The Search for Faith
This morning I want to talk about faith. The subject of faith has been preached on, written about, study guides offered, instructional series presented and on and on… the topic has an exhaustive amount of research and teaching on it…why? Because we as Christians understand the importance of faith in our walk. The Bible clearly tells us in Hebrews 11:6:
6 So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. Hebrews 11:6
It is impossible to please God unless we live a life of faith. Every Christian wants more faith. They will sit through hours of teaching on it. They are looking for that piece of information that magically awakens the faith within them so that they can have their prayers answered. They are looking to improve in this area. I believe though that this search is creating the problem or furthering the struggle. Now I know that doesn’t make sense, that a search for faith would be detrimental to the process of growing faith, but let me explain.
The desire to walk in greater faith is fine, the search for what the Word of God says regarding this the proper way to go. The problem with it lies in what we focus on. The search for great faith focuses on us more than on God. We look for what we can do to improve, what we can change about us to have more faith, what are we doing wrong in this area. The focus is on improving us. Do you understand what I am saying here? We are trying to have more FAITH in our ability to have faith, than to actually increase our faith. You see, Christians struggle with the belief that they can have real faith, they believe the problem lies within them and if that is their focus they will never achieve the kind of faith that God would desire for them to have. They are trying to get to a place that they can finally believe that they have positioned themselves to be a person of great faith. That they have lined everything up in their life and now they are in a proper position of being able to have faith. I want us to look at a passage of scripture that I believe will open our eyes up to what I am saying. Let’s look at this story in Luke 7.
1When Jesus had finished saying all this, he went back to Capernaum. 2Now the highly valued slave of a Roman officer was sick and near death. 3When the officer heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish leaders to ask him to come and heal his slave. 4So they earnestly begged Jesus to come with them and help the man. "If anyone deserves your help, it is he," they said, 5"for he loves the Jews and even built a synagogue for us." 6So Jesus went with them. But just before they arrived at the house, the officer sent some friends to say, "Lord, don’t trouble yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of such an honor. 7I am not even worthy to come and meet you. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 8I know because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, `Go,’ and they go, or `Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, `Do this or that,’ they do it."
9When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to the crowd, he said, "I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all the land of Israel!" 10And when the officer’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed.
Luke 7:1-10
I want us to look at some key points in this story and I think we will do this by looking backwards. Let’s look at verse 9 again.
9When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to the crowd, he said, "I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all the land of Israel!" Luke 7:9
Jesus responds in an incredible fashion when He hears this centurion’s request. First of all Jesus is amazed. Can you imagine living such a life that your faith amazed the Son of God? You would think that He would be pretty hard to amaze, yet here we see that He was amazed. Then look at what He says. I mean how incredible would it be to have Jesus standing by the Father and look down and say to God, “I am amazed at the level of faith that guy has”. I do not know about you, but for me, that would be a dream come true. That would be the ultimate compliment. So I believe we could agree that this centurion has reached the level of faith that we all desire to be at, a level of faith that amazes Jesus.
Now how did he get to this level? Well for one we can see that unlike other Roman soldiers, he respected the people of Israel and he earned their respect. Look at these verses.
4So they earnestly begged Jesus to come with them and help the man. "If anyone deserves your help, it is he," they said, 5"for he loves the Jews and even built a synagogue for us." Luke 7:4, 5
These are Jewish leaders coming to Jesus for him and they beg Jesus for Him to come and to help this man. That if anyone deserves the help of Christ that it is this man. They go on to say that this man loves the Jews and that he even built them a synagogue. That is saying a lot. During this time the Romans are the oppressors of Israel, they are ruling over them. The Jews considered them dogs and there was hatred between them, yet here these Jewish leaders come on the centurion behalf and tells Jesus this man loves the Jews.
We know the greatest commandment is to love God first with everything you have and then the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. This centurion no doubt has shown this type of love for those around him. Look at why they have come to Jesus.
2Now the highly valued slave of a Roman officer was sick and near death. Luke 7:2
This centurion had a slave who was most likely a Jew and the centurion valued him highly. In other words, he cared deeply for this slave. I do not know about you but the more I look at this the more I would like to meet this man. He is in no doubt genuine in the love that he has for others.
I believe that this is an important element in having great faith, but it is what it says next that really shows the key to his faith. Now keep in mind who this is. He is a leader in the area. He has power, he has authority, he has position, and he has respect of those around him. He has every reason to be proud, to order people to do his bidding. But his heart has already been exposed to us but look at what takes place next.
6So Jesus went with them. But just before they arrived at the house, the officer sent some friends to say, "Lord, don’t trouble yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of such an honor. 7I am not even worthy to come and meet you…
Luke 7:6, 7a
This centurion is humble; he is not full of pride and haughty in spirit. He does not think of himself as something special. Now this is important you see. People are searching all of the books, tapes, videos and teaching in order to position themselves to be able to have great faith. To be where they can have great faith in their own ability to be positioned in a place where they deserve the help. That somehow their faith has increased in themselves that they believe they can pray and Jesus will answer them because of all the proper things they have done. That somehow their prayers are answered due to who they are. Now you may not have looked at like this before, but it is the truth. People work at increasing their faith in themselves to have faith. We can learn some key things from this centurion’s example. This man did not think it would be an honor for Jesus to have this opportunity to come to step into this house. That Jesus would jump at the chance because of who this man was. No, just the opposite took place. This centurion sent out friends to tell Jesus that He did not have come all the way to the house, that the centurion wanted to send the message that he was not worthy to have Jesus to even step foot on his property.
This humble attitude no doubt was the key in the level of this man’s faith. You say well how so? This centurion is not showing any signs of faith in himself, in his own ability, in his position. He didn’t say well look at me I am friends to the Jews when others in my position would not give them the time of day. I have positioned myself to have this favor by building the synagogue for the Jews. He even went as far as to say that he was not even worthy to come out and meet Jesus. It went beyond not considering himself worthy to have Jesus in the house, but he didn’t feel that he had the right to even meet Jesus face to face. Now that is humility. That we would approach Christ with such respect and honor. He did not put faith in himself for a miracle to happen; I believe that was the key to his faith. Then look at what came next.
7I am not even worthy to come and meet you. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. Luke 7:7
Look at this. The officer starts out by saying I am not even worthy to come out and meet you. It is not that I am too good. It is that I am not good enough. I am not worthy, this miracle has nothing to do with me or my ability or my position or my favor. Then he says, “Just say the Word from where you are, and my servant will be healed”. Just say the Word! This man was full of faith, but let me put it another way. This man was full of confidence in Jesus! He had confidence in Jesus to be the authority, to have the right to declare his servant healed. It did not require His personal appearance; he knew that there was power in the spoken Word of Jesus. Look back at verse 3.
3When the officer heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish leaders to ask him to come and heal his slave.
The centurion had faith… how do we get faith?
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Romans 10:17
The centurion heard about Jesus, faith comes by hearing. He heard what Jesus could do. He understood about authority and he knew that Jesus had authority over sickness. The centurion had confidence in Christ. He had complete confidence in the power of Jesus. It was not confidence in a system or in the things he could do. It was not him trying to put himself in a spot to be worthy of the miracle. His confidence was In Jesus alone and it had nothing to do with him.
Do you see the difference in this scenario and the methods that the church uses to build up their faith today? This man that amazed Jesus with his faith did not follow any of the guidelines that people strive to follow today. Now do not get me wrong. I do believe in positioning yourself to be used of God, but not only being called but going through a time of preparation. To live a life that is pleasing to God and is able to be used by Him. But what unlocks the power of Jesus is not anything we do except understanding that it has nothing to do with our ability but it is by having confidence in Him. In fact the more that we are out of the picture in that sense then the more we are able to place complete confidence in Christ.
So how do we bring this down to a nugget of truth to chew on for a while? I believe in two ways. If you desire to increase in faith, to really see your prayers answered, to see Jesus moving with authority in your life then it is simple. First you must decrease… It is not about you building up your faith within yourself to believe that you can believe. You do not have to ever think that you are something. It has nothing to do with you. You want to believe something about yourself? Then believe that you deserve to go to hell but because of Jesus you get to go to heaven. You may do great things for God with your life and hopefully you will, but it will never be about you. You will never have the power within you to do anything you want to do because of who you are or what you have done. It is because of who you are through Christ Jesus. It is because of His power and anointing flowing through you. So become humble, love God first and then your neighbor. Second, to have ultimate faith is simply to have full confidence in Jesus Christ. To trust in Him completely without regards to who you are.
All throughout the Bible the people who were healed by Jesus were healed because of who they thought Him to be. It did not ever have anything to do with who they were. The 10 lepers and only 1 came back… they were healed because they believed in Jesus; it had nothing to do with their confidence in themselves. The blind, the lame or the dead were healed because of who they believed Jesus to be, it had nothing to do with them. The woman with the issue of blood received her healing because of who she knew Jesus to be, because of her confidence in Him. So faith is confidence in Jesus, the greater the faith is simply greater confidence in Jesus. So live your life according to the Word of God in order to live a blessed life, but strengthen your confidence in Jesus to see great faith working. Just believe in Him in spite of yourself.
