of the options is waiting. So I say there, you're not doing nothing. You're choosing to actively wait.

But that's different than being paralyzed in fear. And spiritual paralysis can be as bad or worse than physical. And we've probably all heard that as Christians, we need to be growing. We need to be advancing. Because if we aren't, Satan in the world is working against us to push us backwards. We used to use the term backsliding. And I think as Mr. Armstrong said, if you're not moving forward, you're backsliding. So we don't want to be paralyzed and have the world pushing us backward. We want to overcome fear and move forward. Let's go to Revelation 21 for another definitive comment on fear.

Revelation 21, verses 7 and 8. Obviously, this is near the end of the book. And when most everyone is described as being in God's family and in His kingdom, but some people, it turns out, even after having the opportunity, will not be there. And this describes them. Revelation 21 and verse 7, He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my Son. And it talks about the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, saucers, idolaters, and all liars will have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Now, we don't want to have a part in the second death. I found it interesting. It talks about murderers, sexually immoral, idolaters, and all that. But before it even mentions them, it mentions cowardly and unbelievers. Interesting. The top of the list of things that could keep us out of God's family are fear and lack of faith. And those two, as I said, if we see fear as largely an opposite of faith, we see why you have cowardly and unbelieving right there together. Now, one of the best ways to control fear, they say, I've read some books on the subject, and I'm not an expert psychologist by any means.

I don't think I want to be. But I've read some good advice that said, one of the ways, of course, besides exercising real faith, is to think things through. Literally imagine, if you're in a situation that seems fearful, what's the worst that could happen? What is the worst that could happen? How could I cope with that?

And then there's also, how likely is that to happen? Usually, it's a very, very small chance that it would. And I think of the story we read of the disciples on that boat, the storm, because they're being tossed, and they wake Jesus up to save them. Now if they'd have thought that through, they'd have said, well, wait a minute, this is the Messiah, the Son of God.

Is God going to let us all drown? You know, whether He's awake or not. And of course, if they said, well, maybe He's not the Messiah, well, then waking Him up isn't going to help.

They should have looked somewhere else. Of course, that's not really an option we want to consider. But I heard a minister from headquarters, this is years ago. It's long enough ago. I don't remember for certain. I think it might have been Leslie McCullough was describing a situation a long time ago when he was on an airplane flight, and there were several leading evangelists and department heads from the church in Pasadena on this plane, and they hit turbulence. And it's that kind where you're bouncing up and down, and you start thinking, I don't know if we're going to get home.

But he told us, I thought about it, and I said, wait a minute, look who's on this plane. Is God really going to let all these men that are important in doing his work die in this plane crash? Probably not. And he said, but even if he does, maybe our part in the work is done. And in fact, that's the case. That wouldn't be so bad either. A lot of times, if we think of what's the worst thing that could happen, a death and even worse, a painful death is usually the worst thing.

But that means you're coming up in the resurrection. You're about to be born a child of God. Now, you don't have to relish the idea of going through pain or suffering, but the thought of what's just over that threshold should be a lot to help alleviate that pain.

And, well, you all weren't on the webcast last week when I was making the announcement about Anne Rourke up in Portsmouth since we hadn't met together. One of the things I told them is, when I've talked to her on the phone since she learned about this cancer, I've been just amazed at her upbeat attitude and how much she's not afraid.

And many of you have probably experienced that. And I have to say, when I talk to her, I come away feeling really encouraged because she's an example of believing, really believing what's next in her life, in her eternal life. And that encourages me a lot and makes me think, I want to be like that. And all of us hopefully can. Now, it comes more easily to some people than others. But if we believe in God's plan for us and understand His purpose, usually that means we don't need to fear. Now, of course, one of the greatest ways to defeat that enemy of faith, then, is to exercise faith. That's circular reasoning, I understand.

I don't mean to be cute by saying that, but we can overcome fear by exercising faith, which is the opposite of fear. But, you know, the Scripture says, with men, some things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

And also, I'll just make a reference to 1 John 4, 18, where it says, perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love, which goes hand in hand with faith. 1 John 4, 18, that casts out fear. God will help us get fear out of our mind. But, I'm away from Matthew, but if we'll turn ahead in the book of Matthew for that next enemy of faith, we'll go to Matthew 14.

And we'll see, this is a story that's very similar to the story we just read, but we know it's not the same actual event, because things turned out differently. But apparently, storms could come up rapidly on probably what's the Sea of Galilee. Matthew 14, I want to start in verse 22. Now, this is another one of those cases where Jesus miraculously created food from just a few loaves of bread, and they were occupied all day with all the multitude, and feeding and teaching them.

And then Jesus sent the multitude away. In verse 22, And immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat, and go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he sent the multitudes away, he went up onto a mountain by himself to pray. And I can easily envision this, and I'm the type of person, when I've been dealing with people for a long time, a lot, I want to have some time by myself.

Perhaps Jesus was that way, or he just hadn't had a chance for privacy to pray, and you're not going to get much of that on a small boat out with a bunch of men. So he sends them across, he goes up to pray.

Now, when evening came, he was alone there, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, so the wind was contrary. Now, for some reason, it doesn't say this, but I envision that he's up there, and he can see the boat out there. He's like, oh, you know, because you're up high, you can see pretty far, and so on.

Maybe he sees the winds blowing, they're having trouble, and those guys are going to have trouble, I better go help them. Or, maybe he thought, it's going to take them a long time, I'm not going to bother with a boat, I'm just going to walk across and get their head up, because that's what he decides to do. He's walking across.

Now, the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. But the disciples weren't expecting this, so they were a little alarmed. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, it's a ghost! And they cried out for fear. Now, that's one of the enemies of faith we just talked about, but I want to move to something else. Immediately, Jesus spoke to them, saying, be of good cheer, it's I, don't be afraid. Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, I'm wondering how much he believed, but if it's you, command me to come out to you on the water. I wonder sometimes if Peter was thinking, that looks like fun. I wonder if he'll let me do that. And Jesus gave the one-word answer, come. But it's interesting, he didn't say, well, if you really want to. He gave him a command, and so Peter followed that order. He got down out of the boat, and he walked on the water to Jesus. But, when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink. And he cried out, saying, Lord, save me! Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him. And he says those words again, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And of course, they got into the boat, and the wind ceased. But that phrase comes up again, that I'm using to tie these together, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Now, we've probably heard this story many times. There are a lot of lessons that can be drawn from it. But, here, we can say Peter showed great faith at first. He was experiencing a miracle. He was doing what I tried to do at the swimming pool when I was young and couldn't do. He walked on the water, and he made it, we don't know how far it was, but close enough to Jesus that he could just reach out and grab him. But at some point, Peter started to give more credit to what we might call common sense than to his faith. He began to doubt that this miracle could happen, or really was happening. And I've heard people say, maybe he looked around and saw the wind in the waves and said, wait a minute, I can't walk on water. Now, he'd been walking on water, but he began to doubt. Now, probably all of us have experienced maybe similar things. None of us that I know of have experienced this exact same thing.

But we all might go into a situation where at first our faith is strong until we start to think it through too much, and we doubt. We start looking at the physical elements of our situation, and then we falter. We doubt, sometimes perhaps, that it really is God at work. One of the things I thought of is, sometimes we don't give God credit for working a miracle when he's doing it.

And we shouldn't do that. We should be willing to accept that God sometimes intervenes and works actual miracles, and it's amazing. And we've seen that with healings. Sometimes God doesn't, but we have to accept sometimes he will and not say, well, sometimes you pray for God to do something, and then it works out. And you say, well, thanks God. Never mind. It worked out. And without realizing, well, maybe God is the one that made it work out. Give him the credit. Don't doubt what he does. I had something like that happen just recently. I was mentioning before we started services that Mr. Antion asked me to substitute for him at the ABC classes again, week after next. And so he called me and said, oh, for three days would you come and take these classes, and I'm excited to have the opportunity.

But then two days later, I got an envelope in the mail from the Pike County government. I can't remember the exact thing. It was a jury duty notice. First time I've... It might be the first time I've ever gotten one of those. And I'm called to jury duty on the same exact day that I'm supposed to start teaching at ABC. Wow! And I wonder if Satan out there could pull me away from this or something?

And so I said, well, hopefully I can get a deferment or get out of this or something. So I prayed fervently, oh, God, please help me with this. I'm not sure what to do. And the next morning I called. They gave me a phone number to call. And I explained. I said, well, I just made a commitment to teach. Three days out of town, is there some thing I can do to request a deferment or something? And the girl says, oh, no problem. I'll just take your name off the list. And if we have another case come up, we might contact you then.

And I said, are you sure? Do I need to come down there? Fill out some papers? No, no, it's taken care of. Oh, okay. And, you know, I'd like to say I hadn't been through that. I described that to Jim Colcenier last week. And he said, I've never heard of anybody getting out of jury duty that easily. You know, and it was easy to say, well, see, I didn't have to be worried. I didn't have to ask God for help. But maybe I should be saying, well, God heard my prayer and I just experienced a miracle. You know? But it's easy to doubt. You've got to focus and not doubt. Now, there's a scripture. I'm going to refer to this one because it's so brief. But Habakkuk 1 verse 5 is one of God's giving this great prophetic utterance. And it says, watch, I'll do a work in your days which you would not believe though it were told you. Habakkuk 1.5, I'm going to do something and you wouldn't believe it if I told you.

And I wonder how many times God does this. I'm telling you this and you won't believe me. I'm doing it and you won't believe me. That's what happened with Peter. He was in the middle of a miracle and he started to doubt. God probably does that for us many times, but we just need to stop doubting and accept the miracles that he does for us.

Let's turn to John chapter 8. I think this fits a little bit with the discussion Jesus was having with the Pharisees. And upgrading them for their lack of belief. Of course, he understood that they weren't called. But he also understood that they knew the Scripture very well and they didn't have the excuse that they might try to claim. John 8 and verse 43.

Jesus tells them, Why do you not understand my speech? Because you're not able to listen to my word. You're of your father the devil. The desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own resources. He's a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me. Once again, there's that belief. You don't believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why don't you believe me? He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore, you don't hear because you're not of God. And he understood that. But it's important for us to realize we want to be the opposite of what he just described. We want to hear God's words and believe them and not doubt when they're right in front of us. And I'm not saying this to chew you out. Sometimes I get a... I sense myself going into a tone of voice that I don't mean there. But as I said, most people in the world are like the Pharisees, not able to understand the truth. Because they're not called. They don't have God's spirit opening their minds. But we should hear and we should believe. When we doubt, then that's when we're not exercising faith. So, you know, if we exercise faith, we're choosing to push down those doubts and choosing to believe. And once again, faith is required to do that. It takes a certain amount of faith to exercise faith. And I found as I was writing this, I'm going in circles here, but it's not entirely an accident. God designed it that way. And I'm going to come to that as we go to our next phase or next enemy of faith. Let's look ahead in Matthew to the next place where Jesus described that enemy in Matthew 16. Matthew 16 will begin in verse 5. This is another case, and it's interesting. Well, after another case of Jesus miraculously feeding people, He's working miracles in front of the disciples all the time, and yet, well, they didn't have God's spirit in them yet. And when we think of that, it's easier to understand why they still were hesitant or not able to always understand and believe. So we see in verse 5, when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.

Jesus said to them, take heed. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. So they reasoned among themselves. What are they talking about? Take heed of the Pharisees and Sadducees? There's no Pharisees around here. What's He talking about? So they reasoned and now said, well, that's because we didn't bring any bread. So Jesus is upset that we didn't bring bread and we shouldn't get it from them. And Jesus being aware of it said, oh, you of little faith. Once again, there's that phrase, oh, you of little faith. Why do you reason among yourselves? Because you brought no bread. Do you not understand or remember the five loaves and the five thousand people? How many baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves and the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? How is it you don't understand? I didn't speak to you concerning bread, but to be aware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The leaven, and I believe it might have been Luke's account where it says, the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Jesus was thinking on a spiritual level. The disciples were still thinking physical. He says, bread, they assume He means actual bread. But what He corrected them for is that you of little faith, why are you reasoning among yourselves? Humally, we tend to think based on the information we gather from our five senses. You know, it comes into us through our eyes, our ears, our sense of feel, taste or smell. And so we process everything based on that. And we don't tend to include the spiritual realm of information or divine revelation. The disciples were doing that. They were thinking purely physically. But Jesus wants us to think spiritually. Think and include the revelation that comes through His word and the guidance that can come through His scripture. But I do want to note, of course, reason itself is not bad. In Isaiah 1, 18, God says, come, let us reason together. That's the first chapter of Isaiah. I'm not going to turn there because it's just that one phrase. Come, let us reason together. God believes in reason. Reason or logical thinking is good if it includes, and especially if it's based upon, the Word of God. And that's what the apostle Peter Paul did. Acts 17, verse 2, we see an example of it.

17, verse 2, Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures. So Paul reasoned, but based on the Scriptures. The next chapter over is a similar case in chapter 18, verse 4. He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded both Jews and Greeks. When God is opening someone's mind, then reason can be used to persuade them of the truth. But it's when our reason excludes the truth of God's Word, then it becomes an enemy of faith. So this shows us how important it is to protect our minds and our thoughts. We've got to guard how they work. If you'll turn over to Proverbs, there's a couple Scriptures there. And actually, I'm just going to look at two of the examples of many, I think, that address this. Proverbs 4, 23.

Proverbs 4, verse 23, says, Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Now, here it says heart, but it's funny, I thought you could almost give it a dual meaning, because we do need to protect our physical hearts. But really, when he says, out of it the issues of life spring, he's talking about our center being, our mind. Protect your mind, for out of it come the issues of life. Let's look over to Proverbs 23, verse 7.

While we're here in Proverbs 23, 7, this shows, as I said, this confirms what I meant about it not being the physical heart. It says, As he thinks in his heart, so he is. As a person thinks in his heart, meaning his mind, so he is. So how we think is how we are. So we've got to control our thinking. We don't want to let our thinking become an enemy of faith.

So we've got to focus our thoughts. One of the ways to do that is following Paul's advice. Paul says a lot about this. If we turn to Philippians 4, verse 8. This is one...it's funny, I think of it as a memory scripture. I know what it says, but I've never memorized the whole thing because it has a long list. I always memorize it as saying, Think on these things. And we turn there, I thought, we can make this like there's one of our hymns in the hymnal where there's a chorus and then all these verses.

I think of it as a little kid's song because it's one of the children's choirs of song. But you sing the refrain and then you sing the verse. So you sing the last thing first and then you sing it again at the end. We can make the scripture like this. If we say that, Think on these things, or the New King James says, Meditate. So we read verse 8 and say, Think on these things, finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, think, meditate on these things, not on the other.

And that fits hand in hand with all the other enemies of faith. As I said, I think of my grandma looking for something to worry about. And instead, if there's anything good, think on these things. If there's anything praiseworthy, look for the good in people, the good in a situation. Focus your mind on that. Of course, that's easy to say. It can be hard to do. And I'm not going to say that, oh, it's easy. Everybody should do it.

I have to focus myself and ask for God to help me to think on the good things. As a matter of fact, I could go so far as to say, without God's help, it's impossible to do this. But He does give us help.

That's where I want to turn back to 2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians 10 will begin in verse 3. Because as I said, we don't generally have to fear outside challenges to our faith. Our biggest enemies are what's in our head, and that's what this is discussing. 2 Corinthians 10 in verse 3 says, Though we walk in the flesh, we're physical, we don't war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not physical, but they are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. When He says strongholds, He doesn't mean like a physical fortress or a reinforced concrete stronghold.

It's something in our mind. He says in the next verse, casting down arguments. Casting down arguments. Those thoughts in your head where you say, yeah, but. Matter of fact, I almost wish if Paul were alive today, he might have wrote. Casting down, yeah, buts. Casting down arguments. And every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Those are spiritual weapons to help bring thoughts into captivity. This whole passage of Scripture isn't about fighting a physical war.

It's about the battle for our minds. And we know Satan has a way to affect our minds and he wants to. So there's one external force that's, but Satan can't do anything in our minds if we don't give him access. So we have spiritual weapons to help us to control our thoughts, to use godly reasoning. But we need help to do that. You know, we're talking about a spiritual warfare and you said we have spiritual weapons. We might ask, well, what are they? And I'll bet most of you pretty quickly have an answer to that.

And there's one found in Ephesians 6. What spiritual weapons do we need? Ephesians 6 and verse 13. Where Paul writes, Take up the whole armor of God. He's talking about spiritual weapons. Of course, it's an analogy, but it's a very valid one. Take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand. I love that phrasing. Once you've done everything to stand, then do it. Follow through. Have engirded your waste with truth. The Word of God is truth. Shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And I want to emphasize this because he does. He says, Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

So that faith will help you to control your thinking and it will shield you from outside influence. And we can go on, of course, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and praying with all prayer. But since our focus is on faith, I wanted to stop there.

Faith is what shields our minds. Now, again, I realize in some ways this is circular reasoning. How do we combat the enemies of faith? By using faith. But I think it helps to realize that the initial faith we have is a gift from God through the Holy Spirit. But as I said, then we have to exercise it. Like the old adage about fitness that says, Use it or lose it. If you exercise a muscle, it will grow. But if you don't ever work that muscle with atrophes, maybe our faith is somewhat like this. We have a certain amount to start with, and we can either let it fade away and we'll be overcome, or we build on it and strengthen it.

So I found it interesting. Matter of fact, if you want to turn there, Hebrews 6, verse 1. I'm going the wrong direction. Hebrews 6, verse 1, he says, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ. Let's go on to perfection. Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God. He goes on to some other elementary principles, but I think it's interesting. Faith towards God is one of the elementary principles.

Elsewhere, Paul calls it the milk of the Word. But it's also one of the way to your matters. In Matthew 23, 23, Jesus says, these you ought to have done and not left the others undone. He chided the Pharisees for omitting the way to your matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. Faith is an elementary principle, and at the same time, one of the way to your matters.

I think that's because, as I said, God gives us an initial measure, and then when we start exercising it, it becomes something that's ours, becomes a part of us, and we can use that faith to overcome the enemies of faith. When we're building and exercising faith, we won't be susceptible to worry, fear, doubt, and human reasoning.

Take a breath.

We saw earlier that faith comes by the Word of God. We need to study and meditate on God's Word. We also have faith as a gift through the Holy Spirit. We should pray that God will give us faith and increase it. Then, when we exercise faith by believing what God says and acting on that belief, when we believe that God has called us, that He has a plan and purpose for us, when we believe that God wants us to be in His family, we'll live a way of life that's based on that belief and understanding. That will be exercising faith. That'll protect us from those enemies, from fear, doubt, and human reasoning. And that's when we'll be like those, as I was saying, that go from faith to faith. We'll be the just who live by faith. Thank you, brethren. I forgot to mention in the announcements, we are planning to do a Bible study, so after we have a meal, we'll come back and do a Bible study.