Sermon Tone Analysis
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I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life where my prayers have been answered exactly as I could hope for and then there are times when those prayers seem to go unheard.
I’m guessing that you can relate.
I have rejoiced as I have seen the sick healed, financial needs met, jobs provided, and lives changed.
I have also wept as the sick have died, finances close in, jobs have not come or slipped through my fingers, and lives have remained the same.
I have watched loved ones battle depression and illness only to hear others simple encourage them to have more faith.
So, they try to read their Bible more, pray more, have more faith, just so that they can get out from under what is broken in their lives.
This is not how faith works.
God is not a genie in a bottle that is activated by having enough faith.
We cannot make God do something simply because we have enough faith.
Over the next few weeks we are going to examine some misconceptions that many of us believe, or have believed, about what the Bible teaches.
Many of these things have been taught from the pulpit, and frankly, I want to bring attention to our key verse for this series:
What you are about to hear may make perfect sense, or it may seem to fly in the face of what you have been taught, so I challenge you, examine scripture, read your Bibles, to make sure that what I say is true.
Every week, I hope that you do this, no matter who is preaching.
Today was are going to be talking about faith.
What is faith?
When we talk about faith in our culture, or about it’s companion hope, we often use it to refer to the unknown.
I have faith that my team can pull out the victory.
I hope that they will win the championship.
I have faith that my students can do well in their classes.
I hope to see A’s when I grade their assignments.
But this is not a biblical understanding of faith, but rather positive thinking.
If I can visualize it and have enough faith and hope, then it will happen.
The writer of Hebrews defines faith in Hebrews 11:1.
See, in scripture, faith is trusting in what God has revealed, and hope is looking forward to what is certain.
This sounds great, right?!
This is the pep talk for the ages.
Right about now I feel like Rocky at the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The writer of Hebrews continues though:
Now wait a minute!
Obviously these people didn’t have enough faith!
Don’t they know that if they have enough faith God will protect them from this kind of thing?
After all, if they just had faith the size of a mustard seed they could have prayed their way out of these things.
Are you sure?
It is true that Matthew 17:20 reads:
But let’s look at the context, shall we?
First, we need to go back to Matthew 10.
Now, look at Matthew 17
Their lack of faith was not an inability to visualize the outcome, their lack of faith was not trusting what they knew God (Jesus) had given them authority to do!
Faith results in obedience.
Faith always leads to obedience.
In English we want to distinguish between faith and believing, but in our Bibles it is just the noun (faith) and the verb (believe) of the same Greek root.
It would sound weird for us to say “to faith” so we say believe.
The only difference between the belief of the demons, and the belief of a follower of God, is that our belief leads to obedience.
So, back to the question at hand, does faith fix everything?
Do bad things happen to us because we lack faith?
The answer to both is no! Faith does not fix everything.
Bad things happen because of sin.
We live in a broken world.
Jesus tells us in John 16:33
And James tells us in James 1
Ok, but doesn’t God want to give us the desires of our heart?
Last week Hannah talked about what it meant to delight in the Lord.
When we delight in the Lord, our heart’s desires will line up with His.
πιστις (noun), πιστοσ (adj), and πιστευω (verb) are translated faith, belief, believing, trusting, trust, trustworthy.
Friends, faith is not a genie in a bottle that allows you to command God.
It will not fix your circumstances or cause you to never see trouble.
Lack of it will not make you poor, and an abundance of faith will not make you rich.
Faith does not fix your circumstances, but keeps your eyes focused on the eternal.
The writer of Hebrews affirms this in chapter 12:
I find that our faith, and our understanding of faith, is often reflected in our advice to others, and our prayers.
I have seen incredible damage done by well meaning, misinformed Christians, who believe that things like sadness, depression, tough times, etc. are a result of a lack of faith.
Just read your Bible and pray more.
It is always good to read your Bible and pray, but maybe, just maybe, something else is going on, that is designed to strengthen our faith, and that brother or sister needs someone to pray for them more than some advice.
And speaking of prayer, I find it interesting to listen to the prayer requests of missionaries.
Rarely have I heard them ask for prayers of safety.
But rather, they pray for courage, boldness, and opportunities to share the gospel.
Lord, stretch our faith as we pray to keep our eyes focused on you and what you have promised.
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