Live by Faith

You're a fairly religious-looking bunch. And I say that because we're here for a worship service. Now we're here for a religious purpose. So you might wonder, we want to talk about something that's fitting. Is there a subject that's more religious than talking about faith?

I think I... and you know I like to deal with words and their meaning, and one of the definitions of faith is to... let me slow down. That extra coffee's getting to me. Faith can be synonymous for the word religion. You could say, well, I don't do this because of my faith, or we respect each other's faiths, meaning religion, not necessarily the definition of faith that we often use in the church, which we'll come to that later. But we could summarize it in general by saying the religion that's not... no, the meaning of faith that's not synonymous with religion is a type of belief. You know, you believe something, but it's not just believing something that someone tells you that you've got every reason to. It's more often related to belief in something that might otherwise seem implausible. You know, you believe in something that you wouldn't necessarily believe in it if you didn't have faith. And I thought there's a couple of examples from pop culture that came to mind. One of them's kind of humorous, but I love humor in commercials. And that's where Sue and I have a disagreement, because she tends to tune out commercials, and I say that they're an art form. But there's one of the progressive insurance commercials that's been on lately, you know, with Flo, the sales lady. And there's one I can't remember what it is... it shows it's not the most effective, because I don't remember what it was other than progressive, but they got some new device or whatever, and they're talking about how great it is, and the customer says, what's it going to do next? Defy gravity? And they walk off, and she flips the switch, and they float up into the air, right? And the fellows there doing this, he says, why can't I go anywhere?

Because you don't believe hard enough. Now, doesn't that sound mystical and religious? You have to believe hard enough. But it's also poking fun, isn't it? It's sort of looking at people saying, well, you think you can believe a certain amount of hard...hardness. That's not the word I'm looking for, but you know, you believe a certain amount, then you can make things happen. And they laugh at that. So the other example I thought of that's not so funny, and I think it is profound in a way, but before I give it, maybe I should apologize for those of you who were at the Winter Family Weekend, because it's another Star Wars reference. But it is a good example, and you remember, you know, in I believe it's the second movie where Luke Skywalker is learning how to be a Jedi from Yoda. Yoda's the little wrinkly green guy, and he's training Luke and all this stuff and how to use the Force. And Luke Skywalker's spaceship has crashed in the swamp, and he wants to get it out so he can go help his friends. And, you know, so he's looking at all and all, how am I ever going to get it out? And Yoda implies that, well, you use the Force. So Luke's, okay, and he goes and he gets this, you know, determined look, and he's, er, and the ship starts to shake and move, and blah, blah, blah, it sinks back down. He goes, you know, and he's all exhausted. He says, it's no use. It's too big. And Yoda goes on to talk about how size doesn't matter, and you shouldn't judge me by my size. And I'm not quoting the whole thing because I want to get to the point, but Yoda, you know, little Yoda who's like 800 years old and a foot tall, goes over and he, he doesn't have fingers, he has claws or something, but he gets that determined look and the symphonic music plays and the ship rises up out of the water, and it's very dramatic, and it floats over and settles down, and Luke's eyes are this big around, and he looks at Yoda and he says, I don't believe it! And Yoda says, that is why you fail.

And for those of us who watch it, you say, yeah, if I just believe I can lift spaceships out of the water!

Let's turn, if you will, with me to Matthew 21, because I want to tie these two together, and I don't want to make light, but I want to show how we want to transition from how we use faith, and then talk about the subjects I want to get to about building and protecting faith. But in Matthew 21, beginning in verse 18, this is a well-known story, and near the end of Jesus' ministry, when he's, we believe, probably deliberately provoking the Pharisees so that they all have him crucified, it says, now in the morning as he returned to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves. And he said to it, but no fruit will grow on you ever again. Immediately the fig tree withered away.

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

Jesus answered and said, 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, be removed and be cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you'll receive.

So that makes you think, you might say, well, I should be able to move this mountain if I believe hard enough. I couldn't help but think back to when I was younger. And I'm wondering, I don't want to have a show of hands, but I'm wondering how many, I suspect some of you might have been like me, where you, you decided to look at this rock and say, I'm going to move that because I believe. I went further than that. I remember this distinctly because I'm glad I didn't tell anybody, but we lived in a neighborhood on the west side of Columbus when I was growing up where there was a pool and my sister and I had membership so we could go. And so I determined that I was going to believe hard enough to walk on water. And I tried it several times, each time, gritting my teeth saying, I believe even more. And each time, of course, I stepped out and, you know, went right down into the water. It was kind of discouraging in a way, as I said, now, just think, probably, I know at least some of you have been like me and done that. And I was about 11 years old when I was doing the walking on water thing. But I know there are people of faith, or I want to think that, but I haven't seen any mountains being moved. You know, does that mean we don't have faith? No, we can talk about, I don't want to make that the particular focus because there's the aspect that we should want to do things that are within God's will and His plan and purpose. You know, God doesn't want us to use faith and the power of His Spirit for parlor tricks or to show off or anything like that. That's not going to match with what He wants from us. So I don't mind admitting, you know, the things I wanted to do when I was 11 years old because I had quite a bit of maturing to do and some would say still do, but I've matured a little since then. But we still, even if we're not moving mountains or we're not to that point yet, we need to have faith, don't we? The Bible says the just shall live by faith. And even just as much as we need to have faith, we need to maintain that faith. We need to protect it once we have it from enemies that might destroy it. So that's what I'm getting to. I've been beating around the bush a little bit, but I want to talk today about faith. How do we get it? How do we protect it from being destroyed or eroded away?

First, we can talk about some of the basics and we can, if you will, turn to Hebrews 11.

We call this often the faith chapter, so I won't beat around the bush there. We'll go right to it.

And the first verse gives us our common definition of faith. Hebrews 11, 1, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So when you don't have any evidence, that's why I said earlier it's that belief in something that's otherwise implausible. But you have your faith and so you believe even when there's nothing else to tell you that you should believe. Now, that's something I think is common in this room.

And it made me think, I was thinking, you know, just about all of us know people that aren't in the church, that God hasn't called and opened their minds, who we think of as good people, probably members of our family or friends or neighbors. And have you ever had that thought that when God calls this person, boy, he or she is going to get it. They're going to, you know, they'll take to it right away because they're good. You know, and it might be later in this life, possibly, certainly in the resurrection. And I imagine in the resurrection, these people will come up and God will be here. Satan will be put away. You know, I wonder if there's television, maybe there'll be a nightly newscast from Jerusalem. Will it take as much faith to believe in God in his way then?

Maybe not. And I'm not putting anyone down that's called then, but I think we could give ourselves a little credit to be in God's church now takes faith. It's in some ways a little more faith.

It's tough. You know, we have to believe in something that we don't have God right here, you know, broadcasting the nightly news. And I'm speculating about the news from Jerusalem, but...

And then Hebrews 11 goes on to describe that, you know, after it describes what faith is, it describes the actions of many of what I consider heroes in the Bible. They took action on their faith, which is good. I'm not going to turn there, but James 2 20 does say that faith without works is dead. So they don't just believe. It's not just believing hard enough. It's acting, living your life in accordance with what you believe. Interestingly, I will point out when it describes all these things that the heroes of the Bible did, there's no account in this whole chapter of anyone moving a mountain or walking on water for that matter. Now, Jesus Christ walked on water and He created food out of nowhere. But he was giving an example of that could be done by faith, I think, if it was God's will. But I don't feel so bad that I couldn't, you know, move a mountain or lift an X-wing fighter because, you know, God's not working that way just yet, not in my life.

But something we do do in verse three, by faith we understand. So by faith we do understand the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Things which are seen were made of things, things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. I think the old King James says, made of things not seen. So God made the physical out of nothing, and we believe that. That's a great act of faith, to believe that there is a God and He's the Creator.

Many people in the world don't believe that, although that's an interesting discussion, because I'm still convinced it takes more faith to believe in evolution than to not believe in it. When you start looking at the facts and the evidence, it just seems, you know, that's a great act of faith to believe that all this happened by accident and happenstance.

But it is still an act of faith to believe that God made the world, by the Word of God, by His power.

Let's move on to verse six, though, because I want to point out some very important things about our faith. First of all, it describes what I've heard described as the first article of faith. The first thing about faith, in verse six, it says, without faith it's impossible to please Him. Now, that's not what I'm calling the first article, but for He who comes to God must believe that He is. That's the first article of faith. You've got to believe that there is a God. Believe He is God. That comes before believing anything else. And you can't please God if you don't believe that He is God. So there, first of all, believe there is a God. And then, of course, also, though, believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Sometimes theologians would call that the provenance of God. That's a nice theological. Provenance is related to the word providence, but it means doing good. God does good for people. He's looking out for us. He cares for us. It's God's provenance that He has a plan for us and He wants to bring good things to us.

He's looking out for our best interest. In Romans 8, 28, of course, it says, all things work together for good to those that believe in God, those who are called and obedient to His word. I'm not quoting that exactly because I'm going off track here. But a good example of that, remember Joseph when he was sold into Egypt. Now, he could have said, you know, those dirty so-and-so brothers of mine, they sold me into slavery, and boy, I'm going to get them. But what happened when he saw his brothers again? He said, you didn't send me here.

God sent me here to save life. God, apparently, it didn't look like it was for good at the time, but Joseph was sent down to Egypt. He got thrown into prison, but God worked that all around so that he could save the whole nation of Egypt because God gave him the understanding of the seven years of plenty that would be followed by the seven years of famine. So he saved the nation of Egypt and provided a safe haven for all of his family. That's God looking out for people's best interest. Now, I think we could make a case, though, that there's a greater act of faith than some of these other things. A greater act of faith than moving mountains or creating, you know, food out of nowhere. And I mention the food out of nowhere because Jesus did that, because it's the case for where I want to go now in John 6. John 6, and we'll start in verse 28.

Because we could say that the greatest act of faith, or at least the one that God wants from us, is to believe him. God wants us to believe him and then act on that belief.

John 6, and we'll begin in verse 28.

Now, this is after Jesus Christ had fed a multitude, and they came looking for him afterwards. I think it's kind of amusing because he goes across the sea, and they don't see him there, and they follow him across the sea, and they're like, we've been looking for you. And he says, ah, you're not looking for me because you want to hear the truth. You just want to find me because you ate the loaves and you were filled. And this conversation goes on, but let's pick up in verse 28. Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God. This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.

Jesus was talking about himself. You know, here he was, God in the flesh. The people needed to believe that. Believe that he was God, and then believe what he was telling them.

And that brings us back to that first idea we had, that faith, that faith, that faith, that faith, that faith, that faith, that faith, that faith, is belief in God and therefore believing what he says.

We need to believe it when the Bible shows us that God is building a family.

We need to believe it when it tells us to live a certain way of life described by his law.

And we need to believe that God really does know what's best for us and that he wants what's best for us. And then, of course, we have to live a life based on that belief. And, of course, just believing it as, I believe, I think it was James or Jude says, the devils believe and tremble, but they don't do it. We have to believe and act on that belief. And it sounds easy.

Just believe what it says. Live your life that way. But we sometimes fall short.

Even when we really want to believe, sometimes we fail to act on that. That belief, that real faith, is something greater than we can have on our own. And I'll acknowledge, as a matter of fact, I think I said this early on this morning, that I realize that this is, well, like many sermons, is a bit of a review. I don't want to say that I know all about faith and you don't, because that would be ridiculous. Many of you know from many hard years of experience in living by faith, but it's always good for us to review this and understand and look at it again or through a new prism. So let's look at what this tells us in Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians 2 and verse 8.

The fact that this faith that we need is greater than we can have on our own. So how do we get it?

Ephesians 2 and verse 8 says, For by grace you've been saved. Grace is that Mr. Armstrong used to define it as free, unmerited pardon. But sometimes grace can also be a free gift. It's a blessing. It's something that you don't deserve. So we're saved by this grace through faith. We're saved through faith and that, not of yourselves, it's a gift from God. The faith that we need is a gift. We can't develop it on our own, but that doesn't mean that we can't do all that we can in our power to build it up and increase it and certainly to protect it from harm. We know that God gives his people gifts. I wasn't sure if I had my singular and plural case together there right, but if you will turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

I thought of this when I started writing my notes and thinking about gifts, because God gives spiritual gifts to his people and different gifts. Paul spends a lot of time when he wrote to the church at Corinth. He spent a lot of time correcting them, but one thing he praised them for is that they were richly blessed in gifts. Now he had to chastise them because they got a little conceited about it, but he said, you guys have lots of gifts and lots of different gifts.

And, you know, not everybody has the same gift, but God gives different people different things for their own good. Here in 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 1, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I don't want you to be ignorant. And I'm not going to go on about all the gifts, but let's look in verse 4. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. So gifts given by the Holy Spirit.

What's interesting, though, if you read this chapter and go into the next one, he doesn't list faith. He lists speaking in tongues and healing and wisdom. He doesn't list faith. And I thought, wait a minute, what I just read in Ephesians talks about faith being a gift through the Spirit. Why doesn't Paul mention it? Well, and the reason, and you might say, well, why in the world are you mentioning it? The reason I wanted to take this little detour is to show it. I think it's because faith is one of those things that there's no diversity to it. He gives it to all of us. We can't come to God unless we have faith. We can't please Him. It's something we all have to have. He might give us other gifts that it's nice for one person to have a gift in this area. Another person has a different gift in another area, but we all have to have the gift of faith. So I think Paul left that one out because he wasn't talking about diversity when it comes to faith. We all have to have it, and God gives it to all of us because we all need it. Let's look at some of how he does that in John 16. John 16 will begin in verse 7. I'm being a little bit redundant here because I've said he gives it by the Spirit, but since Jesus explained it a little more fully, I think it's worth looking at. Of course, this was during his last Passover with the disciples, and he told them a good many things. Coincidentally, he told them a lot of things that they couldn't fully understand at the time, but he said the Spirit will help you to remember this later, and then you'll get it. And part of that comes down here in verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It's to your advantage that I go away. If I don't go away, the Helper will not come. And there, I use the Greek word paraclete. Comforter, Helper, the Holy Spirit. It won't come to you, but if I depart, I'll send it to you. And when it's come, he'll convict the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they do not believe in me. And he goes on from there, but I wanted to notice there's that talk about conviction and belief, because we tend to think of conviction in terms of a court. You know, going to court, and if the jury rules guilty, you're convicted of a crime. But there's a prior meaning to that word, of conviction. And I like to think of conviction related to faith, because conviction is a type of belief that gets down to your very core. If you're convicted of something, I don't mean found guilty, but it's like a belief that puts a weight on your mind. You can't ignore it. You know, have you ever had something like that where it's like, okay, I can't leave this alone. I know it. And I've described this for myself when I knew it was time to be baptized, because I said, I know God's way of life, and I know that I know it. And knowing that this way is good and leads to eternal life, and that this way leads to eternal death, I can't not go this way. I have to do it. That's conviction. And it comes by the Holy Spirit.

And I can give you an alternate example. This is one, which I'll say I'm not that proud of it, because it wasn't my shining moment. But there was a time briefly in college, I met a girl that wasn't in the church, and we went out a couple times. Very nice girl, and she was religious, so she came to church with me. This is when I was in Texas. And, you know, asked a lot of questions about what we believed. And what I'm getting to is, at one point we had this conversation, and she told me, I understand what you believe. I don't think, but I don't think I have to do that stuff.

She wasn't convicted. She had an intellectual understanding, but she didn't have any conviction that she should act on it. And that pretty much told us both, well, there's no point in us continuing to date, because that's not going to work out. And I say that conviction can only come by the Holy Spirit. There are people that can intellectually understand these things, but they don't feel, it doesn't move them. We want to have that conviction that only comes by the Holy Spirit.

And, of course, that fits with what comes earlier in the book of John, which we quote all the time, John 644, where it says, No man can come to me, except the Father draw him. That's part and parcel with the same thing. When the Holy Spirit opens a person's understanding and gives him a measure of the faith of Jesus Christ, then he can begin believing and live in God's way of life. So the Spirit has to give you at least some amount of faith to begin. But there's another vital element that we have to have. And we might take it for granted, because you say, well, if you believe, well, you have to have the something to believe. You have to have that bit of information.

Or we could say the Word of God. Let's turn to Romans chapter 10.

Romans chapter 10 will begin in verse 11. It seems like I've cited this a lot lately, because it talks about preaching the gospel, but it also talks about faith.

Romans 10 and verse 11, Paul writes, The Scripture says, Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. So this is relating to that belief, and he'll tie it into faith later. Let's drop down to verse 13. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? So you're not going to call on Jesus. You're not going to live his way of life if you don't believe. But he says, How shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard?

How can you believe it if you never even heard it in the first place? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So it sounds like common sense, but let's not skip over this. You have to have been told or have read what it is you're going to believe. And he sums it up in verse 17.

And verse 17 says, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Now I'll mention this because this was a time when books were handwritten and very few and expensive. Nowadays with the printing press, we could say the same thing and say faith comes by reading and reading by the word of God. It could be either one. It's just that you have to get that word of God in order to believe it. But studying and putting God's word into your mind helps build your faith. So if we sum up what we've learned so far, or what we've discussed so far, one is that faith is vital to pleasing God. We have to have faith. Hebrews 11, 6 tells us that. And then also real faith comes through the Spirit of God and through the word of God. If you wanted to put it into a narrative form, it begins with a calling from God. God reaches out, decides on a certain person, and that person hears God's word. It could be because somebody told him they happen to be turning channels and they come across a radio or a TV program or... I wish I could remember the source of this story. I think it was in Spokesman's Club in college. Someone was telling me about someone who was standing at a street corner and the wind was blowing and a Plain Truth magazine was blowing and blow it up against their leg. What's this? And picked it up and ended up becoming baptized in the church. So if God wants you to get the word, He'll cause you to get the word. But then, of course, the Holy Spirit has to let them understand. So the calling is through the Spirit and the word, but then there's something else that has to happen. The ball... you could say at that point the ball is in that person's court, but they have to respond. You have to respond to the calling. If not, then it's like the parable of the sower and the seed where the seed goes out and a bird might come and pluck it up. Or even if it starts to grow, the weeds could choke it out. Somebody in that case, I say, is somebody that hasn't had their opportunity. They might have had a calling, but they weren't chosen. And one of the best examples, of course, many of us, if you have children, we say that all of our children have a calling, but not all respond to it. We don't think that they're lost or they're going to go in the lake of fire. Just their opportunity will come later when the Spirit, the calling, can take root and they can respond. If the person does respond, though, they'll draw closer to God. They'll study their Bible. They'll pray. They'll meditate. They'll live God's way of life, and faith will grow. I hesitate. I think in my notes I said that God will increase the Spirit. But I feel a little uncomfortable using quantitative words for the Holy Spirit, but at least this one's fair. I think there's one point where Jesus told the disciples something difficult to understand, and they said, Lord, increase our faith. You know, so if we say increase our faith, we can ask for that.

So we have to continue to live by faith. As a matter of fact, let's go to Romans 1.17.

We're nearby, anyways. Romans 1.17.

I watch what I'm going. I'm not even getting to my main point. Well, I am getting to a main point, but here it says, For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. There's a couple great phrases there. One is, the just shall live by faith. And that sums up what I've been saying. You believe God, you believe what He tells us, and so we live by it. But I also love that from faith to faith. I looked into that. I believe it's a take-off, a variation of the term from strength to strength. Strength to strength. That's a common idiom in the English language. I think it's not as common as it used to be, because we're just not as lyrical as we used to be in the past. But it's so common that I had to double check. I wasn't sure. Did it come from literature? And I'm assuming Paul got it from there, because if that's the case, that wouldn't work, because English literature came long after Paul wrote these books. But I looked. It's actually in Psalm 84 verse 7. We're not going to turn there, but David used that phrase, going from strength to strength. And what that means is being strong in one area and then going to another area and being strong there. So instead of ups and downs, going from up to up, you could say, from strength to strength. If we look at it in terms of athletics, think of the decathlon. Now, I don't know if many of you are like me. I tried to watch as much of the Olympics last summer as I could. And the decathletes, they have to compete in 10 different events. So going from strength to strength would be like someone who's really good at the pole vault and he's got a strength there and then he goes and throws the shot put and he's really good at that. And then maybe he's good at the 100 meter dash. That's strength to strength.

Well, let's turn it similarly. Going from faith to faith means exercising faith in a strong way in this area of your life. And then you turn to another area of your life and it's still faith.

You know, you don't have ups and downs. You go from up to up, upward and onward. I'm getting excited about this. It's encouraging me to think of it that way. That should be our goal. We want to continually grow in faith, go from faith to faith. But we're going to face challenges.

It's nice to say, but there are obstacles, right? There are things that can erode our faith. And I want to turn to discuss some of those challenges. And I borrowed this term from Dr. Ward. I heard it years ago in college and he might have got it from someone else, but they're what we call the enemies of faith. Enemies of faith, as in warfare. Now, there could be dozens of enemies, maybe hundreds of enemies. There probably are. But interestingly enough, if you go through the book of Matthew, Jesus identified four in particular that I think are great enemies of faith. And I want to look at those one at a time. And I'm going to make this... I'm not going to list them. We'll see. They're real easy when we get to them. But I want to say, first of all, all of them come from within us. You know, they're not external enemies. If someone comes along and I'm going to get the faith out of you. That doesn't happen. I think that the faith that God gives us and that grows from studying His Word, that's more than powerful enough. I'm doing that talking fast thing again. I can tell the words won't come out. That's more than powerful enough to overcome any external challenge. It's the internal challenges that are the greatest danger to our faith. So let's start in Matthew 6. Matthew 6 and verse 25. And we're breaking, sort of in partway through a long teaching by Jesus. He says, Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or what you'll drink, nor about your body, what you'll put on. Isn't the life more than the food, 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 statue? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field. They grow. They don't toil or spin. Yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothed 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?

Let's latch into that phrase there, that O you of little faith. That recurs a number of times, and I don't know if Jesus said it in so many words or Matthew just put it together that way, but in the book of Matthew that comes up, these four different occasions at least. So he says, O you of little faith, therefore do not worry. So he's saying, worry is something that can make you of little faith. Don't worry, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink? What shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. That sums up the idea pretty well. Well, I say, might as well finish the chapter, therefore do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Jesus says it so well here, there's not a lot for me to add to it, but I'll emphasize that what it says applies to us today. Even though we live in a much more complex society with different technology, different economy, it's still important for us to fight against worry. Now, I'm reading from the new King James. I believe the old King James, it says, take no anxious thought. I kind of like that because when it says take no anxious thought, it doesn't say take no thought. You do have to take thought on some of these things. Jesus was not saying, well, don't do anything, don't care, you know, because you do have to do some things to provide for your needs. Don't just sit at home and wait for food and clothing to drop into your lap, as though by magic. You know, other places in the Scripture tell us that we're supposed to work. It tells men you have to provide for your family or you're worse than an unbeliever. But a major key for us to remember is once we've done all that we can do, then don't fuss and fret and worry about the things that you cannot do. That's one of the areas where there's a crucial difference. Allow faith to work in your mind to put your mind at ease.

Now, I say I'm not saying that's easy. It's not easy to do. It's easy to say. But some people, you know, it seems like their mind is always working to look for things to worry about. And I say that from experience. My grandmother was one of those people. When I talk about my grandma a lot, you know, I loved her. Wonderful respect. She's the one that began teaching me God's way, you know, earliest. But it seemed that as she aged especially, she would look if she didn't if you solved a problem, she would immediately start looking for something else to worry about. It was just built into her makeup. And that didn't harm her that much, except I thought, well, you could be a lot happier if you just stopped worrying about these things.

One of the ways to do that is remember there's one what we call a memory scripture in the passage we just read. One of the ways to stop worry were, boy, that's getting hard to say, stop having anxious thought is to seek first the kingdom of God. Seek that first and seek his righteousness. And it says those other things will be added to you because when you're seeking the kingdom of God, everything else seems small in comparison. It puts things in perspective.

So I'm going to leave that, and let's move ahead a couple of chapters to Matthew chapter 8.

Look at the next enemy of faith. Matthew 8, and we'll begin in verse 23.

This doesn't start with his teaching, but with a story. It says, Now when he, that's Jesus, got into a boat, and the disciples followed him. Suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves, and he was asleep. That's funny. It says, suddenly, I'm imagining, maybe it means, I'm not sure if that was the best English word, unless Jesus could fall asleep just like that.

And if he could, I envy him. But, you know, at least it wasn't a long time, though. They got in the boat, they're moving, and suddenly there's waves crashing, and he's back there asleep.

And the disciples came to him and woke him up and said, Lord, save us, we're perishing. And he said to them, Why are you fearful? O you of little faith. There it is again. O you of little faith, why are you fearful? And he rose, and he rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm. I like that phrase, a fellow in college said, yeah, you imagine you're there, and said, boy, that's a great calm. You know, there have been some okay calms, but this one's great. I'm just adding that for humor.

Some of the things we laughed at in Ambassador. But either, why are you fearful? And he calmed the seas. Fear is one of those things, you know, you could say it's not only an enemy of faith, it's pretty much the opposite of faith. One of the definitions of fear is the anticipation, the nervous, uncomfortable, painful dread of something that you think is going to happen. It hasn't happened yet, but it's that bad expectation. So it's the painful thought of something that could happen that's going to be bad, whereas faith is the good expectation that something good is going to happen.

Now, they're both looking ahead, to some degree, as I said, faith, we have faith that God exists, that's not looking ahead. But you see that fear, see how it works in an opposite way. But I should point out, fear itself isn't necessarily evil. Misuse of it is, but it's not a sin. A mild fear can motivate us to save us from harm. Say, if I'm, if I walk out in the street and I see a large truck coming at me, I'm instantly going to feel fear, and it's going to motivate me to move my legs pretty quickly, get out of the road.

So, you know, the fear was well managed and put to good use. It's fear that's not controlled or mastered that can eat away at our faith. I've heard an old saying, I don't know if I'm quoting it quite correctly, but it says, only a fool never feels fear, but courage is the ability to control and master your fear.

So, it's not that you should never feel any fear come up, but what do you do with it? Do you control it? How do you use it? Fear is most damaging when it does one of a couple of things. One is, it can paralyze us so that we do not do the things that we can do.

Like, if I see that truck coming at me and I get paralyzed, I don't walk out of the road. Another thing that fear can do is it can eat away our trust in God, that He'll do the things that we cannot do. You could say, if I'm out on the road and my leg is, well, I was going to say my leg is broken, that might seem insensitive for some of us here in the audience, but, and I'm calling to God to save me or someone, you know, I'm trusting somebody to do something that I can't do for myself.

It would be either way, you don't want the paralysis. And when I talk about fear, many of us, it might come to mind that famous quote by Franklin Roosevelt. Am I right? We, in his first inaugural address during the worst depression of our country, he came into office and among the other things he said is, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. And he put that pause in there. What is it? We have nothing to fear. Fear itself.

Most people say that quote and stop there. Matter of fact, long before I ever knew who Franklin Roosevelt was, I heard that many times, nothing to fear but fear itself. But that's incomplete. He went on and described things.

One of the things he did, he said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning dread that paralyzes needed efforts. He talked about the fear that we have to fear is that paralysis that keeps us from doing what we need to do. And of course, he outlined a program of measures to help get the economy going. And we could debate back and forth today whether or not some of those were good things. But the fact that many people, many historians, look back and say it wasn't necessarily the programs that they did, but at least that they did something that got people over that hump and took away the fear.

So we can have paralysis, not only physical, but mental and spiritual. Haven't we all heard that we, as Christians, we need to be growing, moving forward. Mr. Armstrong used that analogy a lot. If you're not moving forward, then because of the pull of Satan in this world, you'll be moving backwards by fiat, whatever. You'll be backsliding. So you have to be pushing forward. You can't let fear paralyze you. I'm not sure if I should be up here today. My mouth is not working very well.

But at any rate, we don't want the end result to be that fear prevents us from developing character. Let's look near the end of the Bible in Revelation 21. Let's see what happens if fear is not mastered. Revelation 21 and verse 7. We want to see, we want to be in God's kingdom, but this describes some people who will not.

And Revelation 21 and verse 7 says, He who overcomes will inherit all things. I'll be his God, and he shall be my son.

But, but the cowardly, fearful, that is, unbelieving, and also abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part that burns in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. That's the second death.

We want to be in God's kingdom, but it's interesting. Now, even before sorcerers and idolaters and murderers, he lists cowardly and unbelieving. It could just be that that's what came to his mind first, but to me, those are some pretty important things. And fear and unbelief or lack of faith go together, and they're the things that could keep you out of God's kingdom if you don't get a mastery on it. And one of the best ways to control fear, and I I gave a wrote a sermon on fear once just because I think we all struggle with it, and we want to understand it and learn techniques to overcome it. One of the simplest is to think things through. If you think through, what am I fearful about? Identify it, and of course, then think, what's the worst thing that can happen? And how likely is that that it's going to happen?

Think back to that story of Jesus and his disciples on that ship. They saw the waves and the wind, and the boat seems about to sink. But if they thought, well, we've got the Messiah with us. This is the Son of God. If they thought it through and they could have said, well, how likely is it that God the Father is going to let him drown? He sent him here on earth for a mission, so if they thought it through, they should have said, well, we don't have to worry. And it occurred to me, if they thought, well, maybe he's not really the Messiah, well, if not, why bother to wake him up? Because he wouldn't be able to save them. Either way, think it through and get a grasp on that fear.

You know, they did have faith that he was the Son of God, but as I said, they let their fears stop them from getting to the conclusion. I heard a minister once from headquarters describe a similar situation. He might have tied it to this. And I say a minister because I'm not positive. I think it was Leslie McCullough, but because it might have been someone else. I'll just say it was a minister, and he was describing years ago how he was on a plane flight, and several leaders in the church were on this flight, and they hit some bad turbulence. As long as those were bounce, bounce, up and down, and it's a scary thing. You start thinking, hey, I think we're all going to crash and die. But he said, I looked around the plane. I said, well, we got several evangelists, department heads, people important to God's work. Is he really going to let this plane crash? Now, the thought is, maybe. But if you think it through, well, if he lets this crash, he must be done using us in the work. And that's not so bad either because we'll come up in the resurrection and we'll have done our part. So a lot of times, if you're fearful, you think, what's the worst thing that could happen? A lot of times, the worst thing is that you come up in the first resurrection and things are a lot better. At least, I find sometimes that helps me to get a handle on the fear, and I find usually it's not going to go that far. The worst thing could happen is, I have a moment's terrible embarrassment, or I go through some pain, and I'm going to get better. But, you know, you get through just letting the fear paralyze you, and you think through, and you move on from there.

We believe God's plan for us, and we believe that God has a plan for us. And understanding God's purpose means that we don't need to fear. Although that's interesting, because if we believe God's plan, that faith helps us to overcome fear, I'm sort of saying you need to use faith to overcome an enemy of faith. That comes up a number of times in the sermon I've discovered, but I don't, if you want to accuse me of circular reasoning, that's okay. My answer will be, with God, all things are possible. With men, some things are impossible, but not with God. He can help us to use faith to overcome the enemy of faith. Having said that, let's look at the next enemy. If you'll go with me to Matthew 14, this next story is going to sound very similar to the first one, but there's a crucial difference. And this is a very well-known story, and a fun one to read.

Matthew 14 beginning in verse 22. Once again, it has to do with a boat and storms and wind and rain, but they don't have to wake Jesus up in this case. So Matthew 14 in verse 22 says, immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he sent the multitude away. So this is another case where he'd fed the multitude, and he tells his disciples, you get in the boat and go to the other side, I'll take care of this. And I think he partly did that because he wanted some time alone. Maybe the disciples were kind of wearing on him. So he sent them away. He sent away the multitude, and he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. And now when evening came, he was alone there, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. And it doesn't say this, but whenever I read this, I imagine that he's up there and he looks down and he sees the boat, and maybe up on a mountain type, you could see halfway across the sea. And he's saying, oh great, the wind's blowing there. They're not going to get there. They're rowing like crazy or whatever, and the boat's not going anywhere. So he's, I better go bail them out. Or maybe I shouldn't say bail. I better go help them out. The boat's not sinking. So he can do this. So it's the fourth watch of the night. Jesus went to them walking on the sea. And in a cartoon, he'd be going la-da-da, but he's not humming or whatever. He's serious. He's walking out there. The disciples see him walking on the sea, and they're troubled and say, it's a ghost. They cried out for fear. Now, fear is important, but we've already addressed that. Immediately, Jesus spoke to them. He said, be of good cheer. It's I. Don't be afraid.

Peter answered and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come out on the water, or come out to you on the water. It's interesting. That's one of the things we love about Peter. He was impetuous, and sometimes he'd speak first and think later, but I think this was a good thing. And Jesus, it's interesting, he said, if it's you, command me. So Jesus didn't say, well, if you really want to, Jesus said, come. He gave him an order. Okay, come out here. And so he did. Peter came down out of the boat, and he walked on the water to go to Jesus. So Peter is walking on the water, experiencing this miracle. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid. In beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. Immediately, Jesus stretched out his hands and caught him, and he said, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? Here it is. O you of little faith, and he ties it to doubt. Why did you doubt? Peter showed great faith and confidence at first. As I said, he was experiencing a miracle. And we're not sure how far Jesus was from the boat, but however far it was, Peter walked enough to be within arm's length. Jesus just reached out and grabbed him. So what happened was Peter started giving greater credit to his senses and to common sense than to his faith in God. And so even though he was experiencing the miracle, I don't know, maybe he started thinking, well, maybe I'm not really doing this, or maybe I'm standing on a rock, or whatever. He doubted what he was actually experiencing instead of attributing a miracle to God. Now, all of us have probably had similar things happen. I don't think any of us have walked on water, but sometimes we have initial faith, and then we start thinking about it a different way. We start looking at the physical elements, and then we falter. We start to doubt, well, maybe this isn't really God's will. Maybe he's not really doing this for me. Now, we don't, it probably won't be in such a dramatic way as Peter, like walking on water, although that would be cool.

But there are times when we just need to accept and believe what God is doing.

And sometimes it happens when he's giving us a tremendous blessing. Wow, this is the greatest! This is better than I could ever hope! And then we start to say, well, what's the catch? You know, God's not going to give me something this good, so we start to doubt when it's God just granting a great request. I'm not going to turn there because it's too much trouble. Habakkuk 1, verse 5, says, God is talking in the first verse, he says, look and watch, I'll work a work in your days which you would not believe though what we're told you.

You know, I'm telling you, I'm going to do this, and you won't believe it. And sometimes God is actually doing it like he was to Peter. Now, how many times has God intervened and perhaps worked a miracle for us, and then we start to doubt?

Let's look at John chapter 8, if you will. Part of the reason is, once again, where our focus is, and we let things get in the way influenced by this world that's under Satan's sway.

John 8, verse 43, Jesus was having one of his many heated discussions with the Pharisees, and he tells him, you're of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and doesn't stand in the truth, because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he's a liar and the father of it.

But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Remember, I said we have to believe God, and he tells us the truth. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why don't you believe me? He who hears God, he who is of God hears God's words, therefore you don't hear because you're not of God. He was speaking to the Pharisees, yet naturally they didn't believe.

And many people, most people in the world aren't able to believe because God hasn't called them out.

But we don't have that hindrance. Our minds have been opened. We can have that faith. We should hear and listen, and we should believe God and not doubt, and not believe when he's working in our lives. That's one of the things I'm pretty sure I've told this story here before. There are times, one of the greatest ways where we start to have doubt is when we ask God for healing, or help in other ways, but I think of the healing. Partly, there was a situation not long after I'd first been ordained into the ministry, and there was a fellow in the Columbus congregation who was a painter, and he happened to be on our end of town and said, my shoulder is killing me, I can't do my job, and asked if he could come over and me anoint him. And if you remember this, he came over, sure, I anointed him, and he went like this and said, yeah, that'll do. He jumped in his van and went back to work. And I was going, wow, God healed him! And I still honestly think, I believe now, God healed him instantly and completely. And I'm not sure, I don't think he did it so much to help him get back to work, although that was important, but there was a lesson for me. It's like, don't doubt me. And God was saying, I can do this, and sometimes I'm going to do it right there and now. So Frank, listen up, believe me. Don't let doubt interfere with believing the things that I do. You know, choose to believe. And sometimes that's what you have to do. You have to exercise faith to overcome that enemy of faith, once again. This ties into that whole idea of controlling our thinking. Be in control of where your mind goes. That's a major key to being a Christian, and it addresses directly the fourth enemy of faith that I want to talk about. If we'll go back to Matthew in chapter 16. Matthew 16 will begin in verse 5. Come back to another case of Jesus in a boat talking to his disciples. It's funny, I didn't realize until I got into this how many times you have Jesus feeding people, talking to his disciples, and having trouble on boats.

But in this case, when his disciples had come to the other side, so they made it across the side without a disaster, but they'd forgotten to take bread. Now, Jesus didn't have that in mind necessarily, but he said to them, probably after he'd had one of these confrontations with the Pharisees, he said, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And they said amongst themselves, probably, what in the world is he talking about? Beware of the leaven, you know, he's talking about yeast from the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they reasoned out among themselves, saying, well, it's because we've taken no bread. And Jesus figured out that they were saying that, and he said, he said to them, O you of little faith. There it is again, the fourth time, O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you've brought no bread? Don't you understand and remember the five loaves and the five thousand, how many baskets you took up, or the seven loaves and the four thousand, and how many you took up? How is it that you don't understand that I didn't speak to you concerning bread, but beware of the leaven, or one of the other accounts says the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees? But he, when he tells them, that's what you should have gotten out of this, but he identified their enemy of their faith as reason.

And in this case, we should say human reason, because reason on its own is not bad. Reason is okay. Matter of fact, if you want to make a note of this, Isaiah 1 and verse 18, God speaking in the first person says to Israel, come, let us reason together. Come, let us reason together. And there are a couple of places in Acts. I'll cite these. Acts 17 verse 2 says, Paul went to the synagogue and reasoned from the scriptures. And he says the same thing again in the next chapter in 18 verse 4 says he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath. So reason or logical thinking is not bad if it's based on God's word and God's revelation. It's when it's based solely on the information that we can gather from our human senses, that it can be an enemy of our faith. Because faith goes beyond what we can perceive. Faith depends on what comes from God. And of course, you know, God is invisible. Or He is invisible most of the time to us. When God is opening someone's mind, though, reason can be used to persuade them of the truth. It's when our human reasoning excludes the truth of God's word that it becomes an enemy of faith. So that indicates it's very important for us to control and protect our thoughts. We have to control our thoughts. Let me cite a couple of other scriptures. I do a lot of turning back and forth, so I'll just cite. Proverbs is full of this. Proverbs 4 and verse 23 says, keep your heart, and it doesn't mean the muscle in your chest, it means keep your mind with all diligence. Keep your mind and the thoughts in it with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Got to control those thoughts. Proverbs 23, verse 7 says simply, as he thinks in his heart, so he is. You've heard the old phrase, you are what you eat, but even more so, you are what you think. The thoughts in your head determine who and what you are. So we should focus our thoughts. Let's do turn to Philippians 4 and verse 8. Philippians 4 and verse 8. This is one of those memory scriptures that I only memorized the last phrase, because it's so long. So I do want to read it. But this is it. I'm trying to remember there's one of the songs in the hymnal where it starts with a chorus, and then it has like five different verses, but then you sing the chorus again. So you sing the first thing, then you say, and then you end up singing which is what you're saying first. I think this verse could have been written that way. The last thing on the verse is meditate on these things or think on these things. You could start there. Philippians 4, verse 8. Think on these things. Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, think on these things.

Choose what to think on and what not to. Focus your thoughts. It's easy, and I'm one of those. I can find the bad in any situation. I've heard of some people who can find the cloud in any silver lining, but we should look for the silver lining instead. Does anybody talk about clouds and silver linings anymore? Okay. Now, once again, that's easy to say, hard to do. But, and a matter of fact, with God's help, it's impossible to do. We can't do this on our own. We need help. So let's look to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 to see that we do have that help. With God's help, we can control our thoughts and our minds. Remember, as I said before, I started on this section of the sermon, the greatest enemies to our faith are not from outside, they're inside. They're in our own heads.

1 Corinthians 10 and verse 3 says, For though we walk in the flesh, we don't war after the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, the pulling down of strongholds. When he says they're not carnal, that means they're spiritual. So what kind of strongholds are they pulling down? Think of them as the places in your thoughts, in your mind, that you tucked away something that didn't want to believe. That's the stronghold, something in your mind that's resisting God's will. But the spiritual weapons can pull those down. Casting down arguments, not other people's arguments, often our own arguments. We've got to cast those down, overcome the human reasoning. And every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into the captivity to the obedience of Christ, bringing every thought captive. That's possible by the Spirit of God. It's impossible without it. But this whole passage is basically saying we're not fighting a physical war. This is about the battle for your mind. Battle for your mind. I'm pausing because I've realized I've been... Well, I was thinking we'd be done close to four o'clock. I haven't been rushing to get there, but we'll never get there if I keep stumbling over my words. We need to control our thoughts. We need to use godly reasoning to overcome human reasoning. So that's something we can only do with help. Paul mentioned those spiritual weapons. What are they? But if I ask a lot of people, it's already popped into your mind. We can find them in Ephesians chapter 6.

We sum them up with the name that Paul gave them here in Ephesians 6 and verse 13, where he says, take up the whole armor of God. God's got a whole armory, and he's willing to give us these spiritual weapons if we'll take them up. And he describes what they are here. Take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand. I love that phrase. Once you've done all to stand, then stand therefore. Having girded your waist with truth, that understanding of God's word, having put on the breast place of righteousness, living by God's way. That's going to save your internal organs, you know, that righteousness. Not starting with your own righteousness, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You know, be active in the preaching of the gospel. And above all, taking the shield of faith with which you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. I think that's important. The shield of faith. Faith can protect us from those wayward thoughts, those fiery darts. Satan's not firing actual fiery darts, but he wants to get darts into our mind, thoughts that lead us astray. But faith can ward those off. And that's something, once again, God gives us the faith, but we can try to exercise it and increase it. And of course, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Now, there have been sermons given on all of these. I'm just touching on it briefly, but this is a section of Scripture it's good to come back to lots of times, and we can tie into it from different directions. Our focus today, though, has been on faith. Paul said, above all the shield of faith. As I said, faith shields our minds from harm. And once again, there's a circular reasoning here. We need to use the shield of faith to protect against the enemies of faith. Fear, doubt, worry, and human reasoning. But, like I said before, with men, these things are impossible, but with God, all things are possible. It's sort of like exercising a muscle. Remember, the initial faith we don't have on our own, it's given to us. So, we need faith to protect from the enemies. So, God gives us what we need from the start, and then we start putting it to use. Like working a muscle to get better at it. The old adage of use it or lose it. You know, you work your muscles so they don't atrophy. We work and exercise our faith so that it doesn't go away. That's why it occurred to me, even after I wrote my notes, I wrote it in in pencil or pen, I guess. But, I, I, that there's a section in Hebrews where it talks about the elementary principles or the fundamental doctrines of repentance, baptism, and includes faith towards God as one of the basic elementary principles. I thought, hmm, faith towards God is an elementary thing. And, and here he talks about going on to perfection. But, although faith is an elementary principle, we read, I think just last week in Matthew 23 verse 23, it's also one of the way to your matters. Remember, you know, the way to your matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith, and knees you ought to have done without leaving the other undone. So, faith is both elementary and it's a way to your matter. We have to have it from the beginning and we have to go on to doing it. That tells us we're growing in faith. As I said, exercising, putting to use these spiritual weapons to control our thoughts and shield against those enemies. When we're building and exercising faith, we won't be very susceptible to worry, fear, doubt, or human reasoning.

Now, as I said, we saw earlier that faith comes from the Word of God. We need to study and meditate on God's Word. We also have it as a gift from the Holy Spirit. So, it's okay that we can and should ask God to increase our faith. You know, and sometimes we look down at the disciples when they said, Lord, increase our faith, but that's a good prayer to have. God, please increase our faith. And then we exercise it when we believe what God says, when we believe it and base our lives on it. That's exercising faith, even the little things we do, you know, every day. If we understand and we believe that God has called us, that He has a plan and a purpose for us, that He wants to make us part of His eternal family, if we understand and believe that God reveals a way of life that brings happiness and fulfillment and that prepares us for His family, then we will base our whole life upon that understanding and belief. As I said, if we understand and believe, we'll base our life on it, and that is exercising faith. That's going to build that faith, make it grow and increase, and it will protect us from the enemies.

And we won't... I was about to say, we won't have to worry about worry. We won't have to fear worry, fear, or doubt and human reasoning. I can't think of a good phrase to put that. I should have just read it from my notes. But when we don't have that to erode our faith, we'll go from faith to faith, upward and onward, from from faith to more faith, we'll be the just, the ones who live by faith.

Thank you, Mr. D'Uncle.

I have one more chance to sing praises to God. All of you can join in on offering all music.