To Know Him and to Make Him Known

Shared on Sunday, March 6, 2011

"Real  Faith"

by Marcy Alves

Several weeks ago I shared the third of a series on Prayer. And in one of those messages I shared an illustration from a book I was reading called “The Real Faith”. After finishing that book and digesting its basic premises, I decided to go on an exploration trip through the Bible to see how often and in how many ways faith is referred to.

Two weeks ago, pre-ceding the prayer time, I shared the story of the little boy who grandmother had promised him a particular stamp book for Christmas, which did not come in time for Christmas.  And when his mother overheard him telling people what he got for Christmas he included the stamp book in the list, even though he had not gotten it. When his mother questioned him about why he was saying he got a stamp book, he said, “Grandma said it was coming and that’s the same as is already here.” That’s real faith.

Today I want to share some things the Bible teaches us about real faith. You’ve got to know if you have it, or you won’t know when if it works of not.

The Bible has much to say about faith.  There are more than 360 verses in the NT alone that speak of faith or being faithful. I have stayed in the NT for most of the preparation of this message.

In the gospels,

1. Jesus accuses the disciples of having “little faith” because they were afraid.

2. In some places He could not do many miracles because of the “lack of faith” there.

3. He heals people because he “sees faith” in them or in those who brought them for   healing.

4. He says to the blind men who came for healing, “According to your faith it will be done to you.”

Heb. 11:6  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

If faith is so important to God,

1.    what is it and 2. how do we lay our hands on it?

I  What is faith?

A.    What faith is not:

1.    Belief – Faith is not belief, it is not head, but heart.  It’s not our ability to believe that causes our prayers to be answered.

Belief is something you can come up with on your own – we choose to believe certain things – and some of the things we choose to believe are dead wrong.

Belief can be a door to faith or a block to faith: example – You can believe God keeps His promises = door to faith, but you at the same time believe you are not worthy to receive = block to faith.

In Mark 16:14 the resurrected Jesus appear to the 11 eleven disciples “as they were eating and rebuked them for two things: 1. their lack of faith and 2. their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.”

You have to remember that Jesus had already told them at various times he would be killed, be buried and raise from the dead in 3 days.  Did they not remember? Did they have a different interpretation of what Jesus meant?  Did they just have the human “duh” factor?

It appears that if they had believed the right thing, they would have experienced faith and it would have resulted in joy instead of grief and sorrow. So belief and faith work together, but they are not the same thing.

When you mistake “prayers of belief” for “prayers of faith”, you may pray for things that God is not leading you to pray for, and you may not get what you pray for. Then you feel like you can’t trust God anymore.

A prayer of belief might be: God’s word says I can have anything I ask for and if I believe I have it, it is mine. And then we pray a prayer, but it’s not a prayer of faith; we might not even be walking in obedience to God at the time. We just want Him to give us something we want – and it might not be a bad thing- but He chooses not to give it to us. So we get mad at Him.

The struggle we have with faith is often not a struggle with faith at all, but with trust.  Many people believe in God who do not trust God.

If we trusted God, we would not be so easily disappointed when we don’t get our prayers answered in our timing.  We would know in our hearts that God is not only loving, but very, very wise.  We would say, “Father,  I don’t understand why You did not answer the way I expected, or why you delay the answer, but I trust you.”

So, belief and trust work with faith, but they are not the same thing.

2.    Feelings – Although faith involves the heart, and though you may have feelings accompanying faith, faith is not just a good feeling.  We can feel good about something we want to happen, but that’s not the same as faith. Example: We can feel good about things that aren’t good, like revenge on those who have hurt us.

3.    Desire – We can want the wrong things or we can want the right things at the wrong time. Though the Scriptures say God will give us the desires of our heart – there is a condition to that. It says if we “delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart.” If we are going on pure desire, we can desire the wrong things – even though they may seem good at the time.

4.    Something we can get by struggling for it,

5.    Something you can earn, “What can I do so you give me faith?”

6.    Something you can manufacture – Lion in Wizard of Oz (I do believe, I do believe)

7.     A magic formula – if I do these spiritual exercises . . .

8.    Something you create by professing you have it. You can’t make faith appear by saying you have it.

B.   What faith is:

Heb. 11:1  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Eng. Standard Version)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  KJV

Knowing you have something that does not yet appear. 

We have often made faith a condition of the mind – but it is really a condition of the spirit. It is a grace of the heart.

Don’t confuse spiritual faith with human faith.  Faith in our government, or in democracy, or our own abilities, or in our spouse, or in doctors, or in authorities – is human faith.  People who don’t even believe in God have some degree of human faith.

John in his Gospel refers several times to people putting “their faith in Him (Jesus)” – yet most of his followers later turned away from Him, because what He was asking of those who followed Him was too hard. And because it became apparent that He was not going to be the political deliverer that they hoped He would be.

If the faith you operate under results in you turning away from Jesus and not trusting God, you need a different kind of faith – it’s not REAL FAITH.

We can be disappointed in how something we’ve prayed for turns out, but it will not cause us to turn away from God.

II.          Where do we get faith?  Where does spiritual faith come from?

A.    Jesus is the source of faith:

Heb. 12:1-2  “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ² Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith ^{. . .}

Acts 3:16 (NIV) “By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.”

Rom. 12:3  “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

“measure of faith” – just what you need to get the job done

Faith is a Gift of God

B.   Three Kinds of God-given Faith

1.    Faith as a gift – from without

Eph. 2:8-9 ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.

You cannot even come to God for salvation without God drawing you and then granting you a gift of faith; a “knowing” that something has come to pass – that your sins are paid for and that you are in right standing with God.

2.    Faith as an anointing:

1 Cor. 12: 7-10 “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.”

You don’t own these anointing-gifts of God – they come and go. Without the Holy Spirit, you can’t even operate in these gifts. You are just the mailman delivering a package.

3.    Faith is a fruit – (indwelling faith – faith from within)

Even spiritual fruit is not our possession;  if we turn away from God and walk in sin, if we cease to live in the Spirit, the fruits are no longer effective in us because they come from the Spirit Tree.

Childhood – our fruit trees – to dad, “What kind of tree is this?” It’s an apple tree. “How do you know it’s an apple tree? Is it because of the bark, the leaves, the blossoms?” No.  “Then how do you know?”  Because every year I pick apples off that tree.

Relationship: You cannot maintain the fruit of faith without maintaining a relationship with the “fruit root”.

John 15:7  “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

So, where do we get faith?  It’s from our loving Father – we can’t take credit for having it, but we can cooperate in the growing process He puts us through.

2 Thess. 1:3  We thank God for you because your faith is growing more and more.

III.           Operating in Faith

Gal. 2:20  I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh (the body) I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

A Christian’s prayer for “self” – forgiveness, cleansing, healing, filling, releases the power already within.

Prayer for others harnesses the power from without – to move men and mountains – it’s not you who’s going to do the work – it’s the power of God, which He alone possesses.

A.   Faith and Love work together

Faith is linked to love all throughout the New Testament: there are about 50 references to faith in the context of love.  Almost all of Paul’s pastoral epistles link faith and love.

Galatians 5:6 (NIV)
⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor un-circumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

2 Thess. 1:3  - “We ought always to thank God for you. . . because your faith is growing more and more and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.”

As we yield to the love of God within us, for us, the fruit of love within us for others will grow. This will affect our prayers for each other.

1 Cor. 13:13 – “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

John 15:1-17  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.”

Scripture says in 1 John that if you can’t love your  brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen? We know we have passed from death to life because we love . . . .

If you can’t love others, don’t try operating in faith – God can’t trust you with it’s operation.  Don’t pray for me unless you love me and God. Or you may pray wrongly for me.

So, faith comes from the Father, through Jesus and operates in love.

B.   Faith and patience work together

Heb. 6:12  “Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”

Through patience, faith’s work is perfected in us. You see faith is not about getting our will done – it’s about getting God’s will done. 

The Old Blacksmith – “There is only one thing I fear, being thrown into the scrap heap.”

Then he went on to explain: he said, “ . . . in order to strengthen a piece of steel, I must first temper it. I heat it, hammer it, and then quickly plunge it into a buck of cold water. Very soon I know whether it will accept the tempering process or simply fall to pieces. If, after two tests, I see it will not allow itself to be tempered, I throw it onto the scrap heap, only to later sell it to the junkman for a few cents per pound.”   

– but it never becomes a shoe for a horse, or a piece of harness, or an axle for a wagon – which was the blacksmith’s intended use for trustworthy steel.

Blacksmith terms: 1. Forging: heating and hammering 2. Drawing – making a piece wider and or longer  3. Shrinking – making a piece thicker, shorter and/or narrower  4. Upsetting – heating only one part to make it thicker  5. Punching: for decorating  6. Welding – joining to another piece of metal and 7. Finishing – a. brushing with a wire brush, b. filing off burrs or rough edges; c. heat-treatment for hardening, d. smoothing by use of a grinding stone e. polishing for shine

In our case, it’s not just steel, but gold that God is after. Job 23:10 says, “When He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Which is a precious metal -  as each of us is precious to our Heavenly Father. We need to cooperate with Him in His fashioning process of our lives.