Cousin sisters.
Have you got your hymn books? Number 2.
Number 2 in the hymnbook: “Blessing and Honor, and Glory Be Thine.”
Okay, here we go. You ready? I do not think you need the hymnbook, right? All right.
Blessing and honor and glory be Thine,
And glory be Thine, and glory be Thine;
Blessing and honor and glory be Thine,
Both now and evermore.Praise Him, praise Him,
All the saints adore Him;
Praise Him, praise Him,
O now and evermore, hallelujah.Blessing and honor and glory be Thine,
And glory be Thine, and glory be Thine;
Blessing and honor and glory be Thine,
Both now and evermore.
We give You blessing, honor, and glory, Father, because of Your Son and all that He has done. So we gather together again today, and we ask for wisdom that comes from Your throne. How we need wisdom to live in these last days. Teach us, Lord, of this living way.
We depend upon You and ask that Your Holy Spirit would quicken all of our bodies so we can pay attention, and our hearts so that we can understand. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Okay, well, we have Section 2 of From Faith to Faith: Lessons in the New Creation. Before we begin, once again, I need to have three volunteers to be my readers. I would not dare ask those people who read yesterday to do it again today. It is too much of a task, and they did a good job.
Okay, so today I need two sisters and one brother. Who are my volunteers? Or you can point to somebody if you want.
Okay, brother, you volunteer? Okay. That is one. Oh no, that is nice. That is a brother. Okay, there is a sister back there. We have got a second one. Do I see a third? Is it third? All right.
No, wait. Yeah, okay. So, one, two, three. We got it, right? All right. Now, from back there, you have to preach. All right. What a loud, wonderful, rich voice.
Faith to faith. Today we look at the way faith grows.
We have this verse in Romans Chapter 1:
For therein is revealed a righteousness of God by faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith.
From faith in its beginning—you are saved by faith—all the way to the end: to the faith at the end. As it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
We looked last time. How many of you were not here last night? Okay, well, just a couple of notes about last time. We saw that faith was a powerful and mysterious thing because it connects us to the invisible God.
This is that connection where we believe and connect to the living God. It begins making major changes in our inner and outer life—this connection. Your salvation happened when you connected to God through Jesus Christ.
Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves. Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? unless indeed ye be reprobate.
And this is the test of our faith, the test of our salvation: Does Jesus Christ live in you? This is a very important, basic point of the gospel.
In John’s Gospel, the phrase “believe into Him” shows that living connection. Jesus is not dead; He is alive. If you believe in Him, you believe into Him. This morning, you should walk into Him. He is your postal address. You live in Christ.
And so you come into Him. You say, “Lord, I take You. Your precious blood is my salvation; Your love for me, I receive. I take Your wisdom for my life. I deny myself and follow You,” et cetera, et cetera. You are now living in another place.
This is the work of God: believing into Him. Living faith connects to a Person, not to things.
That is the second thing we looked at yesterday. So many people have faith in things: the almighty dollar tree, the astrological chart, and crystals.
If you have ever seen this bracelet, it is a very common bracelet for crystal users. It has a little angel dangling at the bottom, and the rest of it is, “You believe in chrysolite, and you believe in carbonite, and you believe in…” Tongues.
This is the holy rosary, if you have never seen one. Have you noticed the interesting process? You start with a Hail Mary—that is that lady in the middle there. “Hail Mary, Queen…” So you say, “Hail Mary,” then you move up the right side.
You do ten Hail Marys, then you get to the Glory Be and the Our Father, which means, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” And then you do the second mystery and ten more Hail Marys, then the Glory Be; then the third mystery and Our Father, then the ten Hail Marys.
This is how you say your rosary right all the way around. And if you do that faithfully every day, you will be a saint.
I was only kidding. I hope nobody misunderstands that.
Our life increases from faith to faith as we are connected to the living God.
Here is a long one:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes,
That which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life
(And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us);
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write, that our joy may be made full.
So John says, “We have entered into a life of fellowship with God the Father and God the Son, and we want to tell you about it so you can enter into it too.” You can talk to Him; He will talk back to you. This is a living, connected fellowship.
Moving from faith to faith means moving in life: the life of the Lord increasing in us from faith to faith.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
And that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
And this is the understanding of our life now: we live by faith in the Son of God. This life, ever increasing in us—increasing, increasing—this hidden, wonderful life.
Now today we want to look at three issues regarding growing faith. Now we are talking about faith growing to larger faith and growing to larger faith. How does faith grow?
So, how faith works is our first topic we are going to take up. The size of faith is the second matter we need to take up. And finally, growing in faith. So now we are looking at these matters from faith to faith.
Every religious person on this planet desires faith. There are many sincere people in all kinds of world religions, whatever it is; they all desire faith. They believe it is the key.
And many actions, deeds, vows, martyrdoms, and hopes are attempts to exercise faith. “I believe in something. I believe in Ganesh, the elephant, and so I have to exercise faith to gain the elephant’s approval.”
But most faith is not living, connecting faith, but rather a human-centered effort to convince some higher power to do something. “Please do something, please.”
Either a selfish request for our wonderful Mercedes, or even an unrealistic request that every Miss America always says: “I want to grant world peace.” Well, that is a wonderful prayer. Now, you actually think your prayer is going to make that come about?
I think that is a foolish prayer. Now, if you want to say, “I pray that Jesus will come back and set up His kingdom,” now you have prayed the right prayer. That is the only way there is going to be world peace.
But you know what I mean. That is a very sentimental thing. You can get even a crystal worshiper to say, “Hear, hear. Amen, amen. World peace”—especially so I do not need to be afraid anymore.
You know, many people in Manhattan are really hoping for no more terrorism—world peace. We hope every bad person goes away and falls into a hole. There are all kinds of prayers. And that is because the World Trade Center came down and everybody is afraid, so we want world peace more than you do.
But what kind of prayers are these, huh?
But now, here is the deal. So when you have this human-effort kind of faith thing, how does it work? Basically, faith is thought to be a mind trick.
Here is the way it works. First, if you keep saying it, wanting it bad enough—that is the key.
I do not know if any of you have ever read J. D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, but at one point—I think it was Franny; it could be Zooey—she went around saying, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” all day long.
And her friend said, “What are you doing that for?” She said, “Well, if I keep saying it enough, I will believe in Him.”
And many religions repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat, see. “If I keep saying it, wanting it bad enough, plus I keep the right conditions—cross my fingers, deny reality long enough—then your mind makes it happen.” It is the power of faith.
Or else the powers upstairs begrudgingly give you your request just to get you off their backs. Now, whoever the god is, he does not like you very much. You know that, because you are a creep—just like all the other creeps on this earth.
But when you pray, if you pray long enough, if you pray hard enough, if you pray believing enough, if you deny reality—“I believe, I believe,” which means, “I know I do not believe, but I am trying to believe”—and if you fulfill the right conditions, shave your hair off, wear red lipstick all over your face, whatever it is, then maybe the powers upstairs will say, “Ah, well, there is Dana down there. I hate to answer his prayers, but I guess I have to. He fulfilled all the rules.”
That is what we think praying is like. Now, there are a lot of Christians who believe the same thing.
Faith becomes a huge work with much effort and many complicated systems, like some kind of a big machine. Have you ever seen the faith machine? Okay, here is what it looks like.
Now, this happens to be the German model. This is the best. Some people say the Japanese model is the best, and a few Chinese are chiming in that their model is the best, but this is the best faith machine there is: “I am a believing machine and a-praying-and-hoping machine.”
This is a machine that works. Do you have this machine? In order to live by faith, you need to get you something like this: “I am a believing machine and a-praying-and-hoping machine.”
Ah, let us see how it works. First, you have door-knocking-for-request-making. So you knock on the door: “Hello, hello, please, please, I need this.”
Then you have perpetual hand-in-the-air pumping: “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” Surely this will be heard.
If this does not work, uh-oh: the loophole-and-hole-in-for-answer-coming. Uh-oh. The prayer leaked out those windows. You did not seal them properly. Oh no, no wonder—the loophole. Now the mighty powers do not need to answer your prayer.
So, but on the other side, you have a Datenbank für gute Werke. Ah, yeah, now you say, “Ah, good God, God, God, I do many things. Yeah, I am good, very good, very good. Look at my database—Datenbank für gute Werke.” Surely the prayer must be answered.
And then there is also a coin slot for grease bribing. Just in case, you know—every god loves money—so you just chuck a little money in the little slot. Of course, now the prayer surely will be answered.
And, jawohl, answer comes. Ah, the prayer gets answered. Oh, and there it is. The prayer has been answered. Ah yes, but uh-oh: the doubt-and-leakage valve. Why did you doubt? Oh, there it goes. It was going to be answered, but you doubted, and out of the leakage valve went your prayer.
Oh, you have got to start all over again with the “God, God, God” pumping. Uh-oh.
Ah, but we have the Visa-card machine for future-deal making. Do not forget, you can always put in some more. Maybe He will listen.
And do not forget, underneath it all is the gas burner for extra heat and puffing: bitte, bitte, bitte, bitte—which means, “Please, please, please, please, please, please, please.” You can always get up the heat of any prayer by just saying, “Please, please,” over and over again.
And if that does not work, you finally resort to desperate stair-crawling-and-kissing. You crawl up each stair, you kiss each stair, you say, “God, God, God, God.” You say, “Bitte, bitte, bitte, bitte.” You pump some more, you put in some more money. This is how faith works.
Ah, yes. Have you ever seen this one? Yeah, well, the Chinese model goes “chua, chua,” but, you know, other than that, they all have their models.
But that is not living faith, ladies and gentlemen. All of that effort, all of that struggling, all of that work—that is not living faith.
Living faith utilizes two machine parts: the heart and the mouth. Now, I think everybody here has both. If you do not have a heart, then please get a stretcher quickly.
Notice Paul’s statement regarding faith in Romans 10:8-10:
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart:
That is, the word of faith, which we preach.
The word of faith—where is it? It is near you. How near? As near as the closest machine? Oh, it is as near as your heart and your mouth.
Faith is within. It is very near. It involves the mouth; it involves the heart.
The heart of a person—wait, wait, you have got the top part?
Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved:
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Notice that: if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and you believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Now, that is faith.
For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness; with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Just a two-part mechanism here. Very important parts, huh?
You have to confess with the mouth, believe with the heart. And this is not just for salvation. This goes on and on in your Christian life.
So we can see the importance of the heart in believing by many other verses, such as:
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea;
And shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass;
He shall have it.
All right, now you can yell at a mountain all day long, but if you do not believe in your heart, you are wasting your time. First, there has got to be that conviction there, and then you speak the words, and it happens. Another verse:
O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!
Slow of heart to believe, because that is where the believing takes place. Another verse:
And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
This is Philip talking to the Ethiopian eunuch. “If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptized here in the water.” You see the importance of the heart.
Now, there are three vital lessons that we can see by understanding faith in the heart and the mouth. First of all, faith is never self-initiated. That is, you decide you are going to believe something. No. Faith is sparked by a word given to the heart.
So in Romans 10:8, “The word is near you.” And that word, word, there in Romans, for those interested, is rhema, which means a living word comes to you. Something comes into your heart and says, “You can do that. I want you to do this.” Just something comes to you like that.
See, that is the first thing we have to learn. It is not initiated by ourselves. Faith is not based on nothing: “I just believe something with no substance.” Faith has already received the substance. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. There was some kind of word that brought conviction to you, even though you cannot see it yet.
The word—this word that comes to you—could be a Scripture, or just a thought, an impression, a promise, a voice.
And then this seed-word implanted in your heart enables us to connect with God in our heart by faith. I have to look up James 1:21.
That is good. We needed a little break here. How are we coming? Got a Bible yet? All right.
Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
The implanted word. That word is implanted in your heart, you see.
And at this point, that word has come into your heart. Now there is an action to be taken in your heart: it must mix the word with faith. Here is a wonderful verse from Hebrews Chapter 4:
For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they:
But the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not mixed with faith in them that heard.
So it is as if a word comes into your heart and you have a certain period of time to act on that word. The children of Israel—this is talking about when they were at the border of the Promised Land, and God said, “Go in. I am giving you the land.”
They sat there with that promise in their heart, but they did not mix it with faith and say, “Let us go.” Their heart just could not believe that God would give them that land. And so they did not believe. They did not mix it with faith.
And after a while, that promise goes away. I mean, too late.
And so a word comes to you to act on. But in your heart is where you decide what you are going to do. Your heart is the central decision-maker of your life.
What are you going to do? This is not just a word in your brain. This is a word in your heart that says you must take action.
And then the mouth comes into play. First, there was a word; second, into the heart; and now the mouth has the task of confessing what the heart believes.
“Jesus is Lord” is what it says in Romans 10:9. Confessing actually means to agree with. So what are we talking about? The mouth agrees with both what the word spoke when it came into your heart and with what your heart believes. So your mouth speaks.
This seals the deal, and whatever is happening becomes a reality at that point: a word into the heart, spoken out with the mouth, and it gets done.
The mouth actually performs a twofold task. One, it confesses to the hearing heart the word of God and quickens faith. In other words, sometimes you speak to yourself and say, “Believe in God,” based on this conviction of the word.
But second of all, you also confess before others what the heart believes. So let us look at these two verses: Psalm 43:5 and Mark 11:23.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
And why art thou disquieted within me?
Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him,
Who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
Now here we see David, and he is speaking to himself. He is saying, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” He has a conviction: he needs to hope in God.
And so he is actually reversing the process of depression by confessing the word that is true: “Hope in God. I will yet praise Him. Stop being downcast.”
Do you know you can actually talk to your soul? Your soul can change its mind, but it has got to be talked to from the heart. If it is talked to from just your mind, it is just a lot of blabber, you see.
And then Mark 11:23:
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea;
And shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass;
He shall have it.
Okay, so now here we are out at Bear Mountain. The Lord says, “Move that mountain into the sea.” Now, if you stand there and you believe that in your heart, but you just go—nothing happens.
But as soon as you go, “Be moved,” then it gets moved. See, the deal is not sealed when it is just faith in your heart until you say it.
That is why so many young people who believe in the Lord Jesus but have not really confessed it before people—it is like it is not complete in them. It is like God has done something, but it is not complete yet.
But when they open their mouth, and through baptism they say, “I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord, and I am confessing that,” then suddenly their life takes on a new spurt. And you can see a change in their life.
It is because the mouth has that vital place of confessing and, as it were, releasing those things that are in your heart.
So we just look at these simple matters about how faith works. It is just these three things: the word, the heart, the mouth.
It does not take man’s psychic strength and religious machinery to have faith. Faith is initiated by a word to an open heart. The good heart believes and tells the mouth to say so. The mouth releases inner faith out into the open for God’s glory. That is the way faith works.
That is why the Lord has you say at times in your life, “I believe the Lord has given me this. I believe the Lord will do this,” before it happens.
Because it is when you get out on the limb and confess that openly, then when the Lord does it, who gets the glory? The Lord does.
And if He does not do what you thought, who gets drubbed? You. Well, we have to learn that lesson. Basically, it is a risk. But if you confess what the Lord has put in your heart, He will bring it to pass, and God will get the glory.
I do not know if you have ever done this, but sometimes you are praying for a friend and the Lord says to you, “I am going to save them.” Now you need to believe that. And you need to go and talk to that person based on this faith that you have in the heart, released through the mouth.
So faith grows from faith to faith as it is released from the heart through the mouth.
Okay, now we talk about the size of faith. You notice the Lord rebuked the disciples several times for their little faith. Here is an example of one right here:
And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?
Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
All right, now the boat was filling with water. They were going down. And the disciples got afraid. They woke up Jesus, and He said, “Why do you have little faith?”
Then He rebuked the winds, and they calmed down. But He said, “Why do you have little faith?” Well, He said that to them a number of times. We even saw some yesterday. It eventually led the disciples to make this request:
And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
Now, how big does your faith have to be? How big is your faith?
Most Christians believe they have too little faith. “Do you have too little faith? How big is your faith? This big? How about this big? This big? How about this big? How big is your faith?”
“I do not have enough faith. Oh, if I just had more faith. Sometimes I think God is talking to me. I am not sure. I do not have enough faith. I need more faith. Yeah, give me more faith. If I only had more faith.”
“I can never throw a mountain into the sea.” Of course, it is not talking about mountain moving, you know. It is talking about other problems in your life.
And you must have faith the size of a mountain to move a mountain. “Ah, I need more faith.” So I start pumping it up: “I believe, I believe. I believe for every drop of rain that falls.” You try to pump it up, pump it up. “I believe, I believe more. I believe more. I believe more and more. I believe more.”
Then you say, “Move, mountain,” and nothing happens. “I did not get it mountain-size. I just had hill-size faith. I could not move that mountain,” you see.
But Jesus answered His disciples—what is that? It is what? A pearl, no? Any of you ever have this kind? It is a very popular necklace—used to be, like, two hundred years ago, when I was saved, you know?
Okay? And the Lord said:
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would obey you.
Okay, the disciples said, “Oh Lord, increase our faith. Give us a bigger dosage. Put a big pipe in our mouth and pump us up with more faith.”
The Lord said, “What, more faith? This is all the faith you need: mustard-seed size.” That is a mustard seed inside. They make a little necklace. You can get one for fifteen bucks down at the Christian bookstore.
Anyway, that is all you need. You do not need more faith. You need this faith. “Oh, wait a minute, I thought I needed this.” No, you do not need this faith; you need that faith.
How many of you have mustard-seed faith? Ah, you have got mustard-seed faith. A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds around. You can hardly see it. That is you.
Ah, so the issue is not the size of your faith, but the exercise of the faith. Ah, size, exercise. You get that? You know? You see?
The Lord simply wants a believer to say so, and then He does the work. What, do you think you are going to move the mountain?
So the issue really is this: you do not need big faith. If you have got this and exercise it, and you have little faith in a big God, it is done.
Why do you think you need big faith? See, that is our biggest excuse for not exercising faith. We have a big God. Oh, He needs a little bit of faith, and it works, you see.
James 2 talks about faith that exercises versus faith that just talks. How many of you have faith that talks? Ah, you are all good talkers.
You all say, “Ah, I believe the Bible. I believe Jesus can raise the dead. I believe in healing. I believe He can feed the multitudes. I believe ravens can come and feed me. I believe Los Angeles is in New York City. I believe.”
Okay, you have got all kinds of things you believe. You believe the Bible, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, how much are you exercising? How much do you take just one little word of the Bible, like one little sentence, and exercise it?
Forget saying, “I believe the whole Bible.” What does that mean? I mean, I understand what you are saying, but we are talking about the exercise of it. So now listen to James here, very practical guy.
Where are we at? Who is doing James? Okay.
Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.
Yeah, and then it goes on to say, you know, even the devil believes. What good does it do him? He is not exercising it, you see.
Ah, then we go on with more:
Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God.
And Abraham was called the friend of God because he believed, and he exercised that faith.
So the Lord says, “You are going to have a kid.” So he goes to Eleazar, his servant, and he says, “Here, Eleazar, have a cigar.” “What do I have a cigar for?” “Because I had a kid.” He says, “You do not have a kid.” “But I am going to have a kid. God said.”
And he started saying, “I am going to have a kid.” He believed. Ah, so his works went along with the faith.
Of course, it was talking about this particular work in Scripture where Abraham offered up his son Isaac, willing to sacrifice his son Isaac for the Lord. He proved his faith. He actually did.
The Lord spoke to him with this strange voice and said, “I want you to offer your only son, your beloved son Isaac, up as an offering.” And as strange as that voice was, he knew—because he was one hundred twenty years old or so—that it was God, and he went and did what God said.
And of course, he did not have to sacrifice in the end. Our faith grows when we complete our faith with works.
Now, almost everybody here has a friend that the Lord has said to you, “Psst, witness to them.”
Now most of you say, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, that was just that pasta primavera we had in the cafeteria. Oof, that could not be God.”
“Witness to your friend, that one.” “No, no, no, Lord, not that one. That one is the smartest guy in the school. I do not have a chance with him. Give me somebody dumb to witness to. Witness to that guy.”
Okay, now how are you ever going to know if it was God or not? One way: go witness to them. The worst that can happen is they can hit you with a brick.
Would you be surprised how accurate God is when He nudges you about your friend or a schoolmate or something, that there is something He has already prepared? And you just go and witness to them, and they say, “I have already been prepared.”
Now, I am not saying when you witness, they are going to get saved. But you may be one of those people who help them come to a real knowledge of the Lord. Why do you not just do it?
Do you have faith? This is what we are talking about now, are we not?
Now you heard an impression. How do you know if this impression is true or not? I bet you we could close our eyes right now and I could say, “Lord, show us if there is somebody we need to witness to,” and somebody would come into your mind.
Because that is one of the activities of a young Christian that is most important: for you to stand by your faith and witness to others. Do not be a secret, bushel-covered, smoke-filled Christian.
But you have to be willing to take the risk, you see? Faith has this: “I do not know. It could be good, maybe. I do not know. I think I should do it.”
Now, you know, obviously if you hear a voice saying, “Step out in front of a car,” do not do it. I mean, God is not talking that, do you? You know, I mean, people get silly about this.
But just something that is obviously a good thing that the Lord would want you to do—well, you need to really ask the Lord at least, “Lord, is this You?” And if you sense a confirmation, do it.
It is not the size, but the exercise.
Ah, good enough. The growth of faith. Now let us use the life of David to illustrate faith’s growth. Now, you might be surprised by how faith grows in some of these aspects.
But David was called a man after God’s heart. His heart is in the middle of this thing. He loved God. He wanted to do what pleased God’s heart, and his heart was open to God. Right?
Acts 13:22. Where are we at?
I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who shall do all My will.
Now, what does it mean for David to be a man after God’s heart? God explains: “He will do all My will.” If you are a person who has a heart for God, then you want to do God’s will. This is what this is talking about.
Now David was faithful, first of all, as a shepherd boy. Now, you say that has nothing to do with faith. Oh yes, it does.
In our youth, it is essential to learn responsibility in family tasks. Do you understand what that means? Even in the house of God, in your church when you gather.
It is very important at a young Christian age that you learn responsibility in whatever tasks have been given you, as simple as they may be, because there is a secret behind it.
The secret to David’s development and leadership was his character developed when he was faithful in moments that we do not think make any difference.
I mean, how important could be listening to your parents at home? Forget about it. That does not count, right? Oh yes, it does.
And if you really want to please God, you start by being responsible where you are—in the fellowship you are in, in the house you are in. And you will find, as you learn God’s faithfulness, that God will begin to use this in your life.
As an example, David’s faith grew as he relied upon God in the crises of his early life. Now this is a picture of David. What is he doing here?
This is the time that he broke the jaw of the lion who had stolen one of the lambs. And he ripped that lamb out of the lion’s mouth. I do not know what happened to the lamb.
And anyway, in his protection and his duty as a shepherd, guess what? He discovered he had this gift. There was a courage. There was some kind of courage by faith he had.
Now, you know, David just does not go around looking for lions to rip up. But David wanted to be faithful as a shepherd. And when it came time and this threat came upon him, suddenly he had the faith and the courage.
And I will bet you first he tore up the lion, and then afterwards he thought about it: “Man, what did I just do?”
But what he did was, he was faithful to what God had given him to do, and he discovered his gifts. So now where are you going to discover your gifts of service and ministry and everything?
It is when you are faithful to do what you have been asked to do at home, at church—these things. There is a secret here in this early lesson of life: faith exercised in small things prepares us for greater future tasks that lay ahead. Right?
What did this prepare David for according to the Word of God? Goliath.
When it came to fighting Goliath, he told King Saul, “You know what? I tore up a lion and I tore up a bear.” You see, that little history in his background prepared him to face this huge giant that was standing in front of him now.
David’s heart of private worship strengthened his faith. Now wait a minute—morning devotions, that strengthens our faith? Singing a song, getting a little songbook and singing some song all by yourself, alone with God, out on a bench somewhere during WCCC?
David’s worship gift developed as he found words to describe his heart’s faith in God. You know, if you just take a little guitar and plunk it around—all you need is a C chord and a G chord. Good enough.
Just plunk around in C chord and G: “God, You are good. God, You are great. God, I see Your heavenly face.” And you start to express your faith in God in words.
Just think of all the psalms that David wrote. And what were they? They were articulations of things in the heart, convictions there. And as he spoke them, his faith grew.
And all of this is while he was a little boy. There he is, strumming his guitar—his electric lyre, whatever that thing is.
And all of this time, you know what is happening? Faith is growing. Do you open your Bible, read some verses, and then say them out loud? Even that increases your faith, you know, as simple as that is.
“Oh, look what this says: ‘The Lord is for me; whom have I to fear?’” If you say it out loud, it just does not go through that—you know, that you have the express train. You read it with your eye; it goes right out of your brain.
But stop the express train, say the words, and something you pick up there helps you out. Well, here is a secret of daily confession and life before the Lord: private worship is a key to strengthening faith in a living God.
When it comes time for the crunch, if you have been faithful and your faith has been growing in the private place, you will be ready for those public moments where you have to take a stand for faith.
Of course, David’s public moment really was his stand against Goliath. What a formidable beast this Goliath was. The whole army of Israel was afraid of him, including King Saul.
But those things in his past, those things that you think are a waste of time—his devotional moments, his singing to the Lord, his being faithful at home—all of that was preparing and growing his faith for this public moment where he stood his ground.
David’s faith could see through the enemy’s threats to the Lord who reigned over the enemy. He said:
Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin:
But I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
“Do you think you can get away with blaspheming the Lord’s name? Ah, no, you cannot.” You see, King Saul never thought about that.
But Goliath had misstepped when he started defying the living God, and David could see right through it. “You know what? You are toast, because you defied God. It is not me against you; it is God against you, and you lose.”
Now that is faith. That is a big move. Then he picked up little pebbles. I mean, that is even scarier. But anyway.
The secret to victory: fear God, and your enemies will always be seen in their true perspective.
When we fear our enemy, like King Saul did, there is no hope for victory. But fear God the most, and your enemy suddenly comes to proportions.
Number five: David grew some more in those years. He trusted God during the years of his exile and pursuit. You know, King Saul became insanely jealous and drove David out, and for more than ten years, most likely, he was hiding in caves.
Now you say, “Oh man, what kind of faith is that?” Trust is the feminine side of faith, as I call it. There is faith which we call action, where you take a step out, you speak with your mouth. This is like an aggressive side—that is why I call it the male side.
But then the female side of faith is trusting when there is nothing you can do about it, and you still believe God even though the times are tough.
David is sitting in a cave. He used to sit in the courts of the king. It is tough, but he trusted, you see. He held on to the promise when Samuel had anointed him.
And he held on to his calling in the dark days of testing and waiting. And there is a secret to these trials: faith must learn to trust and wait for God to arrange our destiny.
Faith does not mean, you know, “I believe I am a great man of God,” and so you step out, is it? Faith may believe that God is calling you to serve Him, but you just do whatever is given to you in the smallest ways and be faithful.
And trust God that, when your time comes, He will raise you up to fuller service in the future. This is faith that trusts.
And boy, faith that is a short one-hundred-meter sprint has got to grow from faith to faith, which has endurance, which believes when things are not answered immediately. Ah, this is another dimension of faith.
David, furthermore, trusted the men God had given him. And that is why men respected David like no other king in Israel.
There were other kings who were more righteous, actually, than David because of his sins. But one thing can be said: no man was more loved by his fellow leaders, soldiers, and the common men than David.
Because David’s heart inspired the loyalty of these men: Jonathan, and then the mighty men who stood with him in his exile and trials in the cave.
Why would these men waste all their time waiting with David for all of these years while he was on the run? They were inspired by his heart.
They were inspired by his loyalty to the men, and so they were loyal to him. You remember the stories of them running to get him water and stuff during the battle. They were loyal to him, always loyal to him.
Of course, this is a secret of leadership. You know, leadership—you have to lead by faith. There are so many people so afraid of leadership. Why? Because when you lead, you will be criticized. Write that down if you are a leader.
If you lead by God’s grace, you will be criticized. You cannot avoid it. So some people avoid criticism and they do not lead, and people just fall apart.
If you are leading a young people’s group, you must lead and ask God to help you. But how do you lead? You lead as a fellow laborer.
And that is how people respect you: not by reigning over people, remaining separate. It is amazing, is it not? We give somebody a responsibility—it is just some small job in fellowship life—and suddenly they are like the king of the territory.
You know, you say, “Okay, hey, Charlie, how about coming a little early and arranging chairs on Sunday?” Suddenly Charlie is the chair king. “Do not move that chair over there. I want it over there.”
“No, I want a semicircle with an arc of one hundred fourteen degrees. What are you doing? You may have made one hundred twelve.” You know, what happened to you?
This guy—I mean, when we lead, we lead as an example with coworkers. Many lessons.
By faith, King David put the kingdom of God first when he finally became king. Is that not amazing? He did not put himself first, even when he became king.
And that would be the one time you would think you could just kind of sit back and say, “Okay, peel the grapes for me, will you?”
But as soon as he became king, he took Jerusalem. Why? Because up to the time of David, God did not have a city. He had no place to put His temple. Jerusalem was not in the hands of Israel; it was in the hands of Jebusites.
First thing he did when he became king: “Let us go take Jerusalem” for the kingdom of God.
He brought in the ark. He defeated the enemies by faith. The secret to anointed authority: when God has chosen you, your anointing will prove your calling.
And he became king, and you could see that he had this heart for God that continually thought about what God wanted in his life.
In the end, we know, according to Acts Chapter 13, by faith David served the purpose of God in his generation. He saw into the heart of God regarding the house of God.
And here is the secret to serving God’s purpose. Now many people serve. Some people serve a church, some people serve a mission society, people serve InterVarsity, people serve things. But to serve God’s purpose, you need to desire that which satisfies God and let that be your motive.
Well now, these are things, and every step of these eight were steps of faith growth. By obedience, by keeping his heart open, he grew in faith and grew in faith as a man of God.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, God gives you the same challenge of growing from faith to faith—the same challenges David had.
God has already provided the circumstances in your life for the exercise of living and growing faith, just as in David’s life.
Now, you know what? Right where you are at in your school, right where you are at in your job, whatever you are doing, the opportunities are already there. Do you see them?
If you do not see them, it is because there is a problem with the open heart, you see.
He is looking in the secret place. That means when you speak to the Lord, He is looking in the secret place for a heart and a mouth confessing the words He implants within the heart.
Are you doing that? Are you hiding the word of God in your heart that you might not sin against God? Are you serious about this thing?
God is looking for that. Do not think God does not know you. He knows you very well. And He knows your weaknesses, your frailties, and all, but He is looking. He says, “Does she have a heart for Me?”
It is proven by the word, and it is proven by confession. Do you have a heart for the Lord? He is looking even now.
Even how you are going through this thing, you say, “I want to get out of here.” Well, are you willing to listen with an open heart?
He is presenting opportunities in the daily responsibilities of your life to stand for God, even before Goliaths when they come up.
If you really live for God, Goliath will come in your life and challenge you and say, “You cannot go forward.” But God will have you ready for those moments if you will be faithful in between.
Maybe He has impressed you about someone you should witness to. Maybe you sense some good work He has already prepared for you to perform.
There are many good works that God has prepared for you to accomplish individually.
Maybe He is convicting you to turn away from something that is hanging on to you from the old life. And every time you come near to God, every time you go to a conference, you start to sense this—God saying, “Turn away. Repent. Move away from that.”
Will you do it?
Maybe there is a mystery He wants you to discover through a dedicated study of the Word. Have you ever taken seriously that you could be a student of the word of God? It just takes a little daily study before the Lord.
The question really is: will you obey the voice that is in your heart right now?
How near is faith? It is as near as your heart. Is there a voice speaking in your heart about something He wants you to do? If you have an open heart, there is probably something there.
Of course, we remember David’s life also revealed three thieves of heart faith. The first thief, of course, is sin.
David learned that sin has the tragic consequence of cutting him off from the living God. Who is that turn to read? Okay.
Okay, you know, this is when David sinned with Bathsheba, and yet he realized really, in essence, it was against God that he sinned. And he cut off that life, that living faith, because of his sin.
And he comes in repentance. Probably all of you have read Psalm 51 at times. It is a whole psalm of repentance because he wants to come back.
“Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation. I want to be connected again by faith. Oh, cleanse me with hyssop. Cover me with Your blood,” basically, he said.
You see? This prayer of faith. He realizes he has been disconnected by sin.
The second one is unbelief. Unbelief is a thief of faith. David became fearful of his enemies and, in unbelief, took a troop census with tragic results.
This is David standing there as the king, and there is Araunah, whose threshing floor he was willing to give. David realized that after taking the census, he had done something terrible because God sent the plague upon Israel.
But it is out of this plague, because David asked for mercy—you know what happened as a result of this plague? Anybody know? The positive side?
I mean, he offered a sacrifice, and the angel of death stopped wielding the sword. But I mean, what positively happened out of this terrible tragedy?
You know, because of David’s faith, he asked God for mercy. He always had a heart for God, and so God would turn even tragedies into something good.
Of course, Bathsheba was the one who bore Solomon. That is good news. And here, this tragic event right here—what eventually happened?
This threshing floor became—nobody knew where the temple should be, but it was right here.
Having built this altar right here, the Lord said, “That is the place. Build your house right there. That is the spot.” And that is the spot where the children of Israel built the temple of God.
The third: the flesh. That cuts us off from faith. David did the right thing in the wrong way and suffered the tragic consequences of his overconfidence.
What is this a picture of? Can anybody tell?
What is that? The time that Uzzah got killed by touching the ark. You remember that? David said, “We have got to bring the ark up to Jerusalem.” That is the right idea. But they did it the wrong way, on an ox cart.
You see, but he had such self-confidence that he was doing the right thing that he did the right thing in the wrong way.
Fleshly confidence—we will talk about this tomorrow—sometimes thinks it is faith: boldly doing God’s will, as was the case with David. But he saw tragically that that is not what happens.
Despite his sins and failures, his heart remained perfect toward God. Now wait a minute, wait a minute. All right, who is reading this verse?
For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods;
And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
Solomon got old, and his heart turned away because of his wives. So men, do not get married. It is enough time. No.
Listen, if it is not your wives, it will turn away something else. So, you know, you have got to hang in there.
But anyway, you notice in this comparison it says that David’s heart remained perfect. Wait a minute, I thought there was Bathsheba. There was the census. There was the ark incident. How can you say—what does that mean? How can a heart be perfect toward God even when we sin?
David’s desire was always to remain connected to the living God. You know, he was not perfect in his life, but his heart was always there for the Lord.
When Nathan the prophet came in and told him what he had done with Bathsheba and exposed him, he immediately fell and asked for forgiveness. He did not hide; he did not make excuses, because all he wanted was his heart right with God.
So Psalm 73:25:
Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.
Now you, as a young person or as an older person, it makes no difference—you will still sin and do things wrong. But where is your heart? Where is your heart?
You can actually be a pretty good person, but your heart really not be for the Lord.
And you may be somebody really struggling, but you know something? Here is the deal: the Bible says the Lord does not look on the outward man; He looks on the heart.
And some people who are struggling the most in their Christian life really have a heart for the Lord. And do you not know the Lord sees that and is willing to help you?
This Christian life is not a matter of outward things. So much of it has to do with: where is your heart?
Can you say this? “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? There is no one on earth that I desire beside Thee.” David’s heart was, as this silly picture shows, captured by the Lord.
Watch out. Remember the three robbers of faith.
Ah yes, we will mention three here. Sin? Uh-oh. There is mi corazón. She is behind bars. Uh-oh, let us read the Scripture:
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God.
We love it: “If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence.” But you see, when we have sin in our lives, our heart has a conscience, and our conscience becomes condemned.
You cannot pray a prayer of faith when you have sin that you know is in your life. You understand that.
How could you pray with a heart that is full of the Lord when you have got sin there? Your conscience is bothering you.
So John is saying, well, God is greater than your conscience. He knows all things. But listen, if your conscience is clear, you can pray with faith.
So many people’s prayers leak out because they know that there is something wrong there in their heart. You have got to deal with your conscience and not let sin cut you off from living faith.
Second, oops, is law. What is that believing machine? It is a law of how you get things, basically.
And so we have these Scriptures. Let us read both of them:
He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth He it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Now the law is not of faith; but, He that doeth them shall live in them.
The law is not of faith. If you set up a whole system of laws in your Christian life, I am telling you, you are going to be in bondage and not have this freedom to believe and trust, to speak a word He puts in your heart.
Such a simple thing, but we like complication, and that is where the law comes in as our tutor.
And the flesh, as we have already said with David—sometimes the flesh acts boldly, thinking it is faith, but the results are death to faith. Scripture:
Are ye so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are ye now perfected by the flesh?
So whoever exercises fleshly faith ends up in a deadly compromise. You know, there are many people who serve the Lord, and they get this self-confidence going, and then they start saying things like this: “God told me.”
That is why I had this thing here: “God told me so-and-so.” And they make these huge claims, and they lift up themselves in some kind of ministry or something: “But God told me.”
But all it was was their own flesh telling them. And they get deceived on things. And this is the way the destruction comes when our flesh gets out in front of our hearts.
Well, are you ready to fight the good fight of faith? Did you know that the faith you have, you have to fight for? To keep that heart open before the Lord, you have to fight for it. All right? Scripture:
Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called,
And didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses.
Take hold of the eternal life. By faith, fight the good fight of faith. Do not let go of that faith, you see.
Are you ready to fight the good fight of faith to avoid shipwreck?
Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith.
How can your faith get shipwrecked? It is if you do not fight the good fight and keep faith and a good conscience.
Once your conscience goes bad, your faith goes bad. Your faith gets shipwrecked.
Are you ready to fight to keep your heart open?
Lord in your heart. And, well, that is not part of the verse.
Are you ready to keep your heart open? What is the key? Well, in the morning, you go and say, “Lord, I give You my heart. Keep my heart. Oh, cleanse me by Your precious blood, Lord. Keep me, Lord. I want to fight the fight. I want to be faithful, but I need You.”
And so I consecrate myself today. “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.” This is so important.
Okay, the next time we will be looking at the testing of faith. And you have been very good. Let us just have a prayer, and we will go.
Lord, we know that the things of God are simple, direct, costly.
We know that to keep an open heart is a fight of faith, and there are many things in our life that work against it: unconfessed sin, the flesh and all of its strength, the law which comes to lay hold of us.
So many things.
Lord, if it were just a matter of us being smart enough, we could never handle all the traps that await a man of faith. But You keep us, and by Your Spirit You lead us in a living way.
Lord, take our lives as we consecrate them before You now. We would sanctify Christ as Lord of our hearts.
And we pray, Lord, that we would have a heart after You, even as David did; that our faith would grow as we exercise that mustard seed of faith.
Oh, let it grow. Lord, keep these things in our hearts and minds. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.