The Stages of Our Faith

Throughout Scripture, it is evident that God honors faith. Our wholehearted belief in the Lord is important because when we truly place our trust in Him, the Savior is glorified. Our Father wants us always to have confidence that He will fulfill His promises.

This message is part of the series, “In the School of Faith.” To watch more, go to intouch.org/tv. For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast, go to www.intouch.org/watch

Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week..

Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

If you want to deal with difficult things in your life, you’ve got to set your focus on God.
He’s the one who has all power. He’s the one who loves you unconditionally.
He’s the one who’s made promise he’s gonna keep. And he’s the one who never changes.
Great faith has focus on God. And it doesn’t waver today on in touch, the stages of our faith.
And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, baptized on them in the name of the father of the son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to serve man and I’m with he, even to the end of the age, it is very clear in scripture that Jesus always honored faith.
And so he does today. And if somebody ask you, well, how much faith do you have?
You really couldn’t answer that. The only way, you know how much faith you have is when you get it tested and it’s tried that storms in your life, difficult and hardship and need and then you respond in a certain way.
Well, it’s very evident in scripture that God honors faith because it honors him, not to believe Him is to dishonor him.
And you know, it’s interesting that Jesus said to his disciples in different ways, have faith in God and they in turn responded well, you know, uh how do you, how do, how do we increase our faith?
There was give us faith, what they didn’t even understand really all that was going on in their lives when he was talking about faith.
And so it’s interesting how very important faith was in Jesus mind because if you turn to the 16th chapter of Mark and in the 16th chapter, of course, he’d already been resurrected.
And the scripture says in the 14th verse, afterwards, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at the table.
And he reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen.
Other words, his heart was broken. And he was saying, what is this with you all this?
This is not one of those little. Well, I hope y’all understand.
No, he was coming down hard on them because he tried to teach them faith.
That was one of his primary objectives.
As we’ve seen the first two messages for them to learn to believe that he will do what he says, that God is who he says he is and he can be trusted.
And now even after the resurrection, they still didn’t believe one of the strongest things.
And if you think about this, the reason I think Jesus was so strong about it was because the truth is that every single aspect of our life is affected by a faith.
Your prayer is affected by your faith. Your giving is affected by your faith.
The truth is your health and, and your healing is affected by your faith.
Your relationships are affected by your faith.
In fact, every single aspect of our life, our faith is involved and think about when it all began, it all began.
When you were a little child, you didn’t even know what was going on.
It doesn’t take a child very long to realize that once he can do something, he has faith or she has faith to do it again and again and again, faith is an absolute vital part of your life, no matter what the object of your faith is.
If the object of your faith is other than God, that’s a whole different story because it’s the object of our faith that determines what the result is going to be.
And when I think about often times we struggle in our faith, people who are new Christians naturally struggle in their faith.
Things don’t turn out the way they expect and they’re talking to God and praying and asking him about it.
And if you think about this also that your success in life, your faith is a great determining factor.
When you ask God for something, your faith is a determining factor. God listen God’s use of you.
The way he uses you is gonna be determined to a great degree by your faith in him.
Are you willing to trust him? But what he requires of you.
And so we struggle and what I wanna do is I wanna put uh on the uh screens here, a list of things that uh I want you to jot them down because in the message I’m gonna come back to them.
And um I’m gonna ask you which one of these are two or three of these that are involved in this particular incident that we’re gonna talk about.
So, what I want us to see here is this, I want us to see why we struggle and some of the things that make us struggle, the obstacles we deal with.
And the first one is human reason.
For example, there are many things that God may say to us that are unreasonable.
He may tell you to do something. Listen, that’s not unreasonable to him.
That’s unreasonable to us because where we are in life at that point or what we have or what he’s requiring of us to do, which seems to be ab absolutely, totally unreasonable.
And so many times we miss his best blessing because it just doesn’t fit the way we think.
Reason is oftentimes a hindrance to faith.
Secondly, is living by sight, oftentimes if we can’t see it, that is if, if we don’t see our way clear if I, if I don’t see it.
And even though God may say, well, here’s what I’m going to do. It’s almost like we don’t trust him.
He’s got to prove it to us in some fashion.
You cannot live by faith and sight at the same time and then surrendering to our feelings if oftentimes and we’re challenged in some area and we just don’t feel like we can do it.
Then what happens, We often times lose it.
And I have a wonderful trainer and one day, uh, just a few weeks ago, he walked up to the weights and he said, uh, I want you to pick up that one.
I said I can’t do it.
Now, the reason I didn’t think I could do it is because I was looking at it.
That’s the reason not because I tried it because I was looking at it and I’d already decided that I couldn’t do it.
He picked them up and handed them to me.
And surprisingly, I could, I could lift that much weight and there’s not a big pile of weight for me.
But anyway, it was, it was a lot for me at that moment, but it taught me a lesson.
I already decided in my mind by looking at it. I haven’t even touched it.
I didn’t even know how much it was.
I could just tell the, I can’t pick that up and oftentimes our sight, our feelings, these things are great.
Interferences to our faith. And then of course, negative counsel by other people.
God challenge you to do something and you ask other people, which is a mistake.
You ask him, what do you think? Well, everybody has an opinion. What you wanna know is God’s opinion.
When He challenges you to do something, he will never challenge you to do something that He knows with his help, that you can’t do with His help.
You’re gonna be able to do whatever it may be. And then feelings of guilt.
One of the biggest problems, a lot of people’s faith is this. Instead of getting that focus right?
They look back on their past and they say, well, God certainly couldn’t do that for me now because look at what I did back here, here is what happened in my life and I shouldn’t have done that.
And I did this and I got involved in that and I was dishonest here and I lied there and immoral here and whatever it might be.
And so, instead of a, instead of asking God or reflecting on his forgiveness and his cleansing and the newness in your life, we just decided, no, we, we, we can’t do that.
God would. God can’t be that good to us.
And it’s amazing how that short circuits God’s blessing in a person’s life.
And then of course, neglecting the word of God.
If you neglect the word of God, your faith is gonna begin to wane a little bit because it’s the word, that’s the fuel of our faith.
When we are in the word of God, focusing upon what he’s done in the scriptures with other people, which he’ll do with us.
It’s a great enabler. And then of course, continuing in sin. When a person continues in sin, here’s what happens.
You short circuit faith in your life.
You cannot believe God for the things that He wants to do in your life.
When you’re living in sin, it short circuits it and you can boast anything you choose.
But God will never use you to the maximum of what he pleases to do what he chooses to do until sin is dealt with.
It doesn’t mean that you would never commit a sin, but you’re continuing in it.
And then Satan’s tactics, watch this. He wants us to doubt God because here’s what that does. We think.
Well, what’s a little doubt. Here’s what it is.
What He’s doing is He’s dividing our allegiance when he causes us to doubt. And unbelief in God.
What happens is if I don’t believe God, then I’m believing Him. He said no, no, no, no, no.
Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that if, if God challenged me to do something and I say no, because I don’t believe it’ll work and God’s telling me it will.
And the devil is telling me it won’t. And who am I gonna?
Who am I, who am I gonna believe? Satan? What did he say to Eve?
He said, oh, Eve look, you won’t surely die. No, no, no, no, no, not really. You won’t.
And naturally, of course he was lying and she fell for it and we’ve all been in trouble ever since.
So what I want you to see, I want you to jot those down because here’s what’s gonna happen during the week sometime when God challenges you in some area and you find yourself struggling, you can just turn the back of your Bible.
You wrote these down and said, now, what’s my problem?
Am I, am I my, is my feeling is I, this is not reasonable or I just don’t see my way clear or am I listening to somebody else?
What, what’s the reason that I can’t believe him and trust him?
So here’s a little something that you can go by that I think will help you understand what it is that’s causing you not to be able to trust Him in that particular given situation.
Now, remember this, that any attack upon your belief is an attempt by Satan to divide your allegiance from Him.
God himself to Satan. It’s like an undertow.
And if you’ve ever been in an undertow, I’ve been in 11 time and you can’t look at the water and tell what’s going on, you can be into it up to here or whatever it might be and it just looks like it’s normal, but deep down inside under it all is this strong pulling and it doesn’t pull you toward the shore, but away from the shore, when the tide goes out, it has this awesome power to pull you away.
And that’s exactly what unbelief does unbelief is like this, like this secret uh tide, this undertow pulling you away from God.
And that’s why you’re not to stay in the word. Here’s the anchor right here.
The word of God is the anchor.
We have to be in the word of God to be reminded of what God is saying so that we don’t look around and make decisions based on what we feel, what we see, what’s reasonable and all the rest.
So with that in mind, uh I want us to think about this whole idea in light of what the writer of Hebrews says, turn if you will to the 11th chapter and I won’t read much of this because the 11th chapter is primarily sort of a biography of uh of the saints of God in the uh in the uh scriptures in the Old Testament and how God worked in their life to bring about change and bring about miraculous things.
But he starts out the 11th chapter like this.
Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, that is assurance, confidence of what you’re hoping for and a conviction that is a conviction is a strong, strong feeling of something though you can’t see it.
Then he begins this biographical undergoing here. Then I want you to turn to the uh sixth verse.
Here’s what he says. And without faith, it’s impossible to please Him.
For He who comes to God must believe that He is and that he’s a rewarder of those who seek him.
Now, listen what he says. He says, it’s impossible to please God and not believe Him.
If you do not believe God, you cannot please God, it’s just that simple.
So when God challenges us to do something that we think is too hard, or we don’t think we’re adequate to do it.
And sometimes His challenges are big time. They’re strong. If I think no, no, no, I can’t do that.
Then what I’m saying is God, you’re asking me to do something that I cannot do. And that’s not fair.
And therefore, uh I don’t, I, I don’t, I don’t think I can handle that.
And so uh we’re displeasing God now, it doesn’t get any simpler than this.
He who comes to God must listen. We must believe Him to disbelieve Him is not to please Him.
So when you and I get into doubt and unbelief, we’re into a stage of displeasing God.
So the purpose for this whole message and this whole series is, is that you and I advance in faith that we find out where we are in our faith And so what I wanna talk about today are the stages of our faith and I wanna say this two or three times.
So you won’t forget it. Number one, I’m not saying that you go through all of these stages every time you are challenged to do something or that you must finally get to the place where you reach one stage and that’s where you are because that’s not the way it is.
All of us will face situations and circumstances in which we come to this first stage of faith and we have to deal with it.
But the, the the issue is this, am I hanging in there at the lowest stage or am I growing in my faith?
Am I instead of starting with stage one in this situation? Now, can I move straight to stage two?
Because I’m growing in my faith and it’s stronger than it was before.
And what I’m gonna do is give you a description of each of these stages and then illustrate it in the scripture.
And this list that we put up here a few moments ago, I want you to think about of what was going on uh in that particular area.
So stage number one is little faith. Little faith is restless faith. Little faith says this.
I know he can, at least I think he can. I know he could. I’m not sure he will.
I hope he will might be. But I’m just not certain about it.
In other words, little Faith says, I’m not certain about the facts. Little, little faith is struggling.
Little faith is trying to believe. I would not say that little faith is not sincere.
Little faith can be very sincere.
But the particular situation is such that the person says, well, you know, uh I would, I’d like to believe that, but I just don’t have any insurance and I don’t have any peace about it.
There’s one word I want you to remember and you’ll find these in each one of these illustrations.
I’m gonna give you the key word in faith is focus.
Write it down F O C us. The key word in faith is focus. Where is my focus.
And so I want to begin uh with uh the eighth chapter of um of Matthew.
And you know, this passage pretty well.
It’s in the 23rd verse of the eighth chapter when he got into the boat, his disciples follow him and behold, there was a great storm on the sea so that the boat was being covered with the waves.
But Jesus himself was asleep and they came to him and woke him saying, save us Lord, we are perishing.
He said to them, why are you afraid? You men of little faith?
Then he got up and rebuked the winds in the sea and it became perfectly calm.
And the men were amazed and said, what kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him.
Now, think about this, this Jesus on the boat and the storm comes up and the water starts pouring in and they get scared to death and they wake him up.
Now, this is just my own personal opinion. I wonder, I’m, I’m sure he must have been asleep.
The Bible says it was, but I wonder if, if the waves in the water had said awakened him and he was still lying there watching to see what they do.
If it have been me, that’s what I have been doing. I would have been ok.
I’ll see what they do because they were scared to death.
Now, what I want you to see is this, what is one of the things that you could see in that instant, that was one of their obstacles.
What’s that? Bye bye.
So they were going by sight, water’s coming in the boat and here’s, here’s the creator of everything sitting in the back waters and they’re scared to death.
Things is gonna sink. That’s one thing.
And so they were going by their feelings and that is we’re getting soaking wet, there’s water pouring in the boat and we know what happens when this boat gets full, it sinks.
The sea of Galilee is 13 miles long, 7.5 miles wide and 680 ft deep.
Now it’s not 680 ft deep everywhere, but they knew that was deep water.
So they had a reason to be fearful, but they had seen enough and heard enough and watched enough.
But their focus got off of him on the water, on the storm, onto the boat.
And what was happening? The same thing can happen to you and me.
If we get our focus off of God, it listen, it doesn’t take much to sink us.
And when you’re going through a very difficult time, the key is your focus.
And that is what am I looking at? Am I looking at him?
Who is the creator of everything, who has absolute supernatural power to do anything in all things?
Now let me say this. If something is not watch this carefully, if something is not the will of God, he’s not gonna change it because one of the biggest issues is in the whole issue of healing.
For example, if, if, if God’s gonna take me home, no matter how much I pray He is not going to change it by my prayers, if it’s his will, but what will he do?
He will work in my heart in such a fashion that I’m in agreement with his will, whatever that may be.
But still the issue is what’s my focus and only a believer, listen, only a believer whose focus is on God can have peace in some storms of life.
There’s no question about that. But whenever you start doubting and you find yourself struggling in your faith.
You ask yourself the question, where’s my focus? Where’s, what am I thinking about?
Am I thinking about how tough this is?
Am I thinking about the God who promised to meet all of my needs no matter what?
Then I want you to turn if you will to mark chapter nine, mark chapter nine.
And um this is another example of struggling faith, of little faith.
And here’s what’s happening in verse 17, 1 of the crowd answered him.
Teacher, I brought you my son possessed with a spirit which makes him mute.
And whenever it seizes him, it slams him in the ground and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and stiffens out.
I told you disciples to cast it out and they couldn’t do it.
And he answered them and said, oh, unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to me?
So they brought him to Jesus and they watch what was happening.
And so verse 21 says, uh and he asked the father, how long has this been happening to him?
And he said from childhood, it has, it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.
Now watch these next two verses.
But if you can, if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.
And Jesus said to him, if you can, you don’t read that just if you can, if you can, what do you mean if you can listen to this?
He says, but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.
So he’s struggling faith if you can.
And Jesus said, if you can, all things are possible to him, who believes the boy’s father cried out and said, I do believe, help my unbelief.
Now, all of us have probably been there at some point where one part of us says, I believe the other part of us says, I, I I don’t believe I’m looking, I’m, I’m looking at reason.
I’m looking, thinking about feelings, I’m thinking about uh sin or whatever it might be. One part says I can.
One part says, I can’t, little faith struggles, little faith struggles between. Yes, I believe he can.
No, I I’m not too sure he can. So all of us have been there.
And I’m not saying that no matter how strong you are in the faith that there may not come something else that when it first hits you, that may be where you are for the moment.
But as a mature believer, you shouldn’t stay there very long at all. So there’s little faith.
Then of course, there is not a little faith, but there’s great faith. So what’s the difference with these two?
Well, great faith is maturing faith, great faith is growing faith and great faith is becoming stronger and great faith is standing on the truth of the word of God, not feelings, not other people’s opinions, not the past.
Great faith stands on the truth of the word of God.
Here’s what God is saying and the focus is on God. Great faith is always focused on God.
For example, we could take uh David as he faced. Goliath.
Here’s Goliath who’s much larger than it was all this arm and the shield and big.
So, and all the rest. And David walks out with a sling. Well, where was David’s focus?
It certainly was not on the giant. His focus was on God.
Because if you listen to, if you read that conversation and that particular passage scripture in the 17th chapter first Samuel, and when you read that event of David and Goliath, it’s one of the most encouraging, challenging, exciting events in the scripture because you see young David who’s a teenager based in this giant.
And what’s he talking about? He, he’s talking about God.
He said, you know, the God out of Israel today, you’re gonna find out who God is.
It’s all about God, God, God.
And the only thing he said about the giant was he’s getting ready to take him down and cut off his head.
So the issue is where was his focus? His focus was on God.
And when you look at these scriptures and you think about what that means, it means simply this, that a person has great faith.
Here’s what that person’s done. It’s look, he’s he or she’s looked beyond what they see.
They’ve subordinated their feelings, put them behind and what they’re doing is focusing on God.
Not any of things not listening to somebody else, they’re focusing on God.
Now, if I could say it over and over and over again, I’d say this.
If you want to, if you want to deal with difficult things in your life, you’ve got to set your focus on God.
He’s the one who has all power. He’s the one who loves you unconditionally.
He’s the one who’s made promise he’s gonna keep. And he’s the one who never changes.
Great faith has focused on God and it doesn’t waver. It may start to wave at moments.
But great faith says, little faith says, I know he can, I hope he will. I know he could.
He might. I’m not sure. Great faith says, not only he can, he will.
Great faith says he will do it. I know he will.
And so let’s give you a couple of scriptures.
Go back to Matthew chapter eight and look if you will in verse five and going through these scriptures is very important because here are living examples of what we’re talking about.
And um in this, um in this fifth verse, the scripture says of eight chapter Matthew, and when Jesus entered a Centurion came to him imploring him and saying, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.
Jesus said to him, watch this carefully. Jesus said to him, I’ll come and heal him.
But the Centurion said, Lord, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed.
That is great faith. Not that I think he could.
You come to just say the word, I believe it’ll be done. That’s great faith now.
But look, look at the rest of this because the rest of it is important too.
He said for I am also a man under authority with soldiers under me.
And I said to this one, go and he goes into another come, he comes into my slave, do this and he does it.
Now when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to this man and to those who were following truly, I say to you, I’ve not found such great faith in anyone in this room.
Now, here’s what I want to notice. This man recognized that Jesus was a man under authority.
He had authority, but he was under authority.
He knew for himself that he could speak and all those people did exactly what he said because he had the authority to command it.
He also knew that Jesus was a man under authority and he could do whatever God told him to do and he had the faith to believe that God would do it.
He said that you don’t even have to come to my house.
All you have to do is speak the word and my servant is gonna be healed. That is great faith.
Well, this is why we have to stay in the word of God reading the scriptures.
You will find God speaking to you about situations and such and such as these and others.
And what you do is you relate that to your situation.
And then so, so what does God want you to do?
He wants you to trust Him just like the Centurion did God.
If this is your will, then I’m gonna trust you.
And if you’re confident about his will, here’s what you’ve told me to do. It says, uh thank you.
I know it’ll work. No question.
Then if you will turn also to uh look if you will in Matthew uh 15 and look if you will in verse uh 21 and again, uh the phonic woman and the scripture says, Jesus went away from there and withdrew into the district of and a can woman from that region came out and began to cry out saying have mercy on me, Lord, son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon possessed.
So she knew who he was and had heard about him. But he did not answer her word.
And his disciples came and implored him saying, send her away because she keeps shouting at us.
But he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, which means that uh, this was a gentile.
And so he went on paying attention to her, but she came and began to bow down before him saying, Lord help me.
And he answered and said, it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.
So he’s talking about talking to the Jews or talking to Can nights. But she said, yes, Lord.
But even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master’s table. She wasn’t giving up.
She said, I, I know that’s true. But what about the crumbs?
Then Jesus said to her, oh woman, your faith is great and she’ll be done for you, even as you wish.
And her daughter was healed at once, she wasn’t giving up.
You know what happens to herself at times? You see great faith, watch this.
Great faith is willing to wait. Great faith doesn’t have to have it right now.
Great faith is willing to wait for God’s time and great faith doesn’t give up because of arguments or other people’s ideas or whatever it might be.
And Jesus was just testing her. Did he love her? Yes, he did.
Was he not going to answer her pray? Yes, he was.
But he threw it out there and gave her the opportunity to express awesome faith.
And when she did, he said to her, he said, what, what awesome faith you have, what great faith you have.
Turn back to, uh, Matthew chapter nine for a moment.
And, uh, look, if you will in this ninth, uh, chapter.
And here’s a verse that, uh, most of us know, um, verse 20 says that a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years came up behind him and touched the hem of his cloak.
Now, watch this. But she was saying to herself, if I only touch his garment, I don’t have to shake his hand.
He didn’t have to say anything to me. I don’t have to hear anything. If I only touch his garment.
If I can just touch the him of his garment, I will get well.
But Jesus turning and seeing her daughter take care of your faith has made you well.
And once she was well, so no struggling, would you say, well, how could she be so sure she’d seen him before?
She had heard about what he was doing. She recognized he was the son of God.
And when she recognized who he was and acknowledged that and believed that she said, I don’t have to touch, I, I don’t have to shake hands with him.
I don’t even have to touch his flesh. If I just touch what he’s wearing, that’s sufficient. Why?
Because she had great faith and her focus was not on hemorrhaging. Her focus was on Jesus.
She could have said, well, all of these people around me, they, they, they what are they gonna think?
If I slip up behind him and try to touch his garment?
You see if focus, focus, focus, focus, focus is what it’s all about.
And God answered her, answered her prayer, answered her petition, recognized her and uh acknowledged that her faith was there.
Now, we, we could talk about all kinds of examples, but let’s get to perfect faith because it would be wonderful to wake up tomorrow morning and think about the challenges and say done, done, done, done, done, done, done.
But that’s not the way life is. We look at them.
One of the time we see the obstacles and so forth, then watch.
This is I’m not saying you shouldn’t look at the obstacles but look at them with your focus on God.
That was, here’s the obstacle, that’s my heavenly father and I’m seeing him above everything else.
Here’s what, here’s what perfect faith says. Perfect faith says. I see it.
That’s what God has said and it’s done. Now, watch what I mean by that.
You may go through a time of struggle, whatever the situation may be.
And there are some very difficult situations in life.
I do understand that and you may struggle for a little while about it and then you come to the place I know God’s gonna do something.
I’m trusting him for it. I’m reading the scriptures here, here, the promises God, yes, I do believe he’s going to and then when you reach perfect faith, here’s what’s happened.
You come to the place that you no longer ask him because you have such perfect faith.
You can say in your heart and your spirit, it’s done in your mind and your heart.
It’s as good as all already done. You say no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait a minute.
That’s a little, that’s a little, uh, ethereal kind of stuff. No, it’s not.
I’ve lived long enough and I’ve had enough experiences in life to tell you, you can come to that place where big major, major issues in your life that nobody else can answer.
And you know that God has given you the faith and you made it very clear to you that this is what he’s gonna do in your spirit is good as done when it’s done.
Here’s what happens. You don’t ask him anymore.
You thank him and you just, you praise him for what he’s going to do.
Now, if, if you’re one of those persons who doesn’t have any patience is not gonna work because sometimes He’s gonna say it’s done.
And you know, I can tell you that a fresh and a new because this week I had God tell me that about something I’ve prayed for a long time.
It’s done. I don’t have to pray about it anymore.
That’s a perfect peace and a perfect joy and a perfect, absolute assurance.
When God says it’s done now, you can’t just conjure that up and say, well, I’m going home this afternoon, get on my knees and I’m gonna tell God it’s done.
No, you’re not. You do. You don’t do the talking. He does the talking, it’s done.
And from that moment on it’s praise and Thanksgiving and expectation and listen, anticipation and looking for him to do what just keep his word.
That’s what he’s doing is keeping his word and God doesn’t want us. In other words.
He knows that some things we’re gonna naturally struggle over at first and then as we pray and as we seek his face and we get in the word and, and begin to trust him, what happens?
Here’s what happens. Our faith builds, it matures, it becomes strong. You can’t put your fingers on it.
You can’t say it started here, started there maybe.
But what happens is it just matures in with inside of you. I’ll tell you what it’s like.
Maybe uh you bake a cake and you put it in the oven and you look at every once in a while what’s happening, it’s getting larger and larger.
It’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s, the heat kills us. It’s, it’s subtle rising. That’s what’s happening.
Faith rises when you and I keep coming to Him laying his promises before Him and say God, here’s what you said, I’m gonna trust you.
But there comes a time if you and when you really and truly mean business with God and your hearts clean, it’s pure and you’re open to him and you want to do whatever he says, do and you, you face this issue and you say God, here’s your promise.
Show me now, watch this most of the time.
Your feeling your emotion that it is done is not gonna come when you’re just necessarily praying about it suddenly, you just know it’s done and nobody else can explain it to you and nobody else can explain it for you and you can’t explain to anybody else.
It’s something you have to experience.
Perfect faith is the, is the, is the position in your life at that time when you are so absolutely, completely confident and assured, no matter what happens, it’s a done deal.
God has placed that assurance in your heart that nobody else can place there.
And I say again, you’re not gonna start out with something like that.
And what happens is you as your faith matures though there, a lot of things you used to struggle about, you don’t have to struggle about them anymore.
Why? Because He’s answered your prayer so many times your faith. Now watch this.
Your faith in certain areas has matured to the point when you pray about something and you have his promise, you just walk away and say, thank you God.
I know you’re gonna take care of that.
If, if that’s not happening in your life, then you have to ask yourself the question uh ha has, is my, is, has my face sort of ST right here that I’m still struggling and having a terrible time about this and about that and about the other, or is my faith growing?
Mhm. God will give you perfect faith about those issues.
That perfect faith is very important, that perfect faith is absolutely essential that there’s some things you don’t have to pray about.
In other words, you don’t have to pray about getting up tomorrow morning and whether to wear your shoes or not, that’s a settled issue.
You go to work here, I wear shoes. So that’s just insignificant.
But when you get your bills at the end of the month, you say, Lord, here’s how much I have.
And I’ve said, I’m gonna trust you. And I said, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be obedient to you.
It may be a struggle for a moment or it may be this after all.
You’re gonna, you, you don’t, you don’t question that you because you have absolute perfect faith that your God is going to supply every single need you have.
And that’s what I think about. People come to church week after week.
You listen, if, if you have perfect faith about you, if you have, if you have great faith about you’re given, you know, every, every Friday or Saturday, you don’t say, oh, well, and what am I gonna do?
No, you, you, you got paid, you got owns 10% you don’t question that. You don’t think about that. Why?
Because you’re absolutely confident he’s gonna supply every everything that you have. That’s great faith.
And it’s the kind of faith that God’s Children need to have about most everything in their life.
You won’t get there immediately every time.
But after a while and I think about people who come to church or go to church wherever you go and every week you’ve got to decide whether you’re gonna or not.
You know what that is. You’ve never settled the issue of who it all belongs to your focus.
Your focus isn’t on God. If your focus is on God, you’re not even to question that.
If you focus is on God, your heavenly Father who gave you this much could give you double that, triple that quadruple that or he could take it all away.
Where is your faith? Where are you, for example, just in your giving?
Where are you, for example?
And forgiving someone, someone has wronged you and uh you forgive them and then you struggle with it.
Well, don’t you have enough faith to believe that God will reward you for having a forgiving spirit.
In other words, you, you, you have to apply this faith to, to every single situation of life.
And many people are struggling and defeated by the devil because they do not believe God.
Once you take your eyes off of Him and place it on somebody, some things some situation, some circumstance, then the struggle begins, focus is the key.
And when you go through the scripture, you’ll find that.
Now, let’s go to, uh let’s go to uh Abraham for example, and, and turn if you will to the uh let’s turn first of all to James.
And so um uh start with the verse 18, but someone may well say you have faith and I have works.
Show me your faith without the works and I’ll show you my faith with my work.
So this is a whole discussion about faith and works. Uh You believe that God is one.
You do. Well, the demons also believe in each other. But are you willing to recognize you foolish fellow?
That faith without works is useless. Was not Abraham?
Our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar.
Now that doesn’t mean he got saved by offering his son up to God.
You see that faith was working with his works and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.
I’m gonna show you an example of perfect faith.
Perfect faith is when you can say it’s done, I’ll give you an example.
Well, let’s go back to the 22nd chapter of Genesis for a moment.
Uh You remember that uh uh that the Lord came to um Abraham and, and Sarah and um said to him and said, Abraham, um I’m gonna give you a son and he was 100 years old and Sarah and she is 90.
Both of them laughed at. God that Sarah denied that she left.
I don’t know why she thought she could laugh and, and thank God didn’t hear it.
But anyway, so they had this little thing going on between them.
And so that was a real struggle for them.
And you think about if you were 100 years old, sir, and your wife is 90 and you woke up one morning and you thought God told you that night that you were gonna have a son of a 90 year old woman.
And um you’d probably be struggling too. I think.
So, we have to give him something on that.
But listen, Abraham is a perfect example of how he grew in his faith because when you go through all of that and I could give you a lot more detail that’s not important.
Here’s the important thing. And you remember this 22nd chapter of Genesis. Look at this.
He came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham.
He said, here I am. He said, take now your son, your only son whom you love Isaac.
And I had two sons. But Isaac was the one through whom the Messiah was coming.
Your only son, whom you love Isaac and go to the land of Mariah and offer him.
There’s a burning offering on one of the mountains of which I’ll tell you.
So Abraham rose up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him.
Isaac. His son split the wood for the burn offering.
Rose up and went to the place which God had told him.
On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.
Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey and I, and the lad will go over there and we will worship and return to you.
Here’s what I want you to see.
Number one, God didn’t test Abraham to find out what Abraham would do.
He knew exactly what he’s gonna do. He said, I want you to sacrifice your son.
This is the one that I promised you all the nations of the earth are gonna be blessed through this sun and we have been through Jesus.
And so he did exactly what God told him.
He must have struggled in his faith, at least to some degree.
I mean, any, any human person would, but he did what God told him.
Donkey got everything together and headed out.
Then when he got there, they put the altar together, put his son on the altar, raised the of the scripture says to kill his son and God stopped him and provided a ram in the bushes.
Now, here’s the verse that tells me he had perfect faith.
Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey and I, and the lad will go over there for what reason to kill his son.
A sacrifice. And the they will go over there and we will worship and we will return to you in the Hebrew.
That’s exactly what it says. We will return. So what was he saying?
He’s saying simply this, God, you’re telling me to sacrifice my son.
But you said you’re gonna bless all the nations there. This is just a young kid.
He believed God. He said, we’re going over that for the sacrifice and I’m gonna kill him.
But we are both coming back because you made me a promise and I’m not giving up the promise.
That is perfect faith, perfect faith. So what was he saying?
He said it’s done, I’m gonna sacrifice Him whatever it takes, but it’s done.
You’re gonna bless all the nations of the earth through Isaac.
Now, you probably won’t have a lot of those perfect faiths.
Two sons, we all grow and we all mature.
And the tragedy is when a, when a person does not mature in their faith, here’s what it does.
It limits God’s use of you. It limits God’s answer to your prayers.
It limits your joy, your peace, your happiness.
It, it limits every aspect of your life when you listen, when you come to a situation, a difficult situation in your life and God is challenging your faith.
Remember that the key is to keep your focus on God, the reason He could say we’re going over there and we’re coming back.
He had his focus on God who had the power to resurrect him from the dead if necessary.
But he knew God would keep his promise.
So I would ask Him, would you say on a given daily basis as you look at your faith is your faith, little faith struggling faith, you struggle a lot of things or would you say that you are at least touching the Him of the garment of great faith that a lot of things used to trouble you trouble anymore.
You don’t, you don’t even ask God about that anymore because you, you know, he’s gonna take care of that.
Is there something in your life today that you’d like to say?
Oh God, if I could just have perfect faith about that, well, if you get in the word and begin to read and you make sure your heart’s clean and you surrender your life totally completely to him.
And you know, it’s the will of God.
He’ll give you perfect faith, which means you can begin to thank him and praise him and rejoice over him.
You don’t have to ask him anymore. Listen, the devil will tell you. Oh, you just think so.
Mm mm mm. Thank you, father. You’ve already, you’ve already settled that issue.
I’m walking in perfect faith that you keep your word.
It can happen to you.
I can tell you I’ve lived long enough to watch it happen and there’s nothing more rejoicing in the heart.
When you know that your Heavenly Father has said to you, you don’t see it, you can’t feel it, you can’t touch it, but take my word for it.
It’s a done deal. I love it. It’s a done deal.
In other words, when he makes, when he gives you that assurance, it’s a done deal because the father has the power to make it happen.
Amen. Well, you may not be a Christian and you’re saying, well, what does that have to do with me?
Put it this way? You are lost. You are separated from God.
And there’s not only, there’s only one thing you can do for that to change, to trust, to put your faith in almighty God that through his son, Jesus Christ, when he went to the cross, he died for your sins.
You can’t feel it, you can’t touch it, you can’t see it.
It happened 2000 years ago, but you must trust him.
And then the fact that you’re willing to ask him to forgive you of your sins and to surrender your life to him that he who died 2000 years ago will forgive your sins because He’s alive and in the heart, in the life of every single one of us who is a follower of Jesus.
He lives within us. He will come to live within you. He will change your whole life.
He writes your name in the Lamb’s book of Life. He gives you the gift of eternal life.
Everything is gonna change. You can trust him to do it.
And there are millions and millions of people in the world who will tell you.
Yes, that’s what happened to me. You can be saved.
You can be forgiven, cleanse a brand new life born again.
As the Bible says, if you’re willing to ask him and confess and repent of your sins and surrender your life to him, it’ll happen just like that because he’s made a promise.
Here’s what he said. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus, as the Lord of your life, savior, Lord of your life, your sins will be forgiven.
And you’ve heard this for us many times for God.
So love the world including you that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life to believe in Him is to place your trust in Him.
That is a specific distinct act that you are placing your trust in Him, that he will do what he says by saving you when you confess in the even of your sins and surrender your life to Him.
Salvation can be yours. If you ask Him, father, how grateful we are.
Thank you for all these examples in your word that just undergird and establish with us, that strong faith, trusting you.
And oftentimes we can’t see our way clear. You never promised we would.
You just said you’d be there to see us through.
I pray for somebody here this morning who’s wondered about whether you could ever save them or not because of their past.
Would you show them that their past has nothing to do with what you can do that the blood of Jesus has the power to forgive any and everything forever.
So long as it may have been instantaneously that forgiveness can come and a whole brand new life by trusting Jesus Christ, the Savior pray that you give them the desire this morning to be saved, which comes from you and the will to make that decision and the faith to believe that you will.
I pray for anyone else here this morning who’s struggling over something that’s really has them bowed down.
Would you remind them change the focus from the problem to the father and watch you work in Jesus name?
Amen. The believer’s faith will mature and our confidence will grow as we put our focus on Christ and trust God’s word.
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God loves us enough to keep us on the path.
If you listen to Satan’s lies, he’s always going to tell you this is an easy way.
The issue is this. What’s the wise way? What is the wisest thing to do?
God loves us enough to keep her eyes on things that are real and true and genuine father’s advice.
Scene two, take one. My dad used to tell me treat everybody no matter who they are the way you want to be treated.
Of course, be who God wants you to be and the opinions of others won’t matter.
I love you dad and cut. That’s a wrap.
When I go to college, you can come with me and we can learn about math and turtles always remember to brush your teeth, turn off the light and share your toys.
Look your best. Be your best. Do your best dear God. Can you be my best friend?
When I go to college? His voice waits to be heard and having heard it, we are launched into the greatest, most exciting adventure we could ever imagine.
The Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God.
And though it was written over a period of 2000 years, it is perfectly consistent with itself and its prophecies have never failed.
Yet, sometimes within the Bible, we find peculiar mysterious things that cause us to wonder why or to ask how could that happen we received.
So many wonderful and interesting emails along these lines. And today we’ll look at one of them.
It’s a question that centers on the first appearance of Jesus. That is the risen Christ. The email reads.
Why do you suppose Jesus was not immediately recognized after his resurrection at the tomb?
Or on the road to a s both of these appearances were in the presence of those who knew him best.
Well, let’s think about something for a moment.
Remember that those he appeared to had seen him crucified on the cross.
I don’t think we have any earthly means of being able to imagine what his body looked like after the crucifixion compared to before the crucifixion.
So that’s one thing to consider. Second, the scripture says very clearly in Mark chapter 16.
And after that, he appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country.
And so Jesus did not appear as he had appeared before.
And when you come to this 24th chapter of Luke, and you recall the two men walking along and they were sad.
They were disappointed. And when you listen and look at their conversation, what they were saying is we thought he was it.
We really had our hopes up that Jesus was the Messiah and unknown. They went.
And so when Jesus comes along and he begins to join the conversation, listen to them, they never recognized him.
Then again, when he came into the very presence of his disciples with whom he had walked all those three years, they didn’t recognize him either.
Now, the question is why, well, we could say number one, maybe his body was really very emaciated to a certain degree.
But secondly, and the most important is this, if you had been there watching Jesus Christ crucified, taken down from the cross and placed in a tomb, wouldn’t you be rather absolutely, totally startled and unbelieving that all of a sudden there he is standing in front of you.
So the issue is this not necessarily the condition of his body, but their expectation, he prophesized.
He told them, he explained to them what was going to happen and somehow they just didn’t get it.
And when he showed up, they had a very difficult problem. And so it was more voice than sight.
And when he began to speak to them, then little by little, they began to realize this is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Think about your life and mind, how many times does God speak to us?
And somehow as clear as it is, we just think well, that he, he couldn’t mean that for me, God, God couldn’t bless me that way.
We have the same problem they had and that is unbelief, doubting almighty God, they doubted because it was a physical thing for them.
They had seen him die. And now there he was standing in all of his beauty and they didn’t get it.
Don’t be too judgmental of the disciples. Sometimes we fall into the same trap of unbelief.
God has his best for us, whatever is going on in our life.
But you and I must be ready to believe him and to trust him at every turn.
We’re thankful you’ve joined us today for in touch.
And as we close, remember this trusting God means looking beyond what you can see to what God sees touching the world with a passion for God and compassion for people in touch with Dr Charles Stanley is a presentation of in touch ministries.
This program is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.