Sermon Central
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How To Increase Your Faith
Contributed by Emile Wolfaardt on Sep 28, 2009 (message contributor)
Summary: Learning to increase your faith by hearing God and being faithful with what he gives you where you are.
How to Increase Your Faith
This morning I want to talk with you from the Word of God on one of the most critical things you will ever study as a child of God - and that is “How to Increase Your Faith.”
Please God
We know that each and every one of us to make it our deliberate and daily goal to live to please God (1 Thess. 4:1). Question: What should I do today? Answer: Whatever will please God. Put that filter on your choices and you will find they become a lot simpler and a lot less painful.
So my goal is to live to please God.
How do I live to please God? Good question. The answer is simple but if you are not intentional you will miss it.
With Faith
We know that without faith it is impossible to please God. (Heb. 11:6)
Paul tells us in Romans (8:8) that those who are ‘in the flesh’ cannot please God.
Conversely, those who are walking in faith are always pleasing to God.
There are many things that please God - heartfelt worship, costly stewardship, unconditional love, diligent study in His Word, a lifestyle of obedience - the list is long - but while there are many things that do please God - unless they are done in faith, unless they are offered or pursued or practiced in faith - they are not, the cannot be, pleasing to God.
Follow Jesus
If you want to know how to live so that God is pleased, how to live so that faith is expressed - look at Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the clearest and most perfect manifestation of God’s will.
He is the perfect model for every Christian.
Jesus is not only simply an example for the believer - He is an example of the believer!
Jesus did not do what He did as God walking on the earth - He did what He did as man connecting with heaven.
If Jesus Christ did what He did as God His example for how I should live is practically useless to me. Why? Because I am not god - I am man. If he did His miracles as God, if He did His sings and wonders as God then there is not practical value there in terms of how I should live. But if He indeed did them as man, then His life becomes my pattern and His faith becomes my model.
We All Receive Different Portions of Faith (Rom. 12:3)
God gives each one the level of faith as He chooses.
It is His sovereign choice - but here is what I think we have misunderstood - the level of faith you have received is not the level of faith you will need.
That is why one of the most critical things for the believer is to know how to grow their faith. Why? Because the level of faith you received is not the level of faith you need. It may have been sufficient for yesterday and yesterday’s challenges - but it may not be enough for today and it will not be enough for tomorrow.
That is why so may Christians in the West get saving faith - and are born from above - but then they never see signs and wonders, they never do miracles, they never lay hands on the sick and they are healed, or on those with demons and the are set free, the never see the things promised, commanded and spoken of in Scripture in their lives.
What happened? The received ‘saving faith’ - incredible, miraculous, sufficient for that - and then they received a measure of ‘living faith’ - but they never increased it.
There are some incredible lessons we need to learn from the account the talents - remember the account where the servants received different measures of talent? (Matthew 25:14ff)
1. Each one received the measure of faith God assigns to him (Rom. 12:3)
2. God expects you to grow what He has given you
3. While we start at different levels, there is no cap as to where you can grow
4. God will make a draw on His investment in this life
Everything we have has been given by measure and the way we increase it is through faithfulness with what we have been given.
You steward your way into greater measure.
Every person has been given a measure of faith - and increase in the kingdom always comes as a result of stewardship. If you have the same level of faith you had a year ago it is because you did not steward it the way you were meant to. Good stewardship always brings increase.
Increase always comes with faithful use of your current measure.
