12. The Gift of Faith

If I say anything unusually dumb this morning, it's because I can't hear myself.  And some of you may say that's a blessing, but when you're talking...  We drove last night from Helena Montana (Pastor Steve and I in a Volkswagen bus, and I don't think it has anything to do with the make of the vehicle, but it was not very comfortable) and I picked up something over there in Montana that I'll have to take back.

I want, so much, to communicate with you this morning what the scripture means when it talks about the gift of Faith.  When Paul writes to the Corinthians, and he says that there are "a variety of gifts but the same Spirit, and a variety of service but the same Lord, and a variety of workings but the same God Who inspires them all in every one" he is emphasizing the need that we have as the body of Christ to recognize (here we go again) the gifts are given to build the unity of the body of Christ - not to divide it.  And the gifts are given in great variety, for the purpose of building the body.  And the gifts are given, they're not chosen.  And when he says that there is "a variety of gifts", the word is charismaton, which means "that thing which is given a specific function or a specific capacity."  And there are a variety of gifts as exercised within our body - in all the body of Christ.  And he says "there are a variety of ministries" and the word there is "theokineon", which means a "variety of services".  So that I exercise my gift in a variety of different places.  You exercise, perhaps, the same gift that I do, but you exercise it in a different sphere of service (or ministry) than I do.  And then he says that "there are a variety of workings, but it's the same God Who inspires them all and in all".  And there the word is "energamaton", which means "energy".  In other words, the gift that we exercise in varying places, carries with it varying effects.  The same gift, exercised in the same place will still bring a variety of effects.  And that is really up to the work, of course, the Holy Spirit.  It is not our concern.  Our concern is simple faithfulness.

Now, we've talked about the gift of Wisdom, the gift of Knowledge, today I want to think about the gift of Faith with you.  And because faith is such a Biblical term, we generally need to have it defined, because we get it confused in our minds.  Remember, we are talking about the Spiritual gift of faith - that is that Holy Spirit given gift.  And as such, it is supernatural in its origin.  We are not talking about "saving faith".  When Paul writes in Ephesians 2, "for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves - it is a gift of God, not based on works lest any man should boast"  he is referring to "saving faith".  Saving faith is that faith by which we appropriate what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  God the Father in loving the world, sent His Son into the world, emptying Himself, becoming obedient, taking upon Himself the form of a servant."  And as Pastor Steve read from Hebrews, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and is now sat down at the right hand of God."  What was the joy set before Him that enabled him to go through the pain?  It was that of reconciliation, of man to God.  And that act of atonement of Jesus Christ's part, when He died on the cross, and when by the power of God He was raised again from the dead, that act of atonement was for all men everywhere.  But, hear me: it is understood and experienced only by those who have appropriated it.  Who have accepted it by faith.  Who have received it.  "He came to His own and His own received Him not," John tells us in the first part of his gospel.  "But as many as received him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God."  John 9 says, "Him who cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out."  Romans 8 says, "There is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ."  And all of those factors are involved in saving faith.  That's not what the gift of Faith is talking about.  

Nor does the gift of Faith refer to that which is known as "the walk of faith".  Now here we can say that faith is seen and manifested as a fruit of the Spirit.  For instance, at the end of I Corinthians 13, Paul says, "Now there abides faith, hope, love".  What are those?  Those are fruits.  And so faith which comes because a walk by faith is a fruit of the Spirit.  Now, I have a lot more faith than I did when I first became a Christian.  When I first came to Jesus Christ, I wasn't even sure he could accept me.  Now I know He can accept anybody, because He's accepted me.  And my faith grows.  One of the joys of having the body of Christ share in our Layman's Viewpoint is that we have our faith built, we are encouraged by understanding and seeing the hand of God in one another.  That's one of the purposes of it.  Sharing the burdens and sharing the answers of prayer, and building one another's faith.  And so our walk by faith needs to be a progressive - a growing - walk.  But that's not the gift of faith.  That's an exercise of faith.  

Faith is just believing what God says He will do.  Now there are a lot of people who have saving faith - they have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, by faith.  But they then lapse into what can only be called a "walk of feeling".  And they determine how spiritual they are - how close they are to the Lord - by how they feel.  And people will say, "Oh, wasn't that a marvelous service!  Oh!  I just had goose pimples running up and...  Oh!"  and they say that has to happen every time.  And then the next service that they go to, it's not there and "Oh boy, something's missing out!"  You see, that's walk by feeling.  That's not a walk by faith.  And feelings are changeable.  Maybe you're getting the flu.  Maybe that's why you feel that way.  I have all kinds of weird feelings going on right now with me, I'll tell you.  And I don't think that's the Holy Spirit at all - it's something I picked up in Montana.  We are not called to walk by our feelings.  Because our feelings are so changeable and varied.  And so when the scripture says "without faith it is impossible to please God", it describes it in Hebrews 11 as a walk by faith.  Not supernatural faith.  A walk by faith.  Not visions and glorious things, but just putting one foot in front of the other in a trusting, obedient relationship to God and His word.  That's the walk by faith.  Some people say, "Oh I feel so spiritual.  I know things are right with me and God."  It may be that they've just become insensitive.  And some people say, "Oh I just feel like God is so far away".  Well, like the bumper sticker says, "If God feels a long ways away, who moved?"  It isn't God.  And if He just feels a long way away, that just could be a temptation that Satan brings into your life to find out.  Or something that God allows to check out and see whether you're walking by feeling or by faith.

And some people walk by sight.  "Boy," they say, "if I could see signs and wonders and various things, why I'd believe!"  Well, when we get to that - the gift of Miracles - I'll point out a few things about that.  But the fact of the matter is we don't walk by feeling, and we don't walk by sight.  Some people say, "Well, I'll try it.  And if things are not evident within a certain length of time then I tube it."  And that's what happens.  You see a lot of people - not just young people - but you see adults (who should be more mature than this) walk with the Lord for a period of time and then they run into problems.  Maybe husband and wife start to squabble with each other and the relationship starts to disintegrate.  And they say, "Hey, I thought God was supposed to solve my problems.  There must not be anything to this faith in Christ."  You see, they're walking by sight.  Now, if they had a lot of sight, they could understand that their marriage is falling apart because it hasn't been nourished - it hasn't been fed.

Remember when Thomas said, "If I can put my finger into the nail prints in His hand, and my hand into the side of Christ, then I'll believe He rose from the dead"?  

And Jesus graciously always meets us where we are.  He comes to him the next week and says, "Thomas, go ahead.  Here's my hand."  And then He said, "You're blessed because you see and therefore believe.  But I tell you more blessed are those who not seeing, yet believe."  Faith honors God.  And the walk by faith honors God.  And I hope that today you are farther along in the walk by faith, and your faith is more robust and strong - that you can believe God for greater things now then when you first came to know Him.  But that's not the supernatural gift of Faith.  That's a walk by faith.

Paul says in Colossians 2, "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord by faith," (that's saving faith) "so walk in Him by faith."  And Hebrews 11:16 says "Without faith it's impossible to please God."  If you don't have this walk of faith, then you become problem-centered.  "Oh that's a mess!"  You are not filled with view of the potential that God places in everything.  I am, by nature, pessimistic.  I operate on the principle that if anything can go wrong, it probably already has.  And that's why God has given me a wife who is so optimistic that she's just unreal!  And that's why God's given us to each other.  I keep her from hitting the sun and she keeps me from Gehenna (look it up in your Bible).  But I've got to tell you something.  When I sit in my counseling ministry, when I deal with people who are in crisis - sometimes in such proportion that it just blows my mind - I never really, honestly, have trouble believing God can do something with it.  I used to "Whooo, God can You handle this?"  And the answer comes back, "That's not the question.  Can YOU handle it?"  God can do anything.

I saw a sign in a pastor's office that says, "God is here.  Expect anything at any time."  And I honestly believe that.  People come to me and say, "here's the broken, shattered pieces of my life.  Can anything be done?"  And it's a joy to be able to say, "Oh yes it can!"  Not because I'm gifted, but because I serve a Master.  And my faith in Him is so enormous because I've seen what He's done through the years in your life and in my life.  And as a result, my walk by faith becomes a stronger walk by faith.  That's still not the gift of Faith.  

So, beyond the gift of saving faith and beyond the common faith we are all called to exercise in living the Christian life, lies the spiritual gift of Faith.  Now let me define it, I'll say this twice.  The gift of Faith is the ability to discern with extraordinary confidence the will and purposes of God for the future of one's work or His life or His church or the world.  Let me repeat.  The gift of faith is the ability to discern with extraordinary confidence the will and purposes of God for the future of His work in one's life, in the church, and in the world.  Some people would use the word "vision".  And that points in the right direction.  You know, "That person really has a vision".  But it doesn't carry quite enough freight.  But it points in the right direction.  The gift of Faith sees a need as met even though its impossible to have it met.  It just can't happen.  And that's why it's often called "mountain moving faith".  Now, it's not manipulative.  It's not "well if I pretend I've really got the faith then God's obligated."  You know a lot of people pray that way.  They say, "if I get on my knees in the right position, or I have the right people lay hands on me, or I go to the right kind of services, or I fast for thirty days or forty days or three days, then God's stuck - He's got to answer."  That's manipulation - it has nothing to do with faith.  By the way, God won't play those silly games with you either.  But the supernatural gift of Faith sees with extraordinary confidence the thing that is needed being done.  Even though there's no evidence, whatsoever, that it can or will happen.  And that's why the gift of Faith can, very often, be confused by many as foolishness.

Like the old lady who used to wake up in the morning and she was bothered because the mountain outside, fairly close to her house, cut off the sun from her bedroom until about noon.  She loved the morning sunshine and she read Matthew 17 that if you have faith like the grain of a mustard seed and you say to this mountain, "Be removed and cast into the sea" and it will go.  So, she prayed that night, "Lord, get rid of that mountain - I want the morning sun."  And in the morning, she dashed to the window and raised the shade and there was the mountain.  And she said, "just like I thought."  Now that's not faith.  She was manipulating.  She was saying, "Well, I'll try this and I'll work the formula.  And if the formula works..."  She didn't have any faith in that.

Now, I have seen people move mountains.  Let me tell you a story.  Did you know there's a church in southern California that I am acquainted with the pastor.  And he said that they actually had to have a mountain moved.  Now, it was a small mountain, but in California, you know...  Here's the deal: they had this property to build a church on.  They had enough money to get going on the church, but they had no money to prepare the land.  Of course, the city wouldn't let them do anything and they had to get rid of that mountain.  They estimated it would have cost them $78,000 just to cut the hill down.  And then it would have cost them another who knows how many thousands of dollars to haul the dirt away.  And he said, "There's a man in my congregation, with his wife, the two of them have what I have to call the gift of faith.  And they came to me and said, 'Pastor, we just want to let you know that God is going to move that mountain.'"  Well, when somebody comes to a pastor, you know if he's like me, he says "Thank you."  And he said, "You cannot imagine the shock I experienced, and how God really rattled me, when I received a phone call from the telephone company saying, 'We have a construction site that is desperately in need of fill, and if you will permit us, because we understand you're trying to figure out what to do with that hill, we will remove it and we wonder if $14/load is a sufficient price."  They got the mountain moved and got $14/load!  And nobody knows how the telephone company found out it.  Only God knows, and the pastor says that God hasn't told him yet, but he's really curious.  But he knows that there are this couple in his church that have the gift of faith.  And they came to him and said, in all honesty, "Pastor, we just want to let you know you need not worry about that hill.  God's going to take care of it."  That is viewing with extraordinary confidence God's will and purpose.  And the pastor viewed that exercise of the gift of Faith as being, really, kind of dumb.  And he was very skeptical.  But that is what the gift of Faith really means - if the blind man has the gift of Faith, he's not going to ask for a white cane.  He's going to ask for sight.

If you look at Biblical illustrations in Genesis 6, you see Noah, building that dumb boat on dry land.  I mean three stories high that boat is!  And he commits himself and his three sons to the labor of building that boat for a long time.  They didn't just put it together on weekends - those guys were at it the whole time.  And you know what those neighbors had to say.  Now that's an exercise of the gift of Faith.  Noah didn't say, "Well, I'll build a little boat and see if it rains a little bit.  That's kind of like a walk by faith.  You know, it rains for a couple of days, so then I'll trust Him for a little bit more.  But when you build a three-story boat and start rounding up all those creepy crawly things, you've got to have faith.

And then along comes Paul and Silas in Acts 16.  And they are preaching all through Phillipi and this little girl is tagging them around and she's interrupting them all the time.  She's saying good stuff.  She says, "Oh, these men are messengers of God.  Listen to them."  But Paul knew that this little girl had the spirit of divination, the scripture says.  She had a demon.  She had the ability to see and understand that which could not really be seen and understood.  And it was not a spiritual gift - it was from Satan.  And so they cleansed that little girl and she lost her productivity, economically speaking, for those that kind of used her.  The result is, they have Paul and Silas badly beaten, placed in stocks in the innermost dungeon.  Now, for one thing, that was illegal - they were Roman citizens.  And the Philippians in northern Greece didn't have the right to do that to a Roman citizen.  And anyway, it hurts.  And they're in stocks with their backs raw, salt rubbed in their back (which was the standard procedure because they didn't want infection to take place, but you know that hurts too).  Now what do Paul and Silas do?  "Let's sing Hymn #355!"  They're sitting in the dungeon singing!  How unlikely to find us singing in those circumstances.  How more likely would we say, "Now God, something's wrong here God"?  And yet they sang.  They exercised the gift of Faith and you know they saw themselves out of that place, and it came.

But there's a lot of modern illustrations.  You've heard of George Mueller.  I referred to him a few weeks ago.  Brother Andrew, the Bible smuggler.  Oh wow.  Some of the limbs he walks out on, completely confident.  Or the late Dr. Ironside.  There was a giant of the faith.  And Dr. Ironside was one of the original founders of Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924.  Now, if you know anything about American history, you know 1924 was leading into a kind of a tough time, economically.  And it wasn't very long before that school was in financial trouble.  In fact Dr. Ironside had been notified that by noon the next day, the bank was going to foreclose.  And there go the end of their dreams - just shattering it all.  Dr. Ironside and some of the other founders gathered together in their office and they had a prayer meeting.  Now, you and I would have been out hitting the bricks trying to raise our credit rating or raise some additional sources of revenue.  But Dr. Ironside was a man who had the gift of Faith.  He also had a very direct way of praying.  This is the prayer he prayed that morning at about 9:30 in the morning (they're going to foreclose at noon): "Dear Father, Your word says you own the cattle on a thousand hills.  Please sell some and send us the money."  Man, now that's faith.

Now the rest of the story is going to blow you away.  At 11:00 that morning, while these guys are still in there praying (Ironside, by the way, didn't pray any more - that's all he said - he said it, that's it, and he believed it would be done). At 11:00 this big old Texan walks into the front office, says to the secretary, "I've been working for six months to put together this big land deal."  And he said, "It was all set to close this morning, so" he said, "yesterday I sold 2,000 head of cattle to get the money so I'd have the liquid facility, economically, so I could move this deal.  And this morning, that so and so backed out of the deal and here I am.  And God kind of makes me think that maybe you guys could use the money."  And she took the check and of course, she was so excited, she broke up the prayer meeting (which is a good idea - when God answers, don't keep praying, you know) and she went charging into the prayer meeting and she handed the president of the school the check.

And he looked at it and reached over and threw his arms around Harry Ironside and said, "Harry, God sold his cattle".  Literally.

Now I could tell you a lot of stories like that, because I've heard a lot of stories like that.  But all they make me feel is about this big.  And that's one of the temptations that comes with the gift of Faith.  With every one of the spiritual gifts - the gifts of the Holy Spirit - there comes special temptations.  One of the temptations that comes with that is the temptation to be impatient with those of us that don't have the gift of Faith.  "Oh you of little faith"  Have you ever had anybody lay that on you?  I mean, not joking, really lay it on you.  Or gift projection.  Remember the quote from Mueller from a few weeks back?  You know, Mueller was the guy that fed 121,000 orphans.  He never raised a nickel.  He never even allowed anybody to let his needs be known.  And yet God sent him 7 1/2 million dollars in the course of his lifetime.  He, personally, was responsible for the sending out of 163 missionaries.  When he died, he had less than $1,000.  Never had more than $1,000.  God just kept meeting.  He would sit down with his orphans and they would start to thank God for the food and there wasn't any food.  And then somebody would bang on the door and the milk man, you know, the wheel fell off his wagon, his milk's going to spoil, "could you use it?"  You know.  But I read that book and in his book, he says, "Let not Satan deceive you in making you think you could not have the same faith.  I pray to the Lord and expect an answer to my requests, and may not you do the same, dear believing reader?"  That does two things for me: it depresses me and it makes me mad.  Brother Mueller was a man of enormous faith, but he had the gift of Faith, and that is supernatural.  And he is wrong to project that on me just as certainly as, if God has given you the gift of Tongues, you are wrong to project that on me too.  Just as certainly as I am wrong to project my gifts on you.  The sovereign Holy Spirit gives His gifts, as He wills.  Pray, God give us the gift of Faith in this church.

By the way, we have some with the gift of Faith in this church.  People who have never been stymied by the seven last words of the church.  You know what they are? "We've never done it that way before."  And there are people who have the gift of Faith and they say "don't worry".  I had a Jewish friend of mine in Chicago who used to say, "Not to worry.  Not to worry."  And people with the gift of Faith are the kind of people who are able to say, "Not to worry."  Not because they've got something up their sleeve or know some kind of a special way out, but because they have a clear vision of what God is going to do in that particular circumstance and they have absolute confidence in it.  Dear God, give us that gift.  You can't conjure that kind of faith up.  You can't whip it up.  You can't manipulate that.  In Matthew 17, Jesus and Peter and James and John had been on the mount of transfiguration and there had had fantastic experience.  And they come down the mountain.  At the bottom of the mountain they meet a world in desperate need.  And a father comes up and grabs Jesus and says, "Oh my son is so sick.  Can you do anything?  I've asked your disciples and they've tried everything, but they can't do it."  And what was wrong with those disciples?  They were trying to exercise gifts they hadn't been given.  That's all.

Now the person with the gift of Faith has some temptations, such as impatience or gift projection.  But, oh are they an encouragement and a challenge to me.  Those with the gift of Faith can believe in the face of impossible odds and they see it come to pass.  Will you join with me in prayer, either for yourself or for this congregation, that God will gift us with men and women with a gift of Faith, that we might see and know what his will and purpose, and move with confidence.

Now, next time, Lord willing, when I preach to you, it will be on the gifts of healings.  Notice I said that in plural.  The Greek does not say the "gift of healing".  It says the "gifts of healings".  So spend some time in study.  You've got three weeks.  Lord willing, I'll be with you again on June 1.  Between now and then, you have a great treat in store for you.  Next Sunday, you're going to hear Bill Dorsey, who will be preaching to you.  By the way, I know next Sunday's Mother's Day.  And I did not arrange the tour so I would miss preaching on Mother's Day.  Some of you have been unjust in your accusations.  The following Sunday, Pastor Steve Sprunger will be preaching.  And the following Sunday after that, Dr. Ed Smith, who is chairman of the ministries department at Seattle Pacific, will be preaching.  What a blessing God has given to us as a congregation.  Do you know that there are eight persons in this congregation who have many years of pulpit experience?  And I just praise God for the gifts that He's given to us.

Our world really doesn't believe.  Our world is hungry to believe.  But they want evidence.  So, by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within those of you who are His, go into our world and be that evidence.  Be that light in the darkness.  That salt in the spoiled situation.  And God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit will be with you in your ministry and with me in mine, until by His good graces, we're together again.  Amen.