Jason Bobis - Class 3: How We Grow Our Faith on a Daily Basis

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Jason, to come forward and speak to us on how we grow our faith on a daily basis. Brother Jason. Well, good morning, brothers and sisters. It really is lovely to be here with you. I'm just very fond of this place in general, not Royal Oak, but everyone in it in this area. And it's just such a pleasure, really, to be with you.

2. 0:22

   So in the last two studies that we spent time in together, we've really traversed a vast territory in many ways. We've looked at the importance of faith. And we began with the question, why is faith so important? Why does the Bible put such importance on this concept of faith? For example, without faith, Hebrews 11 and verse 6 tells us it's impossible.

3. 0:49

   It's just impossible to please God without faith. And so then we ask the question, well, if that's the case, then what are we doing daily to work on our faith? Then we try to define, well, what even is faith? Like, we can say faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's the evidence of things not seen.

4. 1:08

   But I don't know necessarily that in being able to repeat that or memorize that, that I'm necessarily any of the wiser. So we really tried to give a simple definition of what faith is. And the way we define that is your connection to God. We talked about that in a couple of different ways.

5. 1:25

   We said, well, this is your trust. This is your belief. This is the reality of God in your lives, in our lives. And so to put it in kind of modern terms and to tie it to something visual, what we tried to do is say that your faith is your signal strength. Because when you pick up your phone and you look at your phone and you say, how much signal strength do I have between me and the cell phone provider?

6. 1:51

   It would be so great if we could launch our minds into something better and say, but more importantly, what is my signal strength to God? How connected right now am I to God? And that kind of lifts our mind by using something natural into the heavenlies and trying to think about something spiritual.

7. 2:07

   So again, a simple definition of our faith is really our connection to God. And then we suggested that the largest impact on whether your faith grows or whether it stagnates or whether it kind of decreases over time, I believe is really based on what you believe about this simple concept. And that concept is that God is actively and intimately involved in our lives in probably more ways than we can understand.

8. 2:35

   And so, for example, when you get to the life of Jacob and he's at the end of his life, and this is a man who wrestled with the angel. He's wrestling with God, in essence, and he's been through all sorts of turmoil in his life. And he gets to the end of his life and he is blessing his two grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

9. 2:54

   He says effectively to the angel, he says, the angel that has been with me all the days of my life. It's as though he's talking to the angel. It's like now he has recognized that God has been with him in all his activity up north and into Laban's country. And he says, bless the lads.

10. 3:13

    It's as though he knows that the angel of God's presence or his personal angel is with him. And so there's this understanding that I think we will all have when we get to the end of our life to go, wow, God was in everything in our lives. And he was always trying to get my attention.

11. 3:30

    And for whatever reason, the cares of this life or some of the thorns of our faith that we looked at yesterday, those things were preventing me. My view was a lot more narrow than it should have been. And I think that we're going to have that sort of response. But if that's the case, then perhaps what we can do is try and develop that wider perspective now.

12. 3:49

    We said that God may not necessarily be the cause of all things, but he permits things into our life. And we know that that is to grow our faith. And so really what we want to spend some time on this morning is how does God grow our faith and what it is that we can do to take part in that, to work with him and to develop our faith as well.

13. 4:12

    And so we said that he is not necessarily the cause of all things because we know that man has free will and that, for example, somebody else's free will may collide with your free will. And God didn't cause, for example, the drunk driver to smash into your car. He didn't cause the man to drink the alcohol in the first place.

14. 4:32

    He does permit things into our lives that can be very challenging. But really, it's only for one purpose. And that purpose is outlined in 1 Peter 1 and verse 7. And that is very, very clear that the point of suffering and challenge in our life isn't to drive us away from God or even really to test us.

15. 4:50

    And we'll go through that in this morning's session, Lord willing. It's really to deepen our connection with God. That's the point. And so what we have to do then is we have to reflect on whether or not the challenges, whether they're tiny or small in our mind or whether they're significant and serious, whether those things are actually driving us to God.

16. 5:09

    That's the point. That's the intention. We spent some time also saying that if indeed God isn't everything, and that may be hard to believe, that he is intimately involved in our lives, one of the ways that we endeavor to prove that or show that is by saying, look, when you get baptized, when you make a covenant with the living God, this is what he thinks of you.

17. 5:31

    And all I did with that was just compile a bunch of verses to show what God thinks of us once we're baptized. And for example, the word saint means sacred. We are sacred to God. He calls us his children, that we are heirs according to the promise, that we are our children of light, that we have a wonderful destiny, that he knew about us before we were born.

18. 5:56

    And the list just goes on and on and on, that this is what God thinks of us once we enter into a covenant relationship with him. And it's an extraordinary thing to think about. And the reason that we did that, at least the reason I was interested in doing that in the first place, is because I recognize often at the breaking of bread that I wasn't looking at myself as God looks at me.

19. 6:17

    What I would do is I would often get hung up on my faults and my sins, and that is part of the process of self-examination at the breaking of bread. But I found myself very downcast and downtrodden, and rightfully so. We should never be pleased with sin. God hates sin, and we do also.

20. 6:34

    But there is a certain point at the breaking of bread in which we have to shift our point of view off of ourselves and our inadequacies to the sufficiency of Christ. Because he is able to present us faultless before the throne of God's grace. He is able to bring us to salvation. That is never something we're going to be able to do in and of ourselves.

21. 6:54

    And so while it is important that we do not disrespect the Lord's table by examining ourselves and being critical, there is a point at which we have to shift our mind into what Christ can do and what he's willing to do and what he will do and place our confidence not in ourselves but in him.

22. 7:11

    So now what we want to do really is we want to look at, well, we also spent some time yesterday looking at the thorns to our faith, or what I would consider things that are challenges to our faith. And the reason we did that first really before we ever even got to the ways that God increases our faith or the ways that we can participate in that is because sometimes you have to sweep the house clean before you can put in good things.

23. 7:36

    And so the idea is that there are things that are choking our faith, whether it's fear or sin or not being aware or whatever it may be that is holding us back. If those things are overcoming our mind, we can't put good stuff in. And really today what we want to talk about is putting the good stuff in.

24. 7:56

    What are the ways that God is working with us to grow our faith and what are ways that we can take part in that as well? One of the conclusions that I've drawn, and I know that as a community we are probably better poised to understand this than anyone else in the world, we know from scripture that there is not a supernatural devil.

25. 8:15

    There's not a supernatural tempter. There's not some being running around with horns and a pitchfork that is poking and prodding us to do the wrong thing. We know that that's human nature. But what I've come to realize in looking at this long list of things that God says about us once we enter a covenant relationship with him, is that even still, knowing all those things, I have this doubtful voice in my mind that says, well, that may be true, Jason, of an older brother in the ecclesia or that faithful sister who's been attending faithfully for 40 years or 50 years, but that's not you.

26. 8:51

    You are not a child of light. You are not sacred to God. You make a lot of mistakes. I know what I do, and I would be ashamed to admit that publicly. And so what is that voice that's in my mind that's saying, no, no, that's not you. That could be somebody else, but that's not you.

27. 9:08

    That's Jeremiah or David or the older brother or the older sister. That voice, in my head, I've concluded is the devil. That is the great adversary of the Bible. That is what we're fighting. So all the verses that we see in Scripture that talk about the adversary, we know it's not something out there.

28. 9:27

    We know it's something in here. But what is it practically day to day? It's that voice in my mind that says, no, that's not you. No, it doesn't really matter. You can do whatever you want. It's that voice that is crowding out the voice of God. And effectively, I'm either going to believe what God says, or I'm going to believe this voice in the back of my brain that is exactly what Scripture terms as the adversary.

29. 9:52

    And so that is the fight, and that is, to me, really the greatest thorn to my faith in growing it. So that's just a little bit of background information on what we've tried to cover. And we talked about suffering a bit and how that that's intended to grow our faith. But really, this morning, what we want to do is we want to really— I'll just tell you the conclusion before we even start.

30. 10:17

    The number one thing, like if there's a fire and we all have to run out, this is what I want you to take away. The number one thing that we can do to increase our faith is to grow in humility. And I'll show you that as we go forward, why that's the case and how valuable that is and what that means to being teachable and moldable before God.

31. 10:39

    But that is, if you remember nothing else from this weekend, that is the critical piece. What we also talked about is the grace of God. And we talked about how God initiates our salvation. He doesn't treat us as we deserve. We sin, and he doesn't blink us out of existence very quickly, although he could, rightfully so.

32. 11:03

    God is righteous, and Christ came to declare God's righteousness, that sin is worthy of death. But what happens when he doesn't do that, when he extends mercy to us, is we begin to appreciate his love and say, wow, you know, you could have done that. And then what we begin to realize is that he is also not just being merciful to us and not dealing with us after our sins is that he is extending a gift to us.

33. 11:31

    And this is something we really tried to talk to the young people about last night in the CYC was accepting and appreciating this gift that God is offering. And brothers and sisters, this is what we should be preaching. This is what they were preaching throughout the Acts of the Apostles. They were going around telling people about the good news.

34. 11:48

    And we know that the good news from the very last verse in the Acts of the Apostles is the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. But it specifically says in the middle of Acts, it says in Acts 20, for example, it says in verse 24, it says that they were preaching the gospel of grace.

35. 12:05

    So what were they going around and telling people? They were going around and telling people that God is offering you a gift. And this is something you could never offer yourself. This is the gift of life without sin, without death, and no more crying and no more tears. This is the kingdom. So when we are preaching to people, we've often, at least I've often, jousted with people about their verses and my verses, and it never really seems to bear any fruit.

36. 12:35

    And I'm thinking to myself, well, why not? Most people don't, for example, know much about the promises made to Abraham. We could easily talk to them about that, but more importantly, about how they could be part of those promises. And so when we begin to preach and really share, what we should be sharing is exactly what they were sharing in the Acts, right?

37. 12:54

    And that is that there is this incredible gift. And the reason that this makes so much sense is because all we really want is people to have the experience of God, to have life and have it more abundantly, to feel the richness and the depth of joy that a life in Christ provides.

38. 13:13

    That doesn't even, like the life in Christ and the experience of God and what we have, the riches in Christ Jesus, it doesn't even compare to, like, whatever it is that we might be interested in this life. If you want a really nice car or a really nice home or anything on the material plane, that doesn't hold a candle to what we're being offered in Christ.

39. 13:36

    Life without sin, life without this turmoil and this battle to do the right thing inside of us, life with peace and harmony and Eden restored, deathlessness, no more tears or crying. Like, you can't put a value on that. When you compare that, what we're being offered, that gift of grace, that gospel of grace, which turned men's lives upside down.

40. 13:58

    And, like, see, the thing is, men and women, whenever they're deciding on what they should do, they don't give something up unless there's something better on the table, right? Like, for example, if you're going to buy a car and you've got this money here, you're willing to make this payment, that car better be worth the value that you're willing to exchange to buy it, right?

41. 14:18

    People don't move from their position unless they go, look, there's something better out there. And, brothers and sisters, there is something so much better out there. What Christ is offering us, what God is giving us willingly in this gift of grace makes everything else that we're interested in just fall away. It just seems silly then to continue to pursue the things that we think are so worth our time.

42. 14:44

    And the way I put it with the young people last night is simply to say, like, life in Christ is HD television. Compared to black and white with the knob that you turned when we were kids. Like, it's of no comparison, in other words. And so that's what we should be preaching, and that's what we should be talking about.

43. 15:04

    Now, here's the point. When God offers you this gift of grace, when you perceive through faith what God is actually offering us, you just say, my goodness, you love me that much. That's how much you love me. And what it does is it motivates you to say, well, how can I show some of that love back to you?

44. 15:25

    You see? Now, that is a completely different motivator than, and this is how I've behaved for a long time. This is how I've reasoned. God, I really want to show you that I want to be part of your kingdom. And when you start to analyze that, it quickly gets turned on its head because God already knows that I want to be part of his kingdom.

45. 15:42

    Right? God wants me to be motivated based on his love. And so the first step in that process is to first perceive the love that God has for us, to first realize it, and to really think about that and meditate upon that and say, wow, he has given me everything. Everything I have is because God has given it to me.

46. 16:03

    In fact, he's given me the ultimate thing. He's given me his own son. So therefore, if he's given me his own son, everything that I need to be spiritually successful, God has given me. It's there waiting for me to take. And if that's the case, and he loves me that much, and he wants me to be part of his kingdom, it's his good pleasure, all I want to do is go around and share that with people.

47. 16:28

    All I want to do is give people the richness of that joy, that depth of life, and share that. Now that makes so much more sense to me than going around and saying, you believe the Trinity, and I don't, and here's why. Jesus couldn't be tempted, and he couldn't die. I mean, he could be tempted, and he could die, and he was seen by men, and God wasn't.

48. 16:48

    He can't those three things. To just verbally joust with somebody, as opposed to stand alongside them and say, I just want you to have the richness of the joy that I have in Christ. That's a different way of preaching, and that's what they were doing in Acts, and that's what allowed people to leave whatever it is that they were interested and turn their whole world upside down.

49. 17:12

    So that's some of the stuff that we talked about yesterday and tried to communicate, and really what we want to do today, there's just so much material to go through. Some of it I won't be able to give as much attention to as I want to, but nevertheless, that's why there's been a handout, and if you don't have that, I can email that to you very easily, or we can get that made available to you.

50. 17:32

    But we're going to go quickly this morning for lack of time, unfortunately, but we're going to look at how God increases our faith and then how we can generate faith. This is just kind of the idea that our faith is like a tree. There's a metaphor there, and the fruit, like the fruit of the Spirit, the things that we want to see in ourselves, that God wants to see in ourself, is kind of above the line.

51. 17:58

    And if we want to work on that fruit, really we have to get the roots of the tree right, and I believe the roots of that tree is really our faith. Sometimes we work on the fruit, and unfortunately we should really be working on the roots. And then we talked about things that limit faith, and now what we want to do is talk about how God generates or increases our faith, and then we'll talk about how we can be involved, how we can increase our faith.

52. 18:21

    All right, let's just go through it. All right, sorry. All right. So we talked about this yesterday. Once we're baptized, God views us differently, and there is just a multitude of verses, and we kind of outlined those by way of summary this morning. But this is one of the huge reasons, the huge ways in which God increases our faith.

53. 18:51

    He has given his only begotten Son for the forgiveness of our sins. And yesterday at the end of the class, I was not being facetious. What I said is, I honestly believe that there was a conversation before the foundations of the world in which God said to the angels, what would my creation need to know how much I love them, to know that I want them to spend eternity with me?

54. 19:16

    What would they need? And the way that I tried to get that idea across is that that's what every good parent does for their children. What do they need to be successful? It's what a good teacher would do for their students. What do they need? I'm happy to provide it. And I think the answer came back from the angels or from God himself.

55. 19:37

    The ultimate gift that I would give them is my only begotten Son. And he would show them the way of life. He would be the example for what I want to see in them. And the love that God has for his Son in giving him on our behalf is the love that we see in Christ, laying down his life for us.

56. 20:01

    And the point of this is this is designed to generate faith. This is designed to get us to believe that God is very interested in saving us from sin and from death. There are numerous verses that go along with this and those are in your handout.

57. 20:19

    Number two, how does God increase or generate our faith? He reassures us by speaking to us through his word. We have 66 books of the Bible. We have over 1,100 chapters of God's word. And this is the verse in Romans where it says faith comes by hearing. And that's not just hearing anything out there, turning on the television or the radio and hearing.

58. 20:41

    It's hearing by the word of God. These are God's words. So if we want to increase our faith or one of the ways God increases our faith is we've got to get our head in the word of God. We're just not going to happen otherwise. And so that's why the Bible says this is like food to you.

59. 20:57

    And we don't miss many meals, at least here in America. Even in Australia, we don't miss many meals. But unfortunately, we miss our spiritual meals. And next thing you know, we're spiritually fasting. And we don't mean to be. And we think, wow, why are things getting topsy-turvy? Why are things getting... And it's because the connection to God is becoming diminished.

60. 21:19

    And it's, for example, like having a huge tube and that's your connection. It's really, everything is flowing. You feel really connected to God. And then you spiritually fast for a while and it's like a straw. You feel like, I'm not even sure God's in this. Well, it's not God that moves, right? It's us that separates ourselves from God.

61. 21:36

    We move. We go in another direction. So God increases and generates our faith by speaking to us through his word. Another way is that God uses logic. The Bible is very, very logical. Paul's arguments are very, very logical. God is not the author of confusion. And he appeals to us in this way so that we can make sense of it.

62. 21:54

    I haven't read the Quran in its entirety, but there are some things in the Quran that just don't make any logical sense, right? One of the examples is that if a fly lands in your water, dip it seven times into your water and take it out, and now it's purified. That is completely illogical.

63. 22:12

    That doesn't make sense. And even modern science shows that the food, the laws, the clean food laws back in the law still make perfect sense. So my point is that God, God helps to grow our faith by using logic. Well, one of the ways that God builds and grows our faith is that he promises to work in us.

64. 22:34

    He, for example, he says, there's a very famous verse that we'll quote in our community that says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And it puts all the emphasis on like we have to work out our salvation. And there is a component to that which is true, but we often don't quote the next verse or the next part of the verse.

65. 22:53

    We do have to do something. That's right. We can't just sit on our hands and say, God, just do it all for me. But the next part of the verse is it says, for it is God which works in you both to will, both to, both to will, sorry, I'm messing it up, both to will and to do his good pleasure.

66. 23:12

    So, so what's going on is that God says, I will work in you. We just have to clear some space and allow him to do so. But, but we can have confidence that he will. So God is faithful and he changes not. That gives us plenty of confidence. In ancient times, they used to worship the Greek and Roman gods and part of the problem there was that they, well, part of the problem there is that they're false gods, but, but the other part of the problem is that they never knew what side of the bed, so to speak, that God was going to wake up on.

67. 23:43

    Is Thor going to be angry today? Our God is consistent. He does not change. Therefore, sons of Jacob are not consumed. And so, because God is constant and faithful, that allows us to put our trust in him. Now, numerous times in the Bible, this is, this is just so beautiful. Numerous times in the Bible, God says, I will never leave you.

68. 24:06

    I will never forsake you. He said that to Moses. Moses said it to the nation of Israel. And then he specifically told Joshua, because Joshua had some fear to get around, just like you and I do. And Joshua then said it to the nation. David said it to Solomon. God will not forsake thee.

69. 24:25

    He will not fail thee. And Solomon then said it to the people. In Jeremiah, it was said this way. It said, I am with you to save you and to deliver you. And in Haggai, he reminds the people that Yahweh of armies is with you. Nehemiah reminded God of it in prayer. Paul passed it on to the Hebrews in chapter 13.

70. 24:46

    And Christ, as some of his last words, said that very thing in Matthew. He said, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. And those are some of his last words. And yet, it's bizarre, brothers and sisters, that we talk about the absent Lord. And the only way that Jesus Christ is absent is he's not visible in the way I'm looking at you right now and the way you're looking at me.

71. 25:11

    We know this is true because we know from Revelation he walks in the midst of the lampstands. Where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there amongst us. There are all these indications except for the physical visage or form of the Lord Jesus Christ in front of us. And yet, we don't think of it that way because faith is the substance of things not seen.

72. 25:37

    You see, it's a faith issue. We've got to believe that Jesus is with us and working with us. All right, let's keep moving. One of the ways, one of the chief ways in which God works with us and grows our faith is he puts us through severe suffering to grow our faith. And it's something we spent a lot of time on yesterday in talking about the purpose of suffering.

73. 26:01

    And this is such a valuable message to share with people because I don't think most of the world has any idea why they're going through what they're going through. And what they do because they don't know is they think, well, God's angry with them. Why is God treating me this way? What did I do wrong that this has come upon me?

74. 26:18

    That's just natural human thinking. And it's such a reversal of thought to believe that this isn't actually God punishing me. This is actually God trying to draw me closer. And that is such a game changer that changes everything.

75. 26:35

    Let's keep moving. He's in us. He's with us in the suffering. And this is the example of Daniel's three friends. Now, this is when the three friends say, well, we're not going to stop worshiping Yahweh. If you want to throw us in the fire, so be it. But our faith will remain intact.

76. 26:57

    And Nebuchadnezzar was astonished when he looks into the fire and he asks his counselors, he says, I thought we put three men in the fire. And they said, no, it's true, we did. And he says this extraordinary thing, he says, lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire and they have no hurt.

77. 27:17

    He was totally astonished. And he says, in the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. This is such a beautiful thing because this is the idea that we're not in it alone. Christ is with us in the suffering. Right? And in a bit, we're going to get to this idea that in 1 Peter 1 at verse 7 where it talks about the trial of your faith, which is more precious and gold, we always think of that word trial as a test.

78. 27:43

    And if you look it up in Strong's, that's what it says, a test. But if you go a little bit deeper, it's not a test in the way that I would give a student a test at school where I said, did you study and today's the day and here's the test and I'm sorry, I can't help you with that, you should have studied.

79. 27:59

    The test with God isn't a test where he's testing us to see what we're made of and he stands aloof. The test that God puts us through is one in which he's willing to help us with. He wants to help us. And the example of this is that there's one, there's an angel likened to the Son of God in the fire with us.

80. 28:20

    Right? And that is such a comforting thing because one of the worst things you can feel when you're suffering is to feel completely alone, is to feel isolated. And when we get to the exhortation this morning, Lord willing, we're going to see that Moses loses it when he feels alone. And God ends up feeding 600,000 people in the wilderness in Numbers 11.

81. 28:43

    And Moses is saying, oh, but why have you done this to me? Why are all these people crying to me? And it's all about poor Moses. But God is with us and Christ is with us. That's the name Emmanuel. God is with us through Christ who strengthens us. Another example of how God grows our faith is he tells us what to have faith in.

82. 29:05

    He teaches us and he gives us examples. And of course, you can go to Hebrews 11. There is a whole bunch of examples of the faithful. But what we want to do this morning is we want to look at the ultimate example, the author and finisher of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.

83. 29:24

    Now this is the idea that God remembers us. And this is kind of a misnomer because God doesn't forget anything like you and I would. God remembers us and that's something that we can have faith in. And he keeps us as the apple of his eye. When you get to Nehemiah, over and over again, Nehemiah says, Lord, remember me.

84. 29:43

    Remember me for good. Remember me. He keeps saying. And so it's a very comforting thing when you get to example, for example, to Psalm 56 where the psalmist is in great grief and he says, put my tears into your bottle. And then he says, are my tears not in your book? God knows every tear.

85. 30:04

    He knows every heartache. He knows every pain. And it doesn't go unnoticed. We don't think he notices in some respects. But everything that we do and that happens to us, he is aware of. And so in that sense, we can say God remembers us. number 11, it says that God has made promises and he cannot lie.

86. 30:29

    And this is, again, what we should be preaching. We know the promises that are made to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and to David and we know how those promises are being fulfilled in Christ Jesus. But God is not like you and I, that he could lie. And so that gives us, again, a reason to trust.

87. 30:49

    And so these are just some ways in which God grows or increases our faith. He gives us great and exceedingly precious promises. And 2 Peter 1, verse 3 says, the reason that he gives us these promises is that we might be partakers of the divine nature and that we can escape the corruption of this world which comes through lust.

88. 31:11

    So those promises and hanging on to the vision of those things can actually help us escape all the corruption that is in this world. And another way that God increases our faith is he reorganizes our mind when we get turned upside down and inside out. And when we sin and we separate ourselves from God, he has made the provision for the forgiveness of our sins through the blood of his son and he reorganizes our thinking and we again see that God is the ultimate and we are then abased and the whole reorganization of our mind happens because of the forgiveness of sins.

89. 31:46

    If you'll bear with me for one second, I've just got to swap this over to the, hopefully can, to the other PowerPoints or this is called Prezi, this material, the way I've organized this material. Some people told me they get sick of the zooming and let me just see if we can get that real quick.

90. 32:13

    I apologize for this. Here we go. Okay. So what we're going to do, we'll just go through this very quickly and we want to get to what it is that we can do to increase our faith and again, I said, if there's only one thing to remember, it is to work on our humility.

91. 32:45

    In the scripture, they, Jesus says, they come to Jesus and they say, well, how many times should we forgive our brother? Seven? Like, that's a lot of times to forgive. If somebody asked you seven times to forgive them, they thought, well, that's a pretty reasonable answer. That's in fact quite, quite good. And he says, you know what he says, he says seven times 70.

92. 33:05

    And their response is a very interesting one in Luke 17. They basically conclude that that's impossible. How? In other words, they say, increase our faith. If we're going to forgive that many times, we need more faith, Lord. And they don't pose it as a question like, how can we increase our faith? They just say, increase our faith.

93. 33:24

    And so, what comes back to them in the answer to this, effectively, this question, increase our faith, is two parables. And one is about a mustard seed and the other is about the unprofitable servant. And just to summarize those two, we know, for example, the idea of faith as a grain of mustard seed is that a mustard seed will grow over time and it will, and our faith too can grow over time.

94. 33:48

    And that's a totally valid and true idea. But the idea of the mustard seed in the context of faith is really, it's the smallest or the least of all these seeds. And so, this then begins to equivocate a perspective of viewing yourself as the least, as the smallest, as something seemingly insignificant. And when we adopt that sort of attitude, that sort of mindset, we see that now God can work with us.

95. 34:17

    If we admit to ourselves we don't really know the right answer, God is capable to work with that clay. It's the same mindset that you see in the unprofitable servant, which is the second parable that he offers in the answer to how do we increase our faith. The unprofitable servant is one that works for his master all day long and he serves his master.

96. 34:37

    And he comes home and he doesn't put his feet up at the end of the day. He doesn't say, well, I'm entitled to this or that. He simply says, well, I was just doing my job. That's all he, that's the frame of mind for the unprofitable servant. So in either case, the core idea is the idea of humility.

97. 34:57

    And so, what Christ is offering, I believe, is the way to increase our faith, the cornerstone of increasing our faith is developing our humility. And when you look in the Philippians and you see that the Lord made himself of no reputation and that he esteems others greater than himself and let that mind be in you, that is the mind that should be in us.

98. 35:21

    And that is really the mindset of humility. Now, there are two times in scripture in which God, or which Jesus Christ says, wow, this is great faith. And you probably know that both those times he wasn't even talking to somebody that was Jewish. One is a Roman centurion and you know that Roman centurions would be hardened men.

99. 35:40

    But this man comes on behalf of his servants, the Lord Jesus Christ and he says, look, Lord, you don't even need to come to heal my servant. I know you can do it right here, right now. And he says, I'm a man under authority. And he's not only recognizing that Jesus is a man under God's authority, that's where God's power, where it's how he can do the miracles.

100. 36:01

     But basically, he was saying, I'm also under your authority, Lord Jesus. And this statement of humility, the Lord marvels at. Now, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if the Lord marveled at our humility? And he heals the man instantly, or the man's servant instantly. Now, in Matthew 15, a similar thing happens, but a little bit different route.

101. 36:20

     This is a woman who, again, is a Gentile and she's kind of crying out and the disciples say, Lord, send her away. She's making a lot of noise. And finally, she gets the opportunity to speak with Jesus and he says, I'm sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Like, it's not meat for me to give the food of the Jews to the Gentiles.

102. 36:43

     And she says this extraordinary declaration of humility. She says, yeah, but even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table. And it's just such an extraordinary thing that he marvels at her faith. And you think, well, why is he marveling at her faith? Why wouldn't he be marveling at her humility? Because the Lord is making this link for us between faith and humility.

103. 37:06

     He says, I have not seen such great faith in all of Israel. And why does he say that? Because her statement was one of humility, which is the bedrock, the basis for growing in faith. Now, there were other times, and you can go to the other end of the spectrum, and there were times in which the Jews were praying and fasting, but they were doing their fasting because they wanted to draw attention to themselves, the very opposite of humility.

104. 37:31

     And so, even when the disciples tried to cast out an evil spirit, they come back to him and said, Lord, how come we're not able to do it? And he says, this kind can only come out by prayer and fasting. And so, if you go to Isaiah 58, for example, the root of fasting is humbling oneself.

105. 37:50

     But the Jews weren't doing that. They were doing it to say, look at me, I'm really spiritual. I'm fasting. And they'd missed the point completely. Now, there are some wonderful examples of humility in Scripture, and I bet, well, I'm not a betting person, it's a figure of speech, but if you were to go into the life of any person that you would like to talk to in the kingdom or that you highly respect in the Bible, I'm certain that you would see that humility is the core of who they are.

106. 38:21

     This is very clear in the life of John the Baptist when he says in John 3, verse 30, talking about the Lord, that the Lord must increase and I must decrease. And so, when we adopt that sort of mindset, then we become soft clay in which the Lord can work. The Lord himself says, except you be converted and become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

107. 38:44

     And he tells us very clearly in that verse, whosoever, in verse 4 of Matthew 18, whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Now, it's very interesting that there aren't, there aren't very many times in all of scripture in which I can see in which the Lord Jesus Christ calls attention to himself.

108. 39:06

     Very, very few times, maybe one or two that I can point out, maybe three. And there's one in Matthew 11 that is just so amazing. It's just such a beautiful verse. And this is what the Lord says in Matthew 11, verse 27 and verse 28. He says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and you that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

109. 39:27

     Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. He says, Then you will find rest for your souls. And why is the Lord drawing attention to himself? He never does this in scripture. It was never about himself. He was drawing attention to the fact that if you want to grow spiritually, it's always based on humility.

110. 39:51

     And that is how we grow our faith. That is the number one thing that I can share with you. And if you don't remember anything else from the weekend, please remember that. Another way in which we can increase our faith, for example, is to be good parents and to live by faith. In other words, to model what a life of faith looks like for one another and for our children.

111. 40:12

     Right? And so this is of all the people in the world that God could have selected to be the mother of his son, he chose Mary. And Mary had a very strong basis or understanding of the life of Hannah. And so if we're going to grow in faith, we've got to be those sorts of people for each other.

112. 40:38

     That's the idea. For example, you can give your children a biblical vocabulary so they know the phrases of Scripture. You can read to them Bible stories or teach them how to read the Bible and how to look for Bible echoes, how to look for the moral principles in Scripture and how to ask good questions.

113. 40:55

     You can teach them Bible songs and how to keep the Word of God in their heart and how to memorize Scripture so the Bible lives in them. And you can allow them to fail and be there to help pick up the pieces and teach them how to live lives of faithfulness and by living life in faith.

114. 41:14

     We know that one of the ways in which we can grow our faith is by getting our minds into the Word of God. And that's faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It's not going to happen elsewhere. And that's in Romans 10 at verse 17. One of the ways that we can grow in faith is to go to places where faith is found because we're not going to find it out in the world.

115. 41:33

     And even though we have to admit that when Christ would go to the temple as a young boy, that wasn't necessarily a terribly spiritual environment with the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers and all the bickering and debating and all the... It was, in some sense, very far from the truth. But we have to go to places where faith is found.

116. 41:54

     And that's the ecclesia. And that is with our brothers and sisters. Proverbs puts it this way. It says, A wise man will hear and increase in learning. A man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. And that is being around people of like precious faith. Now this is interesting because one of the ways we can increase our faith is by remembering the past of how God has worked in our lives.

117. 42:21

     And I wish, I wish I was wise enough to have done this a long time ago. To just, in a little journal before bed, write a dot point or a bullet point here or there about all the different times in which I was... I'm certain God has worked in my life. And what a resource that would be then for when I feel flat to look at and just be reminded of, my goodness, He hasn't left me.

118. 42:44

     He hasn't forsaken me. I feel like my prayers are maybe going up to the ceiling and that's it right now. I feel empty and cold for whatever reason because that's the human experience. But God is active and present in our life. And this becomes actually very interesting also when the whole idea of remember, we're going to look at, Lord willing, in the exhortation.

119. 43:02

     But this idea is interesting because when you get to, for example, like the Exodus, so many times in the Bible you read about, remember the Exodus. Remember how I delivered you from Egypt. And I took this from Ron Hicks. He said, when the Jews were to recount to their children, when they would have this, this, you know, feast of tabernacles and they would have the Passover.

120. 43:24

     And it would be centuries down the line that the Jews were to recount the story of the Passover in the present tense so that the kids could experience it. You know the kids have wonderful imaginations and they would retell the story of the ten miracles and rushing across the Red Sea and the Egyptians being decimated.

121. 43:48

     They would tell it in the present tense to have their kids experience it in their minds. And so many times you find in Scripture the idea of remembering the past. And God says, I want you to remember the Exodus when I was present and clear and manifest in your lives. And that is to activate their faith.

122. 44:08

     This is how David, for example, David, what a mind, what a mind of faith. David said in Psalm 16 at the end, at verse 8 or so, he says, I set the Lord always before my face. He was at my right hand that I should not be moved. This is the perspective of David.

123. 44:24

     Now, do you remember when David said, I mean, there's numerous times in the life of David that we get clear indication that he believed that God was in every aspect of his life. For example, he's on the battlefield in the fray of a battle and he says, I am so thirsty if I could just have a drink from that well over there.

124. 44:42

     And two men get up and they risk their lives to go get the water for him and he takes it and he pours it out. What are you thinking? You're thirsty. They just risked their life for you and you're going to take this and pour it out as a drink offering into Yahweh.

125. 44:58

     Like, that's where his mind was, right? What an extraordinary mind. Like, he is on a completely different wavelength. And when you get to when Saul is chasing him around the mountains of Israel and he has the opportunity to kill him and all of his cohorts and friends are saying, now's your chance. God's delivered him into your hand.

126. 45:21

     His heart is smitten because he takes a piece of his garment and cuts that off. And his mind is in a place that is just extraordinary. See, God is present in David's life and he thinks to himself, I shouldn't have done that. That's the Lord's anointed. And what I'm getting at is that in the life of David and we'll see it later in the life of Joseph, God was very present and very active in their life.

127. 45:47

     And so if we can do the same, we can set the Lord always before our face and put him at the front lid of our eyes, so to speak, we can grow in faith. Now this is just a classic one, especially for the age in which we live. The age in which we live, we rush around at 100 miles an hour all the time.

128. 46:05

     And so the idea is just to be still for a moment and see the salvation of God. And I suggest it is actually much, much harder to just stop and be still and meditative than to go, I've got a good idea and I think this is how to solve the problem and I'll offer a quick prayer about it and I'll keep going in that direction anyway.

129. 46:23

     Like, it's far more difficult. And one of the ways I know what the right thing to do is is when it's hard. Right? I got that from Leah Billington. It's, when this is hard, that's almost guaranteed that that's the right path. Right? Because the flesh naturally recoils at anything that is hard. So one of the ways, you know, and that kind of changes over time as you become more spiritual, hopefully it becomes less hard to do the right thing.

130. 46:48

     But it's hard to just be still and let God work. And there are some times in life in which we have no choice and we get put in the pit like David in Psalm 40 and he says, I waited patiently for the Lord. He can't go anywhere. He can't do anything. He's painted into a corner, so to speak.

131. 47:05

     He just has to be still and then let God work. And there are so many beautiful examples of this in Scripture and it's one that is so, so exhortational for our age and time period because, because everything's moving so fast. Now this is the principle of what I would call Jonathan in the armor bearer and this is, this might challenge you a little bit.

132. 47:30

     The idea here is to put yourself in situations in which it's required for God to show up for you to be successful. Now here's the example of Jonathan and this is what happens in 1 Samuel 14. Jonathan says to the young man that is bearing his armor, he says, come let us go over into the garrison of these uncircumcised and it may be that Yahweh will work for us for there is no restraint for Yahweh to save by many or by few.

133. 47:58

     And his armor bearer says unto him, this is a remarkable statement of faith, he says, do all that is in your heart. Behold, I am with you according to your heart. What a faithful friend. In 1 Samuel 14 verse 8 it says, then said Jonathan, behold, and he actually makes it more difficult, he kind of flops, switches the order of things, he says, here's the more difficult thing, if that's what happens we know it's a sign from God.

134. 48:22

     He says, okay, this is what we'll do. We will pass over into these men and we will discover or show ourselves into them. If they say thus to us, tarry here until we come to you, then what we'll do is we'll stand in our own place and we'll not go up to them.

135. 48:36

     He says, but if they say this, come unto us, then we will go up for Yahweh has delivered them into our hand and this shall be a sign. So he asks for a sign, right? And then they go and God does this incredible deliverance. He does this incredible miracle through these two men.

136. 48:56

     And so my first question when I started thinking along these lines is, boy, this sounds like you're tempting God, doesn't it? Is this tempting God? And I came to realize that this isn't tempting God. Like, for example, in the life of Gideon, he was unsure, right? He wasn't sure if he should. And so what Gideon does is he says, God, if you'll make the fleece wet today, then I'll know you're speaking with me.

137. 49:20

     And if, I know you did that and I did ask for that and he said, I just need a little more reassurance. Would you just reverse it the other way? And God doesn't chastise him for needing a little bit of injection to stimulate his faith. Now, here's the reason why this sort of thing is not tempting God.

138. 49:38

     Like, some people would say, are you going to stand in front of a train, Jason, and say, God, I need you to show up so that I can be successful and not die here? No, no. And even though these men, Jonathan, his armor bearer, did risk their life, that's not what I'm talking about.

139. 49:52

     Because, because when you get into the New Testament, you see that they came up to the Lord Jesus and they said, what sign do you show us so that we may believe? You see, they didn't have any faith. And they were looking for a sign from Jesus to have faith. Where these men believe in God and they need a little bit of bolstering of their faith.

140. 50:16

     See, the seed of faith is already taking root in them. It's already beginning to grow and to germinate. And when we're moving from faith to faith, so to speak, God is willing to show us, yes, I'm willing to help you and grow your faith. Now, I'm not saying put your life at risk, but that's what these men did.

141. 50:36

     And they said, God, we just need an indication here that you're with us. And if you tell us that you're not, then we're not going to go and risk our life. But it's an extraordinary thing to say, I need you, God, to show up for me to be successful in this situation. And that is what I would call the Jonathan and the armor bearer principle.

142. 50:59

     This is the Elisha principle. This is the, this is from the reading that we had this morning. And this is simply a prayer, really, that, that God would open our eyes to be able to see what's going on around us, that the angels are working. Now, I don't expect that to be a visual revelation, but, but, but here's the idea.

143. 51:19

     When, when I was saying this last night to the young people, we may have an ability to solve a situation and, and whatever, based on your IQ, maybe, maybe it's a very narrow band. And my case is quite narrow, but if, if, if you're smarter than I am, then it would be a little bit broader band, right?

144. 51:36

     And, and whatever that band is, is, is really pretty much irrelevant in comparison to the, the wisdom of God, which is unlimited. And so, so my point is that, that when we get into a situation that we're trying to problem solve and figure out a solution, we may be able to solve it in, in a narrow band, but as soon as we pray, this is what I believe happens.

145. 51:56

     See, I don't, I don't think the angels are allowed to meddle with our free will, but as soon as we give it to them, now the range of what could be possible to solve this opens very broadly, very widely. And now all of a sudden, you begin to, I don't know how it works, brothers and sisters, but now all of a sudden, into your mind come ideas that weren't there before.

146. 52:16

     How does that happen? I, I can't explain that, but I do know that the prayer of faith and that God promises to work in us and, and, and send the angels to help us along can change our perspective and, and the possible solutions to a situation from a very narrow band to, to the right answer, to things that are, are working on a multiplicity of levels that my solution could only work on one level.

147. 52:39

     God can do many things. I can do very few. So, so, one of the ways to make this practical is to be instant in prayer, that when we come up, even against the, the, the slightest, um, agitation or difficulty in our day, we pray. and I think that's how Paul can, can write these words like, be instant in prayer and, and everything give thanks.

148. 53:01

     It's this constant communication and connection to God. But sometimes we just have to ask for God to open our eyes and, and that's what I mean by the Elisha principle or believing that God is present.

149. 53:14

     This is, this is another one that's really helpful for the modern age to, if we want to grow in faith, we have to control our thoughts with biblical inputs. In other words, as Philippians 4 verse 8 says, think on these things. This is the best argument I could ever make for, for not watching television or things that are just junk or rubbish.

150. 53:33

     It's not like, you know, we say, oh, I really like this show, but I know God doesn't want me to do it, so therefore I won't. And, and then you feel angst towards God because he's taking fun things out of your life. This for me was, as a, as, as a disciple, when I'd watch television when I was first coming to the truth, I would kneel down to give my evening prayers and all these stupid images were popping into my mind and disrupting my prayer life with God.

151. 53:54

     And this, this is not okay to me. And, and I realized that, that I could probably slow some of those images by stop watching television. That's why I wanted to just not have a TV. And that, look, that doesn't make me righteous. It's not the reason I tell you. The only reason I'm telling you is because, because what you feed your mind has a huge impact on what you think about.

152. 54:16

     And what you think about has a huge impact on your realities. It impacts how you treat people, what you share with people, how you behave. What you dwell on and think about influences everything. And that's why faith is so critical. So, so, the reason we shouldn't watch TV or put rubbish into our brain is because it's breaking that connection with God.

153. 54:38

     That's why. It's disrupting things. So, so, we can actually program our minds. And, and the advertising world knows how to do this. They just layer it in, layer it in, layer it in, until it's in your subconscious mind. But Jesus says, let these saying sink down into your ears. I think what he's talking about is, is getting this stuff so deeply into your subconscious that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

154. 55:04

     So, the portrait of the disciple that is accepted at the judgment seat, he's the one that says, when did I give you a cold cup of water? I don't even remember doing that. You see, the, the, the fabric, the, the character of Christ is so woven into this person that they didn't even realize that they were doing it.

155. 55:23

     And that's what we want. That's why we read the Bible. That's why we push away television and other things. It's because we, we can actually take charge and program our mind for godliness. And that's why God gave us the scripture. And that's one way in which we can grow and increase our faith.

156. 55:38

     Now, I know that we're running out of time, so I'm going to, to run through these very quickly. And I apologize for that. I, I pray next time I'll, if there is a next time, I'll manage the time better. One of the things that we can do to increase our faith is to become aware of what's impossible for us.

157. 55:52

     We have to be aware of what it is that's challenging. It may be different for me than it is for you, but we need to know what's impossible for us. We talked about this being instant in prayer and we have to listen for God's voice and the still, the still small voice and the mundane things of life.

158. 56:09

     The sheep hear the master's voice and they know it and they follow him, for example. This is a beautiful question they come and ask Jesus. They say, what might we do that we may work the works of God? And, and it's an important answer. He says, this is the work of God that you believe on him whom God has sent.

159. 56:30

     In other words, our job is to believe. That's what he wants us to do. That's where we should be putting our emphasis and that's what the whole weekend has been about.

160. 56:41

     I'll understand what is little faith. We can do a little Bible study on that and find the answers to what is little faith. And I think what he's saying there is that our faith can grow. He's not being condemnatory. The 16th one is understand the role of faith in Christ's healing and I think this is all about removing blockages and removing guilt.

161. 56:59

     He would say things like, be it unto you according to your faith. And if people, what is he doing? He's removing the burden of guilt. He's forgiving their sins. And so, so when there's a healing happening, what he's doing is he's, he's really giving them the ability to believe. Number 17, understand how the conscious, conscience is affected by faith.

162. 57:21

     And, and the problem is that we can sear our conscience by, by saying, it doesn't really matter if I do this or that. And that's just a lie. Understand that faith grows incrementally. The idea with this one is that, that God didn't ask Abraham to offer his son Isaac as his first act of faith.

163. 57:41

     Right? That was a long time down the track. And so, we grow step by step and, and, in faith. Number 19, aim to be full of faith. This is like Stephen, for example, and of course, like the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't reverse the order of faith and works. Don't, don't believe that if you just get out there and do some good works that your faith will follow because that may not necessarily be the case.

164. 58:04

     Now, I don't think it's bad to do good things for people and, and that does help you and there's a benefit to you. But if you think that you can grow your faith by simply going out and do nice things for people, that's not necessarily true. Know the reward. Lord, they, they said, look, Lord, we've given up everything and we've followed you.

165. 58:21

     What's in it for us? And he didn't chastise them. He told them that they would sit on the 12 thrones of the tribes of Israel. The kingdom is the reward. Cast your cares. Give it over to God. Taste and see that actually experience that God is willing to work in your life. Study prophecy or God's words.

166. 58:41

     That's a way to increase our faith. Submit to God or defer to God and that's what I mean by being instant in prayer and this is exactly the portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ in the garden, submitting to the Father, deferring to God. Relearn what God says about your future. We have a wonderful hope and that's a way to increase or grow our faith.

167. 59:02

     Understand why what's happening to you is and that's the role of suffering that we've talked about and this is an important one we need to spend a moment or two on and we'll wrap things up. Do not allow this lie into your life and that is that your suffering hasn't changed because you simply don't have enough faith and this is what the whole faith healing movement is about, right?

168. 59:25

     And this is the idea that if you just had more faith this wouldn't be happening to you. You see how damaging this could be, right? This has the potential to completely drive somebody away from God and why it's so personal is because effectively what that would mean is that if I had more faith then I wouldn't have lost my wife, right?

169. 59:47

     That's just so unreasonable because God has a will that is different than my will, right? And that's something I have to accept and just have faith that he knows better than I do. But if you believe that you can change your situation just by having more faith and it doesn't change, that could completely drive you away from God.

170. 1:00:08

     So this whole idea of the faith healing movement can be so destructive because of that very reason. Realize the power of what you believe. We have two more and we'll finish. Realize the power of what you believe. What you believe, regardless of what you profess, has a profound impact on your reality. Finally, realize that Christ is not absent.

171. 1:00:31

     We've talked about this, that we are not alone and be careful of how you talk about things and how you frame things and this is the idea of saying God willing. And the reason we say that isn't because we're pious or righteous or that's what everybody else says so we should say it too.

172. 1:00:44

     It's because that's actually indicating a way of thinking. When we say God willing, what we're doing is we're becoming very God conscious and aware as Brian would talk about. So these are ways in which we can work on our faith with God. Thanks for your patience. I understand that there's a lot there and hopefully my prayer is that we'll start a conversation about this critical topic of faith.

173. 1:01:09

     We'll pick it up there in the exhortation. Thanks.