Faith

The title, being everyone has to have a title for the sermon, whoever sends it in, the title is Faith, Our Final Frontier. Faith, Our Final Frontier. I don't know if many of you were Trekkies, watched Star Trek. I didn't watch it growing up, but I did see it a little later in life. They had movies. I don't know if you remember the Star Trek show with William Shatner and the guy with the pointy ears, Leonard Nimoy. But in Star Trek, they always had this opening that's become, I guess, semi-famous. That said, space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

We do not seek out space, but I hope we are seeking out a different kind of frontier. A frontier that I present to you today as faith. We had a Bible study, an interactive Bible study a month or two back, about the 11th chapter of Hebrews, the faith chapter, and the characters involved and why they were there. So I asked the question as I give the sermon today to finish out the part of faith that I wanted to cover this year. Faith, is it a frontier that you want to explore more deeply? Could it be our final frontier? The apex to our spiritual lives? Faith is mentioned over 240 times in the New Testament, over 400 times between the old and the new. But when you think about a faith verse, what verse do you think of? What is your favorite verse in the Bible about faith? What comes to mind? I know this will be a little different today. Anyone? Yes, sir. It doesn't say faith, but also I think you also exclude Christ through the present. True, that is. Yes, it does. Any faith? Any verses with faith? Through faith you are healed? Somebody else said something? Go ahead. Yes, sir.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God, right? Hebrews 11, verse 6. Do we really know what that means? Have we ever dwelt on just that Scripture? Without faith, it is impossible. It is impossible to please God. That one verse there shows us what? Faith is very important. It should be to us. And I've had to ask myself that question many times. Do I have enough faith? And do I truly know what faith really, truly is?

Just before the faith chapter, chapter 11, Hebrews, the writer quotes Habakkuk and says, The just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Do we live by faith? Are we the just? Have we asked ourselves that question? And what does it mean? We can talk about faith a lot, but do we understand why God put these stories, these references, these scriptures about faith in the Scriptures? Why did He put them there? What's behind it? If someone asks you, well, what does that mean? The just shall live by faith. Do we know that it came from Habakkuk? Do we know even who Habakkuk was other than a minor prophet? And that he's stuck in there somewhere and he's got a lot of bees and caesars in his name.

Habakkuk lived in Jerusalem and Judea at the time just before they were conquered and taken slaves. Habakkuk actually prophesied between 612 and 589, I think. And Habakkuk was in Judah, living in Jerusalem, trying to tell the nation, you're corrupt, repent. And he spent a long time doing that. And obviously, he didn't do a very good job because by, what, 605? Battling came in and they came in and they took David and took Daniel and a group of young leaders there hauled him off.

And Judah became a vassal state. And then only a few, 7, 8, 9 years later, they didn't do what they were told to do, so Babylon sends another group of soldiers in, takes another group of people out to Babylon. And so finally, it leaves just Jeremiah and Habakkuk there in Jerusalem at the time. There were some others that lived there, but they were the only two prophets at the time that were right in the city, as what I have read. And Jeremiah was frustrated because the whole leadership of the country was turning against him, against God. Habakkuk was trying to tell people, what? God, what's going on? Where are your people? Where are your chosen people? To which God said, Abad, people aren't going to change. I'm sorry, but they're not changing. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you how it ends. I'm going to bring the Babylonians in, and I'm going to have them wipe out the entire country. And they're going to take the whole nation prisoner, and they're going to wipe them out. And Habakkuk goes, wait a minute, wait a minute! They're more corrupt than we are! Why are you doing that?

To which God kind of says in Habakkuk, why are you worried about it? Because the just shall live by faith.

It tells us we don't know our future. Should we worry? The just shall live by faith. Shows me how important it is that I understand faith at a deeper and greater level. In Matthew 17, I think Namath brought this up while we were traveling last week over to Vero Beach. And he talked about faith, the size of a mustard seed. As he quoted that scripture, as I hadn't put the sermon together, but I was still thinking on it, throwing some things out to him. We were talking, he gave me a couple of faith scriptures. One he brought up was about faith, the size of a grain of mustard seed. That's how the New Living Translation puts it, the size of a grain of mustard seed.

What's it talking about? That we need faith. You've seen a mustard seed. At one time, I gave out some little mustard seeds in this congregation. You could barely see it. And he said, if you had faith the size of this grain of mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move and it would move. I sure need that kind of faith. I'd like to have that kind of faith. That's how small. We don't need a great deal of faith just a little bit. And what could we do? We can all explain that scripture, but what's the background of it? Do we understand that that took place just after the transfiguration? When Jesus Christ took three of His disciples up on the mountain and was transfigured, they came back down. And here they were met by this father that says, My son, he's an epileptic. He has demons. He has something. He just throws himself into the fire. We have all these problems. And I brought him to your disciples to heal. And they couldn't do it. Why? And this is what Jesus said. Oh, you little faith.

Then He told them this does not come out except by prayer and fasting. And I'm sure it was a shock to His disciples, because you can read earlier how they went around and they cast out demons. They did all this stuff. And they came back and reported this to Christ. And they're all excited. And all of a sudden, He leaves them, takes the three up, comes back down, and the other nine have got to go looking at each other like, Why couldn't you do it? Why couldn't you do it? And you know the carnal nature that was in the three disciples that came down with Christ probably thought, Wait a minute, we could have cast them out.

We must look at the Scriptures where it talks about faith and explore those Scriptures. Those Scriptures are given to us to dig into. Find out why they were said. What happened? It helps us to dig deeper into this thing called faith that is in the Bible. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 7, it tells us, We walk by faith, not by sight. We walk by faith, not by sight. Do we? What's the background on it? Why would He say that? Who were the Corinthians? Do you remember them? Act like a Corinthian? Was a phrase back at that time? That means wild living. Let's get wild. Let's go Corinthians. That's what they used to say. Wine, women, and so on. So we know if you study, you just can't look at a Scripture and go, Oh, we walk by faith, not by sight. But it helps us to understand faith more deeply if we what? Know what it's talking about and explore those Scriptures, not just read, but study God's Word.

But the Corinthians, he was talking about the Kingdom of God. He was telling them, you have to get there. You have to walk by faith and not by sight because they were people who were very tied into sight. They set their eyes because it was a very worldly world, fleshly world, sinful world around them. And they saw this all the time. And they were so affected by it, right? That's why we have 1 Corinthians, very corrective book, trying to tell them to set their minds on the things above, not on the things of the earth, just like us. If you want to, looking at the Scripture, if you want to walk by faith, stop walking by these so much. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 23, says, Whatever is not from faith is sin. What does that mean? What's it talking about? What's the background? I'm just covering these very lightly today. Hopefully you will take these home and study so that you can have deeper, stronger faith in your walk. Well, it was talking about meat, wine, but it ties in to what we truly believe in. As James says, He who knows to do good and does not do it, to Him it is sin.

If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning. That's what the Scripture means. That's part of this, whatever is not from faith is of sin. A deep Scripture that should rule our lives. Guess what? I see somebody coming through the door and they're struggling with something. I go, well, I've got to go back and get me some water. And I do not open the door, help them. Guess what? That is sin to me. If you know to do good and don't do it, even though you may say, well, I didn't do anything wrong. Yes, you did. Because you're walking by faith and not by sight. You're walking to please God and not man. Can you imagine the incredible world it will be when that is the rule? When that is done all the time? Can you imagine what it would change? Even in a town, if a town did that, everyone would be helping each other. And then in Matthew 14 verse 31, famous Scripture we talk about, I think Namath brought this one up too, about Peter walking on water. Remember the story? I would have loved to have seen that. I've seen the reenactment on different movies and so forth, but I would have loved to have seen the actual act take place, where this bold leader steps out of that boat, starts walking to Christ, walking on water. Here was a sailor, here was a fisherman, here was a man who had spent his entire life, probably on the water, knew it was not possible. And yet he was walking on water. And he was walking.

And then you read the Scriptures, I'd like you to go through and dig into that a little bit deeper, because what happened? When did he start to sink? When he took his eyes off of Christ. When do we start to sink? When we take our eyes off of Christ? When we take our eyes off God? And Christ said, oh, you're a little faith. Why? Why did you doubt? Why did you doubt?

I'm sure he's asked me that question many times, because I've doubted. And I don't think I'm the only one in this room who had moments of doubt. Can you define faith? Can you define faith? Well, the Bible defines it, like you turn there, if you will. Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, verse 1, defines faith. And the New King James says, Now faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Most of you know that. I want to quote it from the New Living Translation, which I think gives us a clear, hopefully a clear picture of faith. It says, faith is a confidence that what we hope for will actually happen.

It gives us assurance about the things we cannot see. We cannot see. You know, the Greek word for faith is pis. P-I-S-T-I-S. It's a Greek word for faith. P-I-S-T-I-S. Pis. That's a noun. The verb form, which we use, or translated, believe, is pisyou. Pisyouu. That's how it's said in Greek. P-I-S-T-E-U-O. And so I really wanted to know, since it defined faith as this, so I went to Kenneth West, W-U-E-S-T, who is a scholar in Greek, and in his studies of the vocabulary of the Greek in the New Testament, he gives us and helps me, hopefully it'll help you, define exactly what faith is, since it's very important, since it is impossible for me to please God without faith.

I need to know everything I can about faith so that I can please God. So the conception of faith, he says, has three elements. That means it's a very deep word. This pistis. A very, very deep word. And it actually has three components or three main elements of this definition.

One is fully convinced acknowledgement. Fully convinced acknowledgement. The second was self-surrendering. That's faith. And the third, definite commitment. Definite commitment. As you look at these, I've looked at these all week, and I look, boy, that is a mouthful. To have faith the way God puts it in the New Testament, this word means I've got to be fully convinced and acknowledge it. That I'm fully convinced that I'm self-surrendering, that this is it. I'm okay.

No argument for me. This is what I need to do. And that there's a definite commitment. I am committed to have this faith. You know, the entire chapter of Hebrew is dedicated to the people of faith. Right? We went through that in a Bible study. But the whole chapter, God lays out for us to see all the examples of these incredible people of faith.

It's like a story written just for us. Do you have faith? If I was to ask that question, I think most of us would raise our hand. Yeah, I have faith. How much faith? Is that where it comes in? How much faith do we have? Is your faith tested? How often is it tested? Does it matter? Does it matter that you have great faith or little faith? Because Christ turned to Peter and said, oh, you have little faith. But yeah, we see later, Peter had great faith, didn't he?

After he received his Holy Spirit. Do we have great faith? Is it something we want more of? Why is it important? A month or so ago, a couple of months ago, we went through Matthew 23, the Woe chapter. And I went through about how we're not to be. Jesus Christ made it perfectly clear.

He was very forceful in his speech. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! And this is one of the things that he brought out in Matthew 23, 23. That's why it's always easy to remember. Matthew 23, 23. Because he talks about the weightier matters of the law. Was what? Was what? Remember justice, mercy, and faith? So he says justice, mercy, and faith. Because they talked about tithing off of either little seeds and so forth. That's what the Pharisees were doing.

But they forget the weightier matters of the law, is what he told them. And he said, unless you're righteous and succeed, that of the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of God. I want to enter the kingdom of God. I can't be like the Pharisees, the scribes.

So this is one of the heavier, weightier matters of the law. This is one of the things that we need to know about. We need to understand justice, what it is. We need to understand mercy. But boy, we'd better have faith. And Jesus Christ laid that out. Have you ever had your faith shaken? Anybody? Yes, almost everyone has had their faith shaken. You know, because it happens. And you know what? It's going to happen again. You remember the story of Elijah? Elijah had just done miracles. He raised dead. He did all these things. And he gets a letter from a woman, and he runs off like a scalded dog, didn't he? Headed toward the mountains. His faith was shaken by a woman when he was ready to stand before thousands of people, and he slaughtered 800 prophets in Baal.

All of our faith can be shaken at different times. We've had people that we trusted in, right? Maybe business, maybe family, maybe new acquaintance. And somebody let us down, and we lost faith. And we had our faith shaken. We've also had our faith shaken in God the Father and Jesus Christ. Most of us have. We've had those moments. I guess that's why Paul was talking to his son, as he called him, Timothy. First Timothy 6, verse 12. He brings out the point. He says, fight the good fight of faith. Fight the good fight of faith. And so I'm intrigued by that. Okay, fight the good fight of faith. Well, exactly, God, what does that mean? And so I went to the Greek, and it says, translated agoniesode the agonies. Sounds like Greek to me. Translated means agonize the agony. I'm going, boy, yeah, I guess that's why I have to study Greek so much, so I can really understand what these words mean. But it's very important, because he told Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. Then I find that that agonize is an athletic term, which means exerting every ounce of energy to win.

Anybody's played sports? To win? Sometimes it takes every ounce of energy to win. To win. With us to win over this world, and to have the faith we need, it's going to take every ounce of energy to fight the good fight, to keep the faith, to keep this world from shaking us. God's not going to shake our faith. The world will shake our faith. It'll get in our heads. It'll let us have a negative attitude, doesn't it? Why is it some mornings? You go through one day, great day. You go to bed. You get up the next morning, and all of a sudden you feel loud. Why do I feel this way? I'm not sick. I just... Man, yesterday was great. I just feel blase down. And you know it's in your head. And you've got to snap out of it. I do sometimes because I remember the phrase. Motion controls emotion. Sometimes I don't want to get up and jog. I know it's good for me. It's good for Mike. Don't have to buy new clothes. Get up and run. Go out on the beach. Spend some time running in the sand, jogging in the sand. But I don't want to! I'm tired. I was up till midnight.

But what happens when you do? Sometimes it just changes you just like that, doesn't it? But you have to make the effort. And that's what he was telling Timothy. Timothy, you're going to have to fight the good faith. You're going to have to make the effort. And try this.

We all have stories. We all have stories of faith. We all have stories of lack of faith. I hope we share those stories with each other. Because it does help to realize we're not in this thing alone.

I think about attitude. And I think about the positive attitude that I saw this week on an athlete here in Miami. LeBron James. Something about him, he was not going to lose. No matter what it took, if it took everything, he was not going to lose.

Do we have that kind of attitude with our work?

With Jesus Christ? And we're going to make it to the Kingdom. And I'm going to have bad days. I'm going to have days we lose. But the majority of them I'm going to win. It starts up here. My faith was first shaken about 20 years ago like no other. And it had to do with a dog. My faith got so shaken by a dog.

I still remember it just like it was yesterday. 20 years ago, I had faith in God. Thought I did. Thought it was a mature, living, strong, active faith.

God had been answering prayers in my life one right after another. I was praying every day to God. I was so close to God, I had an understanding with God. I'd never had before in my life.

And my brother and his girlfriend at the time later became his wife. Brought their little dog over for us to take care of, named Kavik. Puppy, about that big. He was a Rottweiler. Cute little dog. Come stay over with our dog. Our big dog. So we had a good time playing with the little dog. He was just, and she just loved it. I mean, it was just the most lovable dog. And so we wanted to make sure that it didn't run off the night while they were gone. So, you know, they entrusted us to take care of it. So I tied it to the front porch so it wouldn't run away. Well, little did I know, it made a couple rounds around something and got tied up in a rope and tried to get and hung itself off of our front porch. And got up in the morning, Sunday morning, I guess it was, got up to go check on the dog, and it was there hanging off of my front porch. And I grabbed the dog, and it was still warm. I thought, maybe it's still alive. And so I grew up on a farm, and I tried to take care of it, pump its little heart, you know, breathe into its mouth, do these things that you do with animals. Couldn't. It was dead. And you know, the first thing crossed my mind. It was out of my front yard. I just ran in my house to the bedroom that I always prayed at, and I went and I hit my knees. I went and I prayed to God because it wasn't our dog, but I know how much it meant. And I just prayed, and I got off my knees, and I knew I would walk out there, and that dog would be alive. I knew it! And it was still dead. I went back twice, three times, just like Elijah laying on the child.

And it was still dead. And we had to tell my future sister-in-law that the dog they entrusted to us was dead. That was not near as hard as trying to get by the next week, because my faith was so shaken. And I kept asking, God, what have I done wrong? Why didn't you answer that? Why, God? You did everything else! You've always unmobeyed you. Why didn't you do this? All over a dog.

I didn't understand. It wasn't an active living kind of faith. It was a faith in that he had always done what I wanted to do, except when he came to God's will, I kind of left that out of the picture.

It took me a while.

To give my faith back. Now I don't. I've had to pray over people who are dying in the hospital.

And when I ask that they live and they don't, I don't get upset at God. It's His will. I have faith in Him, not in just what I know better than God, because that was my problem 20 years ago. I wasn't used to knows. Because He had given me so many yeses. Like turn to John 20, if we will. John 20. Incredible story of Timothy. Oh, excuse me. Yes. Thomas, excuse me. And in John 20, I like to start in verse 24. John 20 and verse 24. Here after Jesus Christ had died, Jesus Christ had appeared to some, but He had appeared to Thomas. And so they were all telling Thomas, the other 10. Well, hey, Jesus Christ here. Oh, no, it can't be Him. And said in verse 24, but Thomas called Didymus. One of the 12 was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to Him, we have seen the Lord, but He said to them, unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. And after eight days, the disciples were again inside and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut and stood in the midst and said, Shalom, our peace to you. Then He said to Thomas, reach your finger here and look at my hands and reach your hand here and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing. And Thomas answered and said, my Lord and my God. He realized this was the Messiah. And then the words that I'd like to leave with you today, that's very important here in verse 29. Jesus said to Him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Is that us? We haven't seen Jesus Christ in form. We haven't been able to see Him heal, touch us, speak with us in physical form.

But yet we still believe.

That's faith. That's faith. Faith in something not seen. It's easy to have faith in things seen. My father, I saw for 50 years, had him in my life for 50 years. I loved that man would do anything for me. I had total faith in him. Now, one time did he ever let me down. And that was easy to have faith in him, because it's a physical faith. It's so much easier to trust in something you can see than something you can't. It's a problem with most of us. I love the story of two prisoners. 500 years ago, shackled to the wall of a deep, dark dungeon, spread eagled like this, shackled by manacles and chains, hanging, suspended, just a few feet off the damp dungeon floor. Up above them, 40 foot to the nearest little window where light was coming through.

And one turns to the leader and says, What's your plan? What's your plan? That's faith. How many times have we turned to God and said, What's your plan? Many times have we been in a bind. We've not understood what's going on and said, God, what's your plan? See, that's faith. That's incredible faith. Most of us could use more faith. Not to walk on water, not to move mountains. We need more faith to please God, the Father. To help us live by faith and not by sight. That's why we need more of that faith. Help us to do that. So I'll wrap this sermon up today. Because as Jimmy Lum, my friend from Hawaii, always says, Don't tell me to have faith. Tell me how to have faith. So I want to give you three short points on how to have faith, more faith. The first you find in Romans 1, verse 20. Romans 1 and verse 20.

One verse that we need to make sure that we really have. Romans 1 and verse 20 says, For since the creation of the world, his invisible. Who's invisible? God's attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made. Even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they, who? Anybody on earth? They are without excuse.

We begin by seeing the wonders of God in the physical creation. Brother, never pass by an ocean without seeing the power of God and the attributes of God. You're not one that's going to go like those who believe in evolution. They don't look at the ocean and go, one time my ancestors crawled out of there.

That's just slime, and look what I am today. That is faith. Faith that God is a creator. The great questions of life. Who is God and what is man? Have you asked them? Have you answered them? The great questions of life. Who is God and what is man? You answer those, and I guarantee you, you have faith. Second point, Romans 10. Let's go over to Romans 10. Romans 10 and verse 17 says, faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. What's being said there? You want more faith? Read the book. We want more faith? Read the book. I've said many times, we pray to God, that's how we talk together. When we read the Bible, He talks to us up here. You want more faith? Read the book. Look at the world. Read the book. See God in every facet of your life. See Him in every breath. See Him in every stoplight. See Him in everything. And you'll have incredible faith. You should not be walking by sight. Finally, three. Faith must be active. Active and living. Living, active faith powered by the Holy Spirit. That's how we have it. Realize where it comes from. The Holy Spirit.

That's what James 2 talks about. We need faith by active, living. Get involved. Be powered by the Holy Spirit. Ask for more faith. Pray for God to grant you more faith, brethren. Pray! Do you believe what Jesus Christ said? Ask anything in my name and my Father will give it. Okay, God, I need a Lamborghini. My car tore up. It's not God's will. But it is God's will for you to have more faith. It is God's will that you have enough faith that you can move a mountain. He's just that little. That's what He wants us to have. How powerful is that? That we can have that. Is that not awesome? And He wants us to have it. Pray for it. Pray for more faith. I've prayed more this week since I've worked on this sermon than about faith than I have in 10 years. I really have. I realize just how important it is by studying all the Scriptures of faith.

Brethren, it is time for us to explore a strange new world and to seek out a new life. To boldly go where we have never gone before.

Faith, our final frontier.