LIFE IS AN ATTITUDE – PICK A GOOD ONE
Your Faith – Fact or Fiction?
Sunday March 11, 2007
Scripture Reference: Romans 12:2, Hebrews 11:1-6
Intro.
A. Last week we looked at the attitude we want to get rid of which is doubt, but during that message also talked a lot about faith because the obvious attitude for replacing doubt is faith. So today we are going to center in on the attitude of faith.
1. As we begin today I think especially as it relates to this attitude I need to reemphasis that attitudes are something that are formed over a long period of time. As we begin to think about developing our faith today it is important to understand that we all encounter those times of crisis in our spiritual lives when we will make a decision that will either move us into a life a greater faith or a life of lesser faith, but it is what we do. It will be the decisions and choices that we make day after day as we move away from that crisis that will determine whether our faith grows or shrinks.
2. I have very purposefully chosen the title of today’s message because this is precisely what I want you to do today. I want you and I to look at our faith, and answer the question, “Is my faith a fact or is it a fiction?” Is our faith real or is it pretend? I believe the answer to those questions is going to become very clear to each one of us today as I go through this message, so let’s take a moment and ask God to open our hearts and mind to Him today so that we can hear everything He has to say to us. (Pray).
Trans. I believe that if we are going to truly be able to determine whether our faith is a fact or just fiction then we need to have a complete understanding of what this faith is, so let’s uncover some facts about faith.
I. FAITH FACTS.
First of all let me share with you some false ideas about faith.
A. Some False Ideas About Faith.
1. Faith is not an ostrich. I think you understand what I mean when I say that don’t you? Faith is not burying your head in the sand and hiding from reality. Faith is not sticking your fingers in your ears and singing the Flintstone song. That is fear not faith.
2. Faith is not being anti-intellectual. Some people seem to have the very false idea that to have faith means we put our minds in neutral. That to have faith means we throw all logic and reason out the window. That would be feeling and not faith.
3. Faith is not fantasy. Faith is not escapism. It is not living in some sort of fantasy world believing that everything is just fine when in fact we know it isn’t. [] You see this sort of thing happen among the Christian Science religion. They strongly believe in God to be the healer and if He is then going to doctors and using medicine means you lack faith. This not faith this is fluff.
4. Faith is not self-motivation. For some people faith is little more than some sort of self-motivation seminar. It’s like going to one of those seminars you always see advertises on TV and maybe you have been to one. You get all pumped up and in the emotion of it all you feel that you will become a millionaire in a matter of months. Faith is not “envisioning a better future” for yourself. That is fad not faith.
Trans. Lastly let me say that:
5. Faith Is Not P.M.A. PMA stands for Positive Mental Attitude. I am all in favor of having a positive mental attitude, Lord knows I need a better attitude and that is why I am preaching this series, but faith is not having a positive mental attitude. Faith is not ignoring the pain; it’s not pushing down the feelings of doubt. That is foolishness not faith.
Trans. As you can see from your outline we will be talking in a moment about what faith is but before we do it is vitally important that we understand the very foundation for this thing we call faith. As we all know and I have repeatedly said, with out the right foundation we will eventually fall or fail. The building may look great but if its foundation is faulty trouble is just around the corner. So we want our foundation to be solid, don’t we?
II. FAITH HAS A SOLID FOUNDATION
I know that what I am about to say is not very profound but I think based upon the false ideas of faith we just looked at I think this simple truth is often lost.
A. The Foundation Of Our Faith Is God.
1. True faith, the kind of faith that Jesus said could move mountains is founded on a person, a person we call God Almighty. Look again at what Hebrews 11:6 tells us, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists… Faith is founded in a person, in a person whom we believe created the heavens and the earth, who formed the very bodies we have. Who gave breath to our lungs and blood in our veins? Who was and is and is to come.
2. Now I say to you that this may seem like a basic and simple thought but for many it is not. For many God is not this creator for many He is a “life force” a tree, the ocean or some unknown entity out there in space. He is not some one you can know or have a relationship with. What I want you to know more than anything today if you do not already is to know this God who is not out there on some distant star but is here by His Holy Spirit in this sanctuary today to make himself fully known to you. That is what He wants because that is why He sent Jesus into our world, so that all might know God. So that all could have faith.
3. The fact is we all have faith; we all have the capacity to put our trust in someone or something. It is what we decided to put that faith or trust in that will make all the difference. It will make the difference not only in this life but for our eternal lives as well.
Trans. What then what is faith? If it’s not these false ideas I mentioned what is faith? Let’s explore that.
III. FAITH IS…
One of the more familiar verses of the bible at least for those who go to church is Hebrews 11:1 let’s look at it again. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The words “being sure of” and “certain of” are translated from the words Substance and Evidence. I would like to use those two words in helping us here to understand what faith is. Faith is the substance and the evidence.
A. Faith Is Substance.
1. What does that mean for us to say that faith is substance? If faith is really substance then it can’t be things like fantasy or simply thinking positively, because those things are not substance. They are very frail and flimsy. For you and I to have faith there must be something we are sure of, confident in not just a wishful thinking. Allow me to illustrate what I mean. [] I have here in my hand a receipt. It is a receipt for two DVDs I bought online from the company that recorded the services at the conference I attended a few weeks ago. I hold in my hand the substance of my faith. This receipt tells me that I ordered and paid for these two DVDs. I believe these DVDs will show up at my house (in fact they already have) because I have the receipt that says so. Now three and a half years ago I bought my truck. In the deal I struck with the dealership I was supposed to get a substance amount of money back because of some financing. Well this was a deal I worked out with the salesman but I never got it in writing. After a week I saw nothing. I began making calls, I wrote letters, one day I drove down to confront the salesman. I had no faith that this deal would be honored because I had nothing to sustain the faith.
2. In your spiritual life where is your substance? Do you have a receipt or a promise from someone? Where is our substance? It is in God that is why I said a moment ago that He must be the foundation of our faith. When I pray am I just wishing and hoping things will happen the way I want them to or am I praying believing in a God that passionately loves me and wants the very best for me?
Trans. But according to the scripture faith is also evidence.
B. Faith Is Evidence.
1. What is the evidence? Let’s go back to this illustration with the receipt for the DVDs. This is just a computer generated piece of paper, why would I have any faith in this? I have faith because by past experience I know that when I ordered things from this company they came through. I didn’t have faith in the salesman because I had never dealt with him or that dealership. I didn’t know what they might do.
2. I am able to exercise faith in God because I have trusted Him before and he has never failed me. When I exercise faith that is more evidence that I believe in God. Now you and I have encountered people who think we are foolish for trusting in God. They believe that whatever good happens to you is what you make happen. Why should you believe that God will do as he has promised? Well you not only have the evidence from your own past but maybe your “history” with God is some what limited, what do you do when you are faced with those doubts? Look back at history. The bible is filled with the stories of people who for thousands of years have trusted and seen the faithfulness of God. If you believe the Bible to be true (and we will talk about that in a few minutes) then you have a boat load of evidence to say to the skeptics “This is why I believe!”
Trans. As I said a moment ago we can find faith by the evidence in the Bible.
C. Faith Is Believing In The Bible.
1. Here is what the Bible itself tells us in Romans 10:17 NIV, Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. What do we know about God apart from the bible? Well we could look at creation and that would be good but then we would be left up to everyone’s interpretation as to how the world was made and it is the Bible itself that gives us that answer. Here again is the evidence we need. God has written a book, 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 says (quote). All we need to know about God and how to live a life of faith is found in the Bible. My faith is not founded in the LA Times, it not founded in “The Purpose Driven Life” book either or any other book by any other Christian author.
2. Now you might ask, “Well what about the people who say they don’t believe the bible?” The answer is simple, but sad. They have no faith therefore they do not believe and therefore according to this Bible they are lost and without hope. It is not my responsibility to try and convince them or change their minds. My responsibility is to tell the truth and let God do his work and let each person exercise that free will God has graciously given them.
D. Faith is Acting On Our Beliefs.
1. Once again this is basic but essential to understand. Let’s go back to what God said about this in James 2:14 NLT What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? That’s pretty clear is it not? What good is the faith you profess if that faith does not translate into action? James went on in V.17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Pastor James MacDonald put it this way, and I really like this. He said, “Faith downloads into life.” Faith is not a trophy or award we put up on a shelf it is something that shows up in every day life.
2. [] Do you have faith? Great! Prove it! Here is what one teacher did. He was teaching his class about the pendulums and expended energy. He taught his students that a pendulum will always swing in every decreasing arcs. What that means is that once the pendulum swings once one way it will never reach back to that same point again. The arc will grow smaller and smaller with each swing. He asked his students if they believed this and they all did. So then he asked them to put this theory to the test. He had a large metal ball hoisted to one side of the room, and secured in the center by a ceiling joist. On the other side of the room he had a chair. He told them that this is how the experiment would work. Someone would sit in the empty chair and then he would take the large metal ball and walk it over and hold it to where it would almost touch the person sitting in the chair. Then he would release the ball and if the theory held true the ball would not come back far enough to hit the person sitting in the chair. Everyone still agreed that this would work so then he asked for a volunteer to sit in the chair. Care to guess how many volunteered to sit in the chair? You’re right, none. It all sounded good in theory but no one was willing to put the theory to the test. What good is our so called faith if it doesn’t translate into real action?
3. Acting on our faith will impact every area of our lives. Let’s consider a few of those areas.
a) Family. What kind of marriage do you want to have? What kind of children do you want to raise? Both of those questions will be answered not by what you SAY but by what you DO. You can say to me, “Yes pastor I want to have a great marriage, I want to have kids that love God and are a blessing to the world I am sending them out into.” Great, what are you doing about that? What is the place that God has right now in your marriage? You want to have kids that love God and are living health, moral, and ethical lives? Great, what are doing to accomplish that? Do you bring them to church only as long as there is nothing else that might interfere with church? If you give your children and allowance do you teach them to tithe on what they receive? What teaching or instruction are your kids getting outside of church or do you leave that all up to the Sunday School teachers whenever you are able to be at church? You say you want to build a family of faith, well let’s see. Let’s see your faith in action?
b) How about everyone’s favorite, FINANCES! We all like it when the preacher talks about money don’t we? I am puzzled though by those who tell me they want to live by faith but when it comes to giving when it goes to having faith to give their tithe and offerings I hear things like this. “Pastor, when I get the car paid off I am going to start tithing.” Or “Pastor, when I get this raise at work I am going to start giving extra for missions.” Or “Pastor, when we finally get these crazy credit cards paid down then we can start helping the church.” Can anyone explain to me the faith aspect if these comments? Am I actually acting in faith when I say, “God, after I can get this all figured out and can see the way to really begin able to give that ten percent you ask of me. Then I will give my tithe.” Do you know what I have heard over and over again in the lives of those who have actually stepped out in faith and honored God with their tithes and offerings? I have heard comments like, “Pastor I don’t know how it works. I can’t afford to give this money but when I do I always have enough. It really doesn’t make sense.” If you have faith to believe God’s word then let’s act on God’s word.
E. Faith Is Greater Than How I Feel.
1. [] Are you familiar with the little evangelistic tract, The Four Spiritual Laws? At the back of that tract it describes how we cannot run the train of our spiritual lives on feelings. It shows the illustration of our spiritual lives as the engine, the coal car and the caboose. The engine is FACT and what is the fact? It is the bible, it is the truth about God and Jesus and us. Then the coal car is Faith, and then the Caboose is feeling. We all know that you can’t run the train with the caboose, even if we see the caboose coming along first we know that is only because the engine is pushing it and the coal car is feeding energy to the engine. I can’t spend a lot of time here but I am sure we all know that we are in real danger if we try to live our live purely on emotions. Emotions are a good thing but they can destroy us if we but faith in them. Just think back to this week and things that happened to you and how you felt. What if you got really upset with your boss because of something and you felt like quitting and acted on that feeling? If you acted on that impulse, on that feeling I have a “feeling” that today you would not be “feeling” to hot. Am I right? Faith is greater than what I feel.
Trans. Now I am running out of time so let me finish up today but talking to you about how we can build our faith.
II. SOME SIMPLE STEPS TO FAITH BUILDING.
Now before I share three simple steps to building our faith there is one important thing you need to be aware of. I can teach you these three steps but if they do not move from your mind to your heart, in other words if they don’t move from what you know to what you do then chances are they will do more harm to you than good. What I mean is that my fear is that a lot of Christians think because they know something that’s all they need, but that is not true. James told us in James chapter two that the demons of hell believe in God but they are still in hell. Knowing about these three steps I am about to share will not build your faith, acting on them will!
A. Spend Time In The Bible.
1. Let’s go back to a scripture we looked at earlier Romans 10:17 NIV, Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. We can hear the word in several ways. First of all we can hear it when we read it for ourselves whether we read it out loud or not. I don’t need to read the bible aloud to hear God speak when I am having my devotions. I have heard god speak quite loudly when I have been silently reading. That’s what happened to me when I God renewed my call to ministry. Now some of you began to do this almost a year ago but you quit. How do I know this? Did someone tell me? No, I just know what happens to us. Here is why some of you stopped. You said to yourself, “I don’t understand all this stuff in the O.T. Prophets.” “What in the world are all these eyes and wings and wheels the guy Ezekiel is talking about?” Tell me, have you ever read a book and not understood part of it and then later read the same book again and understood some thing you didn’t understand the first time? Sure you have and the reason you understood it the second time was because your level of understanding had increased and concepts that before didn’t make sense now begin to make sense. This why you should not stop reading the bible even though there are things right now that seem completely foreign. I can guarantee you that if you will keep listening you will keep growing. We also can hear the word in worship. Now I know that some of you feel that the only reason I keep pushing you to come to church is so that I will have some good statistics to report at the end of the year. Well I will admit that I have been guilty of that but I also know that God is changing that mindset in me so let me tell you why I think it is important for you to be in church each Sunday. Do you in fact want to grow your faith? If you do and you believe as I have been teaching that hearing the Bible will increase your faith then you ought to be passionate about being in church and let me add this. Even if the pastor has a warped view of why you should be here that shouldn’t matter because you should know that being here and hearing the word will build your faith. If I really wanted to build my faith then I would make sure that other things that don’t facilitate that faith building were put much lower on my priority list. Thirdly we hear the word in small groups. Now what if a person were to say, “Pastor I am reading the bible each morning and I am coming to church every Sunday except when I am sick or away on vacation (although I think vacations are a great time to attend other churches and see what is going on) so why do I need to join a small group? Well how about this for a thought? If you really feel that the time you are spending in devotions each day and being in church each week has really built your faith to a level where you don’t need to join a small group then here is a concept. Maybe, and I am just guessing here, but maybe since you are this strong in your faith maybe it is time for you to begin to help others who are not!! How is that for an idea? Even though I am being a little facetious I am also serious. If it is true that you are really growing and I hope that you are then it is time that you begin to give back. It’s time for you to become the teacher of those who need the same help you received.
Trans. OK well that I am sure has gotten me into enough hot water so I can move to step two now.
B. Be A Witness.
1. Now being a witness does not mean just knocking on some stranger’s door and trying to lead them to Christ. It certain can be that but witnessing is not just one behavior. Being a witness is doing things like standing up in church and saying, “This is what I believe, this is what God has taught me and this is how my life is changed.” So let’s do something right now to help build our faith. I was thinking about this the week I was preparing this message even before I wrote what I am sharing with you right now. I am going to finish this series one Sunday before I am planned (which proves God is a God of miracles) so I had the thought, what if on Palm Sunday we took time to share testimonies of what God has taught us and how we have grown through this series? Palm Sunday is all about the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem, we can share in that same triumph but confessing with our mouths what God has done for us. What I’d like to do is have about three or four people who will share a pre-written testimony and then as time allows we will allow for spontaneous sharing form within the congregation. So I need those of you who would like to be one of the three or four pre-written testimonies to talk to me as soon as possible so that I can give you some helps in preparation. I think it would be a great way to build our faith.
C. Walk The Talk.
1. What we are doing here is going back to point #4 under what faith is. What I am talking about here is acting on what you say. Do you believe God wants you to share a testimony on Palm Sunday? OK then let’s get at it! Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well I would like to be one of those four but I just don’t’ think I can do it.” “It will be too scary for me.” Come on folks, let’s exercise some faith. Imagine the courage your courage could give to someone else?
2. We really never know the kind of faith we are developing until that faith gets backed in to a corner. You never really know the faith you have until you are standing there on the banks of the Red Sea and God says, “Walk across.” How many time shave you heard me say that the ripe fruit is always out there on the end of the limb? It’s precarious, it seems unsafe, but where are we placing our trust? In ourselves or in God?
LIFE APPLICATION:
A. Let’s do a little self examination here.
1. When was the last time that you can remember trusting God for something that you could not figure out on your own? Can you even remember that happening? If you can’t then I have to tell you this morning, you are in serious trouble because you have not been living a life of faith.
2. Here is the next thing we need to do. How would you evaluate where you are right now in regards to these three steps for faith building? On a scale of one to ten how would you rate your “Hearing the Word” “Being A Witness” and “Walking The Talk”. Now here is something that can help you on this point but it will take courage. Would you be willing to let someone else evaluate where you are in these three areas? You may have rated yourself lower than you should have or you may have rated yourself higher than you should have. Would you be willing to let someone that you trust and who will be a true friend evaluate where they see you?
3. Finally, what are you going to do to either strengthen the weak areas or build on the strengths you found? What are some practical steps that you can take this very week to build on what is good and strengthen what is weak?
