Thinking About Faith
Sermon Review
20 Feb 2000
Reading -2Kings 6:8-23
The event described demonstrates the faith of Elisha as he anticipates the sovereign help of God, whereas his servant didn't. He required special grace to see what Elisha didn't have to see. Faith made all the difference in Elisha's life. It can make all the difference in our lives as well.
As Elisha needed a firm and robust faith, so do we in order to fulfill God's plans and purposes this year. We need to have a faith that will embrace both risk and inconvenience - anything less may well be a saving faith, but it is not a growing faith.
What then is faith and how can we make it grow?
What is faith?
- At its simplest, faith is described as convictions that we live by (Heb.11:1). Like flying in planes – you get on a plane with faith that it won’t crash. If it weren’t so, you would never do it.
- It is required to please God (Heb.11:6; 2Cor.5)
- It is both natural and supernatural eg: Inspired by a Divine process of persuasion (John.16:8); God uses both creation and Scripture (Rom.1:20); (Rom.10:17) etc. to develop within all 'a measure of faith' (Rom.12:3), and in some a 'gift of faith' (1Cor.12:9)
- Faith is not generated, though, until the encouragements and 'proofs' that God gives stimulate a response from us. The convictions that we have and the active response we make are what creates faith (James 2:20-24). This is why faith is associated with obedience (Rom.1:5;1Pet.1:1)
We demonstrate that we have faith when we act on what we know.
How Can We Grow Our Faith? (2Cor.10:15 )
- There are several things that we can do e.g.: ask (Mark.9:24;Lk.17:5); prayer and fasting (Lk.9:24); study the Scriptures (Rom.10:17), etc. But the best way to grow our faith is to use what faith we have to grow (1Tim.6:11-12). This ensures that we are transformed so that our faith can be truly expressed in love (Gal.5:6). We need to map our growth as Christians not only by our strengths and victories, but by what we run from, avoid, or insist are not even a problem to us e.g.: fears, insecurities, anger, temptations that overwhelm, responsibilities we will not accept, dogmatism etc.
- We need to engage in personal honesty and work in partnership with a divine enquiry (Ps.139:23,24); we need to own up to God, seek his forgiveness where we have contributed, make amends where appropriate, and determine to use our faith to be overcomers.
Conclusion: We need a robust faith to be able to fulfill God's purposes for us as individuals and as a Community of Believers. Such a faith will be most surely found when we act on what we know and use our faith to grow, instead of running from things and issues that make us uncomfortable or inspire fear etc. The degree of our convictions makes little difference. What counts is that we act on our convictions. We will then be living by a faith that is growing.
Blessings