Sermon Central
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You Of Little Faith
Contributed by Johnny Small on Mar 8, 2002 (message contributor)
Summary: Why aren’t miracles being done in our lives and why are our prayers not be answered.
You of Little Faith
Do you have trouble or joy in your life? Do you have sickness or health? Do you have anger or peace? Do you have hatred or love? Do you have Jesus in your life and is He the Lord of your life or have you pushed Him back on the back burner of you life? It is very difficult in today’s world to put God first in our lives all the time, but that is what He expects. God expects to come first, before your family, before your work, before your processions and before your pleasures. That is hard to do without faith. Faith in God gives us the assurance that God is in control of our lives and that He knows better than us what our needs and desires are. Our needs He has promised to provide and our desires should be to serve Him no matter what obstacles we may run into.
Let’s read:
53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there.
54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked.
55 "Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?
56 Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor."
58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
(NIV)
I have a granddaughter that has such faith in me that it scares me sometimes. She is our only granddaughter out of seven grandchildren. She will climb up on the coffee table, stand up, and turn to face me and jump. She doesn’t ask if I am ready to catch her. She doesn’t even check to see if I am watching her. She has the faith that her Grandpa will catch her in his out stretched arms. Is our faith for our Heavenly Father as great as the faith that this little child has for her grandpa?
2 He called a little child and had him stand among them.
3 And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
(NIV)
Have you ever tried to convince a child that something that they believe in is not real? Like Santa. That child’s faith is so great, it is almost impossible to convince them otherwise. My Granddaughter and I were looking at a book with animals. She had just learned how to say the word puppy and she knew what a dog looks like. We saw a picture of a tiger and I asked her what that animal was. She said "puppy". I said no that is a tiger. She said "no, puppy". This went on for a few minutes, when she screamed "puppy" and got up and went behind me and starting beating me on my back while repeating the word "puppy". To her that picture of a tiger looked like a puppy and I was not going to convince her otherwise. Now Bethany didn’t humble herself according to the scripture that we just read, but she did show a strong belief in what she thought she knew to be right. In this scripture, I think Jesus is telling us that we must have faith that is as strong as that of a child’s faith and that our beliefs should be like that of a child’s where nothing can turn us away from the true Word of God.
Do we, here in God’s house today, have the faith that can move mountains or is our faith so little that we can’t even move a grain of salt? Is faith really important? I think it is. Faith is mentioned 254 times in the New Testament. It is mentioned in every New Testament book of the Bible except for 2nd and 3rd John. So faith must be important for our walk with Christ. Let’s see what having faith can do.
1. In Matt 8:5-13 Jesus heals the paralyzed servant of the Centurion because of the Centurion’s faith. Jesus said the following concerning the faith of the Centurion.
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
